Lots of discussion on the latest ATP. They (well, mostly Marco) manage to spend 75 minutes talking about headphones they don’t have. It does suffer a bit from the fact that they recorded before the first round of hands-on articles that dropped yesterday. I think they addressed some of Marco’s concerns.
However, Marco did persuade me to buy Apple’s Lightning to 3.5mm Audio Cable. He spent some time talking about how a no-latency wired connection is important for podcasting and editing audio and video. Some of the hands-on articles have confirmed that with the wired connection the AirPods Max don’t have any perceptible audio latency. I don’t podcast, but I do edit video sometimes, so I thought it would be worthwhile to pick the cable up.
I have lots of memories about hauling Haliburton cases full of electronics onto planes in the past. And getting the full body pat down search in a private room with a female officer because of it too.
OK Follow up on the teaser pictures posted a few days ago. Sorry but sheep happened.
Anyway, According to my husband who was there David Clark used the acoustic lab at Worcester Polytech Institute to do research on the best design for headphones/ear protectors. The goal was a design that could effectively eliminate all outside noise for the headphones and a design that could then add back in high quality sound for the headphones. The research consisted of many different very tiny changes in the shape and curvature of the ear cups and in the internal foam and even the foam edges that seal them to your head. It took many different tries to get the 2 basic designs shown in the photo I have. The large size was particulary designed to be the most protective and in fact they are still the best shooting ear protectors we have that are not active. You can still buy replacement parts for them and they have all new foam inside and the ear cup pieces. They are incredibly confortable. I’ve worn them for up to 6 hours at a time with no discomfort. The smaller cup design bears a remarkable similarity to the new Apple AirPods.
The headphones we have use a quarter inch headphone jack (remember these are '60s technology) but are still great. They were designed to be used initially for sonar operators for the US military. They needed to completely filter out all ambient noise yet allow perfect replication of the sonar signal.
Branching out David Clark made and still makes some of the best headsets for aircraft pilots both military and civilian. They also make the headsets for ground crews. You can see many of them in use if you watch any aircraft carrier launching their aircraft.
David Clark patented the actual shape of the ear cups and they are still the premier supplier of headsets in the aviation industry and in other places where you need both really good noise protection and hear detailed commands, like tanks etc. Since their beginnings they have made continuous modifications and improvements to their devices and now make special versions for fixed wing aircraft vs rotary wing aircraft.
Here is a link to the civilian side of the business.
Doesn’t provide an end-user benefit? I would say that development of the tight integration and easy use of Apple devices in the Apple ecosystem is the ultimate end-user benefit.
Thanks for pointing that out, ordered one as well. Agonized for way too long trying to choose a color… Funnily enough, the cable is now backordered while the headphones themselves are arriving in a little over two weeks.
There was a time I did a lot of flying sitting next to an open door and always wanted a pair of DCs. In those days, however, all of their versions were out of reach.
No. You cannot somehow separate the user benefits from the development cost, particularly with a product of first impression from Apple such as this. To do so ignores the economic realities of how tech products like these are produced and brought to market.
I’m not ignoring any realities. I’m just saying that if you go to the store, there are two headphones are on the table. Absolutely identical in every way, except one headphone is $349, and the other is $549. You ask about the $200 price difference, and the salesperson says “oh, the $549 headphone cost more to develop”.
Nobody buys the $549 headphone in that instance, do they? If anything, they assume that there must be some benefit to them that justifies the extra $200 - and they ask about that.
When you’re explaining why something is expensive, “they took a lot of time to do this” isn’t a story that will make the end user willing to pay more.
The end-user only cares about the things that directly affect them - and development time isn’t one of those things. The result of the time is the only thing that matters.
If it took them a full year to get a tight integration between the headphones and the rest of their ecosystem, you tell the end-user about the tight integration and how awesome it is.
If it took them another year to perfectly balance the sound quality so that they’re the most awesome-sounding headphones on the face of the planet, then you tell the user about the sound quality.
But “this took four years” is irrelevant to the end user other than as it translates to something that the user perceives as a benefit. For example, somewhere in the $549 price tag, we’re also shelling out for AirPower - even though it never came to market. But even though Apple recouping the AirPower dev costs is crucial to their business, you could never use that as a price justification for an end user, because AirPower never launched.
Apple definitely does have to recoup their costs somewhere in their product mix. That’s economic reality. And it’s perfectly valid to say “Apple has to charge $549 for this product for it to be economically viable for them, given everything that went into it”. But that’s a different thing entirely from whether it provides any end-user benefits that justify the price tag.
As a consumer, I won’t pay more because it took longer to produce or the development cost are high. To be frank, Apple profit margins are way above industry standards.
Seems like you’re overthinking this. First of all, the scenario of two identical headphones with different prices, of course people will choose the lower price. Who wouldn’t? But that’s not what the reality is with the AirPods Max.
AirPods Max offers features and advantages that are not found on other headphones, so the scenario you described will never happen in real life. The additional cost of the AirPods Max is an added-value combination of everything Apple has put into this device, including hardware and software integration and development costs. That is what results in consumer benefit and why people who buy them.
It’s kind of pointless and meaningless to say that consumers won’t buy a product just because there are development costs. That’s not what’s going on here and I think we agree on it. But I’m not sure why you keep going on and on about it because it’s not a point I made.
Actually, you gave “development cost” as one of two considerations as to why people shouldn’t kvetch about the price.
I would never say that consumers won’t buy a product just because there are development costs. That’s a nonsensical argument.
But I am saying that, as a consumer, the development costs have zero to do with whether I’m justified kvetching about the price. One year, four years, a decade, whatever…it’s irrelevant. The product is the product, and stands in the market based solely on the launched feature set.
Absolutely. And oddly enough, because they’ve successfully positioned themselves as a “premium” brand, the fact that you have an Apple (insert item here) does function as an end-user benefit to some people - regardless of product quality or functionality.
