Headphone Engineers Try Airpods Max!

[Music] i don't know what the hell's going on but mr video over here said that he's got a surprise for us and he wanted us to take a look at something and he was quite enthusiastic yeah yeah i guess he got a new toy or i don't know what that's what it looked like new toy the new toy face uh i guess i guess this is it oh oh that looks familiar i think i saw that i think i've seen these before a little magnetic tube it wasn't a drain right i think it was just okay these appear to be the new air pods max yeah apple's apple's over ear magnetic ear pad which is pretty cool i like the little l r stitched in it that's interesting some sort of port for a sensor there if you yep you could install those upside down which is interesting there's a little hole for some sort of optical sensor it looks like this little knob thing is pretty cool basically the same thing as the apple watch pretty interesting build very high in construction for a consumer product yeah see it's kind of heavy isn't it it's got some weight to it i guess because it's kind of it's got aluminum shells yeah i guess that'll do it these these look like these could be solid stainless yeah everything's adding up on the weight side of things this is pretty stiff too whatever it is this mesh seems a little thin probably makes it comfortable i don't know it's all right here take a peek the other thing i noticed is like this this material is unusual and it makes like yeah it's almost like a coarse cloth yeah coarse mesh like a lot a lot of the headphones that go for like a like a faux leather or something though yeah yeah it seems like an interesting design choice yeah so you would think they would go for like a premium feel yeah but those seem more for durability if you notice there's just like like slots everywhere in these things yeah on top bottom which being magnetic i don't know why you need to worry about durability yeah you wouldn't think it'd be that big of a deal but i guess they might be expensive to make because they are or they they have magnetic properties we don't know the magnets in the ear pad or in the friggin shell but it's given the weight of that how what's the weight of the ear pad let's see they're pretty light yeah there's no magnets in here yeah this is just this is this is if it's got anything it's got a little bit of metal or something it's not heavy enough but yeah it's like the driver's right on display i don't know i didn't even catch it yes it's kind of let's go backwards let's see that's got something in there i just mesh there's some looks like a light mesh here yeah you got to keep out the hairs in particular yeah there's a hair already in this one not that quick it's got a nice like oily feel to it yeah it's got friction but it's smooth yeah smooth it's a good fit yeah the that that slider mechanism has got a good fit it's very nice yeah yeah yeah it's it's weighty but not like heavy yeah they balanced it out it is fairly balanced and so it almost seems like this headband is intentionally weighted it could be this mechanism but it seems like the headband is significantly heavier than it needs to be maybe just to get the right feel because if this was really light and plastic i could imagine it would feel real lopsided with these heavy cups i didn't even think about power you think they're running wires to these uh i would imagine so you would think that the one side would be um it's only one jacket there's only one jack so there's got to be some sort of wire yeah there's got to be a lead running in there so the knees are more of a hollow oh that's true yeah you'd have to charge both sides that's an interesting mechanism they have there that's nice i wonder how they managed to do that it's nice little springy mattress probably pretty thin leads it doesn't need a lot of power or anything right talking about milliamps yeah this chassis is nice for this kind of price point it's um a nice build in volume you'd be able to manufacture these pretty economically but typically you wouldn't see something machined like this in a consumer product um it is actually somewhat challenging to do on a small scale but on a big scale it's not really is that a machine part yeah this would definitely be machine parts you can't stamp that no it wouldn't be practical to do something like that this wouldn't be that challenging to manufacture this is very similar to how they would manufacture everything else there oh yeah pretty much everything like that the only trick is you would need a custom form tool to this profile to go inside here and contour this because of course you can't just get a standard vertical end mill in there you cut this lip off but um yeah in volume it really wouldn't be that hard to do oh there's actually a little nick on this thing i do like the screws inside they look like that the screws are nice apple always uses nice fasteners they look they appear to be the pentalobe yeah because that's exciting i guess they do look nice aesthetically and i guess probably don't really need to open and it's not like you can't get the driver anyways but whatever i guess it's an interesting choice i like the ease of the volume control knob i'm assuming that adjusts volume on top that's always a pain in the ass with these wireless headphones and stuff sometimes how the hell you either i mean normally you do it on your phone or something if you're on a plane but it seems like it's always a pain he has to figure it out i'm assuming this button does something simple too like um what's this button do uh noise canceling or transparency oh so that's just a simple push push on off type thing so that's kind of nice too don't have to figure the damn thing out yeah that is the problem like my the sony's i have they have like three or four buttons on them and it's always like which one's the noise cancelling so yeah i'm assuming these are these slots are external microphones yeah noise canceling is picking up outside noise yeah they got a lot of them so i don't know what they got going on over there it's obviously some pretty advanced dsp yeah probably we haven't really had a listen to these right i know he's i think douglas talked about it on his channel dms oh oh is the macbook we do the thing we can play does it work apparently presumably you figure out how to make a plan i'll just listen oh that's off all right that was not you can hear us i could hear you yeah yeah there's a little bit of a delay but it's not bad oh yeah you can hear it playing yeah actually more than i would suspect yeah you know for being like goes back apple's taking uh hearing safety seriously they don't really play all that loud which i would think would be a common complaint for most consumers but they limit the volume but it makes sense yeah it won't let the driver distort and learn that stuff yeah they do that on their laptops and stuff too but it really doesn't play all that loud for a close back yeah so you really do need the noise cancelling for it to really do the business i'm going to throw some nils off going on because i got them in my head lately so nils sounds sorry it's on the soft side which i would assume you'd do if you're making a consumer-based product you don't want to go brash or anything that's somewhat of an average they're still playing which i mean you know you're not going to be yeah i gotta throw high resolution at the general public it typically doesn't work with a lot of music so it sounds pretty much the same in transparency mode yeah as noise cancelling i don't even try it at noise canceling yeah it's a quiet enough environment here it's probably fine yeah i don't really notice the pressure so much when it's in noise cancelling when you're playing music but when it isn't it's kind of annoying for me at least yeah but i'm pretty sensitive to these things that's weird what in transparency mode when i'm talking so it still pumps me in yeah but it's like you're playing you're like it sounds like you're like you're whispering like in the distance because my sony's have that feature too but it doesn't sound like this this sounds like like they're like adding it in like here right in the background adjusting yeah the mode yeah i could see why i guess if you can do it why not it's kind of smart because like on my sony's the transparency mode it's just like right there it's like people talking right but this is like in the mix somehow like oh right add it in there in other words you're you're with the band and you're with them and there's someone talking in the distance that's kind of neat yeah somebody paid attention to detail on that one yeah there's like an optical sensor huh it's yeah it's kind of like it's got a typical dark cover over it the noise canceling is effective what's this thing cost 550 yeah yeah by 50. if you want to use it wired it's an extra 30 something for a cable they figure most people ain't going to need the cable anyway i get that most people are going to have bluetooth they didn't do the micro perforations for the status led ooh i figured they would yeah the cool factor yeah they're a little bit more fun it doesn't look like there's as much detail attention to detail as you see with most of their products you gotta imagine we spent a long time designing this so it's interesting that this is what they came up with this is what apple thought would be the iconic look going forward because this is effectively their first headphone as far as i'm concerned this is the first over ear what people consider be a traditional headphone right because everything else up until this point has been working off beats or past legacy and so this is them coming from their own perspective trying to create a standout product um where people would be able to recognize the look at a glance so i do think it's a little interesting this is what they came up with it's unique not extreme in any way it's not even bad oh yeah so the case is interesting the case is nicely manufactured you talk about this case though oh that case yeah nice yeah what do you think about the case effect let's look at this for let's look at this case it's not much it's obviously got a look to it it's like it's interesting how they give you this case to store it because it doesn't provide much protection provides some protection from the ear cups but the way they're designed anodized and rounded like that it won't really be too damaging if they rub against each other yeah it's a nice case i mean you look at the build and you feel it it's got a nice feel to it nice magnetic clasp i don't understand why you wouldn't just encapsulate the whole headphone uh but it's interesting the most fragile component is exposed right yeah i suppose for most consumers it won't be a problem because they'll probably treat these very gently we've seen a mixed bag on that yeah i think in this price point for a consumer product this is very very expensive for most people that would be pretty careful it is expensive but i mean on that end of things it's the upper right consumer headphones is very expensive yeah it's interesting you need to put it in here for these to turn off though yeah very strange design decision so you need to have the case with you you always need to carry it so if you have the headphones on and you want to turn these off and you're on the go you need to bring the case with you which is strange apparently you could alternatively wait two hours for them to go into a low power mode but i mean that kind of is how apple's been doing things lately like yeah it just turns on when you open it you know right and we'll have to see how that plays out because i think what's what's the run time on these 20 hours yeah well yeah so two hours of staying out isn't crazy that's fine for most plane flights right yeah but yeah you can see uh the design is definitely if they they pretty much took all the things from like apple watch all the little cuts and the button and the the crown they're all in apple watch so it's pretty much a continuation of this it makes sense you know there's only so many shapes you can use for a headphone when you think about it right you got round oval square i mean there's not a lot of reinventing the wheel going on there that you can do it's got to fit on your head it's got to fit on a person's even the side is comfortable like apple watch shaped like yeah just a big apple watch yeah i think a big portion of the design has to do with the simple fact of the manufacturability because they know this is going to be sold in huge volume and if they wanted to have these anodized aluminum ear cups there's only so many designs you could do that are practical and economical to manufacture and presumably there's electronics in the ring around there outside of the driver um well that's true so i should imagine it's in there they'll probably show the show shot on their website i don't even know i saw something but i don't remember what yeah i think yeah i think they show it something in there but yeah i think the board does wrap around the driver yeah it was kind of the only way you could do it well and they still need to work with uh bluetooth and everything so and they got to fit a battery in there anyway that's all right i think it's an interesting headphone it's definitely very different than what you see from most headphones uh especially for ones that standard consumers buy uh it's a very high price point but um i don't think that'll be a problem for most consumers that are interested in apple gear i think they're they're willing to splurge as long as they feel it's it's better and premium enough i mean uh you know i don't think uh this would be a headphone for me i mean it's just i think because i'm kind of spoiled by what we already make you know so i mean maybe on a plane or something maybe if you're going to use it for travel but i don't know even then i don't know i almost like i almost like having more more compactness i think to travel with don't you think this seems like i've been going that way you know yeah right yeah you know you just kind of want to be able to hide it somewhere or not you know i mean there's nothing wrong with that i just don't know if it would offer any any you know especially at its price point i'm just going to use it for travel i'm not going to use it for anything else well that's for me you know i mean but a lot of people obviously this would be their only headphones so they use it for everything so right yeah did you notice this thing they hit each other when you're down it's very difficult to put it back that would make people very nervous about removing these two in the case yeah but you'll see how they hold up you need a little what you need is a little um what do you call a little uh sticky protect clear protectors you could put that's not stylish yeah well yeah well just for the corner corner yeah people probably make skins and stuff like that oh yeah you know that's gonna happen yeah anodized aluminum is fairly durable but yeah bang them into each other like that every time you take it out it's not ideal yeah yeah that is what it is yeah one thing's for sure though they definitely feel premium like compared to a lot of the other low-return noise canceling with the plastic and creating that's true like these actually feel like something some substance to them you know they don't make cheap noises they are quiet they're fairly quiet moving about yeah everything's very yeah the headband slider is a very nice friction mechanism yeah and those are hard to get right yeah so overall i think it's a pretty good first approach into a over ear headphone from apple pretty cool overall it just has a few interesting tidbits that we'll have to see how the general population perceives them i mean i'm guessing the reception will be pretty warm because it's an apple product but um i'd like to see what they do in the future like to see what they change from this design how they move forward how do they take things i'm kind of agreeing with you it almost looks like this is uh kind of first yeah it's first gen they know that they want to see how it how it's taken and then make adjustments from there because it's difficult i mean if you've never really designed something like that before i mean actually from scratch and gotten the consumer feedback on it which you know they're going to get a lot of feedback i mean we dealt with that for years now already with the feedback and the design and so on you know you make subtle adjustments here and there and you could kind of tell it looks like they're that this is it's going to go that way they're going to they're going to they're going to tweak it yeah you know but it's definitely apple doing apple whatever apple wants to do you know their own way they're not following anybody else though yeah this is how we wanted it to be we all use their products we have everything we have laptops and for you know we got i think we got at least one of everything they make if not two or three you know we got imacs all over the place so we're into that we're into their products and yeah you know we do a lot of cool design yeah no doubt uh the performance is oftentimes among the best you just got to suffer with the price point so yeah you know if that's tolerable to you that it's a pretty cool product yeah and i mean you are paying you are buying into a company that takes care of their customers the customer service is is kind of huge it is usually good yes you know so yeah you're getting that you're getting that you're that's that's built into it that's baked into the price which any company that makes you know well that's nice stuff is going to do that i think uh apple wanted to put themselves one level past all all the the other uh competition that makes sense you know yeah they didn't want to just you know price it the same as uh yeah as like your sony's and sennheiser because then it's almost like they're not competition right yeah they're in a different class automatically just because of the price point whether or not the performance is there is irrelevant a lot of consumers minds it's kind of a different product at that price so not bad not bad it is an interesting evolution though because you look in the early days you remember when beats and stuff came out two 300 headphones and people were saying wow that's such a crazy high price and now to get that same reaction apple needs to step into the 500 plus right yeah twice right for a consumer headphone that's very expensive um what to see how they sell and how well they're received but um so far it looks like they're doing pretty well on well the other thing we don't know is what other tricks might be up this little boy's bad boy sleeve in terms of the dsp and the electronics that are in there it might have some feature sets that aren't even being utilized yet in terms of gaming and stuff like that right so and i mean they could probably adjust the sound of this on the fly if they wanted to there may be eq profiles that you know or apps or something that would come out for it since it is what it is an apple product we really don't know what's hiding under the hood i mean are they able to modify those chips at all do you know i mean i would imagine you think this thing's actually upgradable it seems quite incredibly light probably yeah so there you go so you can actually probably do anything you want with it if you wanted to probably yeah you know which will be that's probably the part we don't know about yet yeah we'll have to see what they do in the future maybe they've got some ideas up their sleeve that yeah will be really cool yeah so anyway it's a headphone yeah on that note everyone thanks for watching our blabber take care you

Channel: ABYSS Headphones

Views: 181,629

Rating: 4.8124032 out of 5

Keywords: headphone engineers, airpods max, engineer airpods max, engineers airpods max, hifi airpods max, hifi vs airpods max, airpods max hands on, airpods max video, airpods max hifi video

Id: BcSox3mxlRQ

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ibsulon]

I found interesting because it showed how industry insiders looked at the product on first impressions and their insights into manufacturing gave a different perspective.

[u/ResolveReviews]

Enjoying that sweet SEO like the rest of us ;) - well played.

[u/DStaykov]

Wait, you can't turn them off without the case ? Couldn't they just use that button for the transparancy/isolation, like one click to switch between modes, hold 3-5 seconds for on/off ...

Pretty cool review, enjoyed the lack of fake orgasm "wows". And had a little snicker how little they had to say about the sound.

[u/hugglenugget]

I would have liked to hear them comment more on the sound, and the decisions that would have gone into arriving at that sound profile. In fact, it'd be interesting to see more videos where headphone designers/engineers comment on other people's headphones.

[u/MonkAndCanatella]

Wow, this channel is awesome. Great video!

[u/west0ne]

It's a pity that they didn't give more of a view on how they sound but I suppose they recognise that audio preferences can be very personal.

I like the fact that they didn't seem to be going into it looking to either suck up to Apple or to trash them which is all too common in reviews. It was also interesting how they looked the little detail and recognised how Apple had being quite clever in their design in order to make something that is easy to mass manufacture but still look well engineered rather than being cheaply formed.

I got the feeling that they would have done some things differently had they been designing them but they seemed to respect them for what they are.

[u/affrox]

What a refreshing video! I like hearing their opinions about the design choices without the almost obligatory snark when reviewing Apple products these days.

[u/Leviathan1918]

These guys are trying to sell you expensive cables. Their opinion holds about as much value as a hand full of sand in the middle of the desert.