dulljadedcat
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- Apr 23, 2021
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I have now used the AirPods Max och listened critically for 3 days and here are the takeaways:
+ It has the best sub-bass I've ever heard in any closed or open headphone. It's the best part of this headphone. I never understood what people meant they said a certain headphone has one-nore subbas and now I know. The driver is extremely fast in this region. It can produce notes of subbass I've never heard in a headphone before. Very nice!
+ It's ability to separate vocals from everything else in the recording is impressive.
+ The detail retrieval of this headphone puts it in the same league as $1000+ audiophile headphones
+ The soundstage and imaging is very, very good for a closed headphone
Now for for the cons...
- Vocals are rendered with sibilance and harshness that isn't supposed to be heard by the consumer. Praised headphones like the HD800 is harsh and grating on the ears but audiophiles claim it's "revealing". That's not true in my opinion. When professional sound engineers in the studio mix and master on studio speakers, they don't hear this sibilance and harshness in the final product. Sibilance and harshness is always the fault of the headphone.
- Vocals and the sound in general sounds slightly thinner than it should because the midbass and lower mids are slightly sightly lower than the rest of the FR.
- The upper mids/treble/upper treble section (I'm not sure exactly where it is) sounds noticebly more boosted than the mids and bass. The driver can't properly produce this part of the frequency response for some reason without sounding like someone applied a "treble booster" EQ. The treble has this unrefined quality to it that you hear in every recording. There is this sharp edge that is distracting. This is the biggest flaw of this headphone. Apple would've created something revolutionary if they could refine the uppermids/treble section and bring them to the same standard as the subbass and mids. I don't think it's impossible. The engineers at Apple are very close.
Now that I think about it, this headphone has the same cons and pros as the Sennheier HD58X and HD660S. For those who've heard these two headphones, just like the AirPods Max, they both have great bass and mids but the highs are just.. off. The treble/upper mids aren't refined enough. The treble in particular sticks out like a sore thumb.
+ It has the best sub-bass I've ever heard in any closed or open headphone. It's the best part of this headphone. I never understood what people meant they said a certain headphone has one-nore subbas and now I know. The driver is extremely fast in this region. It can produce notes of subbass I've never heard in a headphone before. Very nice!
+ It's ability to separate vocals from everything else in the recording is impressive.
+ The detail retrieval of this headphone puts it in the same league as $1000+ audiophile headphones
+ The soundstage and imaging is very, very good for a closed headphone
Now for for the cons...
- Vocals are rendered with sibilance and harshness that isn't supposed to be heard by the consumer. Praised headphones like the HD800 is harsh and grating on the ears but audiophiles claim it's "revealing". That's not true in my opinion. When professional sound engineers in the studio mix and master on studio speakers, they don't hear this sibilance and harshness in the final product. Sibilance and harshness is always the fault of the headphone.
- Vocals and the sound in general sounds slightly thinner than it should because the midbass and lower mids are slightly sightly lower than the rest of the FR.
- The upper mids/treble/upper treble section (I'm not sure exactly where it is) sounds noticebly more boosted than the mids and bass. The driver can't properly produce this part of the frequency response for some reason without sounding like someone applied a "treble booster" EQ. The treble has this unrefined quality to it that you hear in every recording. There is this sharp edge that is distracting. This is the biggest flaw of this headphone. Apple would've created something revolutionary if they could refine the uppermids/treble section and bring them to the same standard as the subbass and mids. I don't think it's impossible. The engineers at Apple are very close.
Now that I think about it, this headphone has the same cons and pros as the Sennheier HD58X and HD660S. For those who've heard these two headphones, just like the AirPods Max, they both have great bass and mids but the highs are just.. off. The treble/upper mids aren't refined enough. The treble in particular sticks out like a sore thumb.
