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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

For comparison, Sony's WH-1000XM4 which are currently widely considered the state of the art in the active noise cancelling over-ears, will cost you anywhere between $300-$400 depending on where you are.

(I was very surprised the price can vary that widely, actually. On Sony's US page they're $279, while in the EU they're €380 which is about $460.)

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Don't forget US prices aren't quoted with VAT, where EU prices often are

~always. It's illegal to quote prices to consumers for most things ex VAT in the EU (you're allowed show the ex VAT price, but you must show the inc VAT price as the primary price).

Thanks for this insight, I was not aware of this difference. As far as I can see though, this doesn't account for the drastic difference, given the average sales tax in the US is roughly 7% [0][1]. On top of the $279, the price would then end up at about $300.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_Stat...

[1] https://www.aarp.org/money/taxes/info-2020/state-sales-tax-r...

Wait what? So the US price isn't what you end up paying?

Depends on where you live. Some states don't have VAT ("sales tax" in the US), others do, still others have higher sales tax depending on the city you're in.

I bought the M3 right when they came out for about 320€ (I think they were 380 but there was a deal). And got a reimbursement about a year later because of technical problems. Because I really liked them I bought them again and the price then was about 180€. And I’d say the M4 don’t add so much to warrant the difference over the M3 at their current pricing. In any case, Apples product will never see deals remotely close to this. (Maybe 50€ off if the stars are perfectly aligned)

My experience with the WH-1000XM3 was awful. Sound cancel feature wasn't that great, couldn't pair with multiple devices at the same time and have the audio switch seamlessly between the two, and I also didn't want to have to trust Sony with my listening data. Call me paranoid if you'd like, but smart headphones are basically pumping out information about what we're listening to or hearing around us, and if I was going to trust any corporation to be user-centric on privacy in this regard it'd be Apple.

If Apple's headphones have high audio quality and a seamless experience across multiple devices and cool features prepping the way for VR/AR (the way other comments have suggested) then I'd buy a pair.

> I also didn't want to have to trust Sony with my listening data

This is tinfoil hat stuff. What are you expecting to happen?

I'm not expecting anything to happen, but advocating for user privacy isn't about having anything to hide or expecting anything to happen. As far as I'm concerned, the most rational position is to expect user privacy as a primary feature of any services/products we use, particularly if they don't need to be relaying any data in the first place.

I mean, perhaps if Facebook made a pair of headphones would you accept that it's not quite tinfoil hat stuff to be interested in user privacy? We should never trust any centralized authority or corporation with data if we can help it.

I’ve been hovering on the XM4s waiting for these to be announced. I very much like my regular AirPods, but at £549 I’m definitely going to get the Sonys for £349.

I’m sure the AirPods will be more convenient in some ways, but as I’ll be using them almost entirely inside the house, I’m willing to forego that considering the huge price difference. I much prefer the visual style of the Sonys too; not that that matters all that much.

I’m interested to see reviews of the AirPods to see what they’re like on the sound quality front though.

The only real inconvenience is Bluetooth connecting and disconnecting. It's clunky on my WH-1000XM3's compared to my AirPods Pro, and I often find myself hunting for the device the Sonys were last connected to so I can reconnect to something else. But, unless the AirPods Max (terrible name) turn out to be stunningly good, the added convenience isn't worth the massive price difference to me.

I believe the XM4s support being paired to multiple devices at once, which is the main reason I’m going for them over the XM3s

They are regularly available in Europe for around 300€ (360$), really good deals are around 250€ (300$) [these prices are with VAT].

A few weeks before black friday I picked up new 1000XM3 for a $100. These better be something amazing for that price

i had both the sony wh-1000xm4 and now use the sennheiser momentum 3. via bluetooth i have the same problem on both my macbook pro and iphone: they lag. i watch a youtube video (on ios in the app; on osx browser or a video app) and the sound is a few ms behind (very noticeably though).

any idea what's going on there and/or if apple would solve this somehow with airpods max?

I sometimes have the same issue with my Bose QC35, usually resolved by turning the headphones off and on again.

I think that's some iOS peculiarity, or non-standard latency compensation implementation. On Android all bluetooth headphones I've tried seem to work fine for non realtime applications, and many (like Sony's great wf-1000xm3) have none or barely perceptible latency in games.

i have this on osx as well though. will try on an android phone, thanks.

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