My AirPods Max are due to arrive on Wednesday! I’m very curious to put them through their paces…and to see (and hear) if they justify their premium price tag. I’m optimistic based on the early reviews that I’ve seen.
6 Likes
Mine too! But then I will put them under the tree and there they will sit until Christmas morning. So, please do share your thoughts before then 
3 Likes
Great to hear. I’ll be happy to share my impressions.
1 Like
Oh come on! The least one would expect from a case for a $550 device is for it to be of high quality and to offer a basic degree of protection. Of course, one isn’t talking about extreme/rugged protection offered by niche cases here but of doing the basic, functional job of a case.
Here is what Matthew Panzarino has to say about the AirPods Max case:
Oh, and the case is just as ridiculous as it looks. Sorry. The construction here is just as dodgy as the MagSafe Duo. It feels cheap, and like it will dirty easily, not exactly what you want from a ‘travel case’. And it looks like a butt.
And John Gruber, hardly a Apple hater, calls it “weird” and “bafflingly inadequate.”
3 Likes
I agree that it’s pretty worthless from any sort of a serious “protective” point of view, and the fact that the market doesn’t find it acceptable is definitely a problem.
I just can’t help but think that Apple has to have designed and tested this case for some purpose, though. It almost feels like the point is to maybe guard the headphones against scratches. Or to prevent the ear cups from catching on something and de-magnetizing from the headphones. Or something that doesn’t involve “protection” in any serious way.
Their website basically says, en toto:
When stored in their soft, slim Smart Case, AirPods Max enter an ultra‑low‑power state that preserves charge.
It would be nice if they clarified their messaging a bit.
What I’m wondering though is whether ruggedizing a case of the same general style (leaving the headband exposed, over the ear cups) would even be a sane option - or whether a more “rugged” case is going to basically have to be a giant square-ish case that encases everything.
Just got my shipping notice! 
7 Likes
It is more of a fashion statement/accessory than anything else.
Agree 100%. It’s almost certainly not designed as a case to protect the device in any meaningful way. “Here, you need a way to activate the magnetic shutoff - and it might as well look cool.”
Gruber and Matt Panzarino talk a bunch about the AirPods Max on the latest episode of The Talk Show.
1 Like
I wound up snagging a pair for pickup this morning.
I’ve only had them for maybe 30 minutes, but initial impressions are good.
I do hope the headband loosens up a little so the ear cups don’t touch or risk hitting each other when storing them. Metal hitting metal is not cool.
At the moment I prefer the transparent mode, which comes astonishingly close to open back headphones. It also tames the bass a bit and makes them sound more neutral to me.
Excited to see everyone’s opinions as deliveries hit later today.
4 Likes
Moved to impressions thread
1 Like
I’ve had mine a couple of weeks now, and I’m well satisfied in all three areas.
Device switching works well, and makes sense. If I’m listening to MyNoise.net on my phone, and open my MacBook Pro, it offers to switch. It’s really great, and low friction. It’s the advantage of having one company make the hardware and software.
The noise reduction is phenomenal. I can barely, barely, hear the white noise machine in my office when it’s on. Otherwise, dead quiet, and all I can hear is my heart beating. Really amazing.
The sound is amazing too. I haven’t heard $50,000 headphones connected to a tube amp set in marble with a $100,000 turntable playing rare vinyl, but, they sound great. I’ve listened to a broad range of music on them both from Apple and high-res FLAC tracks from hdtracks.com through the Onkyo HF player on iOS. Everything’s there that you want to be there, including the nice quiet background in which to listen.
I think of the case as a sleeve, with minimal protection. (case thread)
The blue color is nice, and a nice change from the normal black/space gray/silver/rose gold palette.
5/5 stars for me.
6 Likes
The issue with lossy coded and mixing is a very different issue.
The issue there is that each audio stream needs to be encoded (to be recorded in the first place) decoded (to be mixed), and then re-encoded as a final mix. That is 2 encoding operations, at each one you loose some signal, that is without all the encoding decoding re-encoding operations required for audio editing and for applying fx.
You don’t need to have a super system or headphones to hear the difference between lossless and lossy codecs. But, there is a difference as long as the music is properly mixed and mastered - which it is for most of the music I care for. Is also true that some people cannot hear a difference no matter what in which case I don’t have any advice to give.
I think things are more modern than that now. Once sampled by an ADC, there’s no further need to convert to or from analog, or to encode/decode. Encoding would come as a last step, if needed.
Remember DDD cds? Same thing.
The statement was about mixing and music production, I think you come from the assumption that you start from uncompressed material. Here the premise was that you don’t want to use lossless compression at all (because it doesn’t matter <- that was the statement), in that case you would need to go through a decode-encode pretty much each time you want to manipulate the audio (it does depend in part on the operation).
Off topic, but genuinely asking - are you involved in music / audio production? If so, do you know what the “gold standard” seems to currently be for recording / archiving, both in terms of format & codec?
If space is not an issue, WAV is always going to give you a perfect copy of your source.
1 Like
FLAC. Depending of course on the quality of the source.
4 Likes