Airpods Max: an Android User's Perspective

the apple airpods max are not cheap headphones they're 550 us dollars and yet they're already flying off shelves but hold on a second apple haters don't facepalm yet this is a good thing because the airpods max don't suck and the more people there are out there listening to good headphones the better but as a samsung user who wears an apple watch for some reason i've got to ask myself is there any reason to buy these if you're not already crotch deep in apple's ecosystem let's discuss that after this message from ridge wallet ridge wallet wants to redefine the wallet with its compact frame and rfid blocking plates check out how they can keep your wallet bulge down and use offer code linus to save 10 and get free worldwide shipping gotta start with sound quality because that's what everybody wants to know anyway for comparison we've got the ever popular sony xm4s and bose 700s and by popular demand the drop thx pandas which i happen to personally really really like the truth is that all of these headphones sound great with the caveat that we of course are talking about consumer electronics that you're using wirelessly probably to stream music from a service like spotify that means you're probably using your smartphone as a source without the aid of an external amp or deck and yes we know that there are higher fidelity solutions out there but the thing is not everybody wants to carry around an extra brick and lots of people like the convenience of not having a wire of course the question is which of them is the most great compared to the sony's and the bose frankly i gotta go with the airpods max albeit not by a huge margin discerning listeners might think that it's a big margin but i would hazard a guess that your average person won't hear much difference between any of these four headsets assuming though that you are a discerning listener how do the airpods max compare to the pandas which are also a cut above the other two well that's trickier i would call them similar in quality but different the pandas are much more forward with crystal clear vocals right against your ear the maxes however have a greater sense of space even on android and a heck of a lot more bass in fact i would call that their defining feature like low rumbly sacral chakra type bass that makes the pandas seem underwhelming by comparison and makes the sony's sound loose and muddy don't believe me do a side by side during the macaroni in a pot section of wap now a purist might still opt for the pandas given the choice between the two as they support more audio codecs including aptx hd and ldac and they advertise no digital signal processing as a selling point meanwhile the h1 chip in each of the airpods max's earcups enables them to use computational audio to enhance their active noise cancelling and allow transparency mode which by the way works really well to pass through the world around you they also enable adaptive eq which adjusts the sound in real time according to the fit and seal of the ear cups as for codec support though it's aac only which is the codec used by itunes this will probably be fine or even preferred a lot of the time but android users should be aware that there's some evidence that aac sounds better on iphones than it does on some android devices because aac is computationally more demanding leading some power optimized android devices to downgrade the incoming audio to a lower bit rate speaking of eq the airpods max doesn't have a companion app like the bose and sony sets do so there's no way to apply custom or even candy cues according to your liking you just get what apple gives you which i guess is pretty on brand for them so make sure that you audition them thoroughly before you buy to make sure that you like their sound signature personally i find them a little bit bright on the high end which sometimes makes symbols or even snare drums a bit fatiguing to listen to good thing i have this pillow where's an ltd store pillow get me a pillow ah yes this cpu-shaped pillow from lttstore.com of course bluetooth headphones have never really been about the absolute best sound quality anyway so how do the airpods max compare to the competition when it comes to features on android not great out of the box there's no wear detection for automatic pausing when you put them around your neck no battery level indicator on your phone and no virtual assistant support at all however if history is any indication these features should end up available to android users using a third-party app at some point then there's the settings that you can tweak only if you have an ios device for example by default this button right here toggles the headphones between active noise cancelling on and transparency mode but what if you want neither and you just want anc off well it can be done but only by adjusting the button behavior on an apple device same goes for updating device firmware and reversing the direction of the volume knob if you're one of those uh people who plays inverted then finally there's the features that are simply just not there if you're an android user in other words if you're an apple customer who hasn't bought enough of their products to deserve all of the features it's like man this is the kind of arrogant anti-consumer sorry the airpods macs are advertised as supporting seamless movement between your iphone ipad and mac and if you're listening to music on your laptop and a call comes in they're supposed to switch over automatically which works great for apple but guess what the sony's and both do that as well except that on a pc or android when i try to do the same thing with airpods max and a laptop they have to disconnect from one in order to play a signal from the other so apple got me for 550 dollars here but evidently i'm still a second class citizen same thing goes for their spatial audio feature but even though that one's really cool i'm less upset about it because understandably it requires proprietary software on the source side spatial audio is a 3d sound mode that attempts to mimic the home theater experience by tracking the headphones position so that when you turn your head the sound stays put instead of following you around i would definitely recommend using it for movie watching but only if you've got an idevice get wrecked while we're on the subject of apple shenanigans let's talk wires yes it's true that bluetooth headphones can sound better when listening to them wired but apple doesn't seem to want you to do that unlike every one of these other pairs of headphones the airpods macs don't come with the cable to plug them in or rather they do come with a cable a lightning to usb type c that seems like it should work but it doesn't instead you need a lightning to three and a half millimeter audio cable which apple is happy to suggest as an add-on item at just 35 of course you won't be able to charge your headphones while listening this way oh and if you want to plug into your phone you will also need a dongle where i put the dongle ah there it is that's exactly the problem with these things which again apple doesn't include in the box anymore but your android phone may finally this one's pretty bizarre when you are listening wired you can no longer use the crown button to pause or skip tracks by pressing on it but then you can still adjust the volume and toggle your anc just like why why doesn't linus get to the point here all right here we go if you're an android user the answer is no don't buy the airpods max unless you one have access to an iphone so that you can update your firmware and adjust your settings two find a third party app that helps reclaim otherwise lost features in a way that's not crappy to use which by the way may require a subscription fee and three you really like the industrial design thing is they're not a bad product at all like there's a lot to like here the headband is shockingly comfortable even over long periods i mean i thought it was going to be awful but it's great the fitment adjustment mechanisms are as beautiful as they are silent and the aluminum ear cups and tactile volume knob feel way more premium than any of these other plastic sets oh and by the way i haven't used the bra thing all week and it's been totally fine so you're not obligated to use it but in spite of all that it's clear that apple just doesn't want my money these headphones are made for apple enthusiasts who are already deeply locked into apple's ecosystem and if that's you then the sonic performance build quality and the apple magic really do combine to something that's not really overpriced so much as it's priced for people who really value those three things if you only care about sound though where are they there they are just get the pandas and eq up the bass and maybe check out our sponsor backblaze backblaze is a cloud storage solution that's easy to use and affordable starting at just six dollars a month 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Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 1,700,162

Keywords: apple, airpods, headphones, earphones, bluetooth, drop, thx, panda, wf1000xm4, sony, xm4, bose, 700, comparison, android, sound, quality, test

Id: aFPe6gnYhKY

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/literallyarandomname]

TLDW: They sound great, the have great build quality, but they lack basic features if you are not already deep into the Apple ecosystem. So no surprises.

[u/thecatsgonewild]

Before everyone starts going on about how “well yeah of course all the features are Apple-specific why would he make the whole review about that” the point is if you’re an Android user, and you want what are considered to be the best wireless headphones on the market, are they worth the compromises you have to make in functionality for the gains you get elsewhere?

It’s definitely something that I haven’t seen covered yet, though I understand why. After all, these are designed with Apple users in mind. Still interesting to see though, since many Android users purchased the original AirPods/AirPods Pro so for that customer base this review is actually quite helpful.

[u/TestFlightBeta]

Why is everyone hating so hard on this video

[u/AskMantis]

These are more than double the price of the Sony 1000XM4 and triple the price of the Sennheiser PXC 550-II. Whilst they are undoubtedly a better product than those two, I personally would not pay that price if I'm not able to use all of the features.

[u/brightonchris]

That face.

[u/Claaaaaaaaws]

All the people on this Reddit supposedly only watches videos of a black box and nothing else if it’s has the reviewers face and the product is too click Baitey? Please describe what you want the thumbnail to be?

[u/Velociraptor451]

Apple, another word for ear pods that have been "maximized" is headphones.

[u/MawsonAntarctica]

Everything I've heard is that like this video, they're great, they have an amazing audio profile, they're a good piece of kit, but the PRICE!? I would've gotten this if it were 300-350$ but not at almost 600 incl tax.

[u/kasakka1]

Needing to buy dongles for wired usage at this price point is ridiculous. Why can’t it just work with the USB-C to Lightning cable included? Or come with the 3.5mm adapter bundled? Apple’s environmentalism profit margins be damned.