I’ve had a bunch of Apple products that have never disappointed me in the last 10+ years.
I’ll buy these overpriced headphones because an extra $200 for a product I’ll probably use for 5 years will not break my bank account.
"I know nothing about the subject..."
"Not gonna learn about other options..."
"Apple doesn't disappoint me..."
"I'll buy the overpriced stuff because I can afford it..."
This Apple-blinkers comment is telling, and refreshingly honest.
I'm sure there are other brands with that sort of attachment, but none that exemplify the phenomenon more.
Never, ever, buy any Samsung appliances.
I own a few rental properties. The failure rate on any and all Samsung appliances is insane.
Their dryers are the worst. The belt tensioner is a plastic pulley with no bearing at all - it just rides on a sleeve. I've had a few of these go.
The front loader washers use some sort of zinc mounting place that reacts with the stainless steel drum and causes a failure (usually right after the warranty is up).
Just don't do it.
With companies like Samsung, quality doesn't necessarily translate across divisions. Their phones may be okay, but those aren't the same people designing the appliances.
Last year I bought a new house. Any guess what brand of appliances the kitchen came with?
But we've also had a Samsung double oven that had issues in year one.
Huge mistake. Terrible software, hardware bugs, issues with motion interpolation (even basic things like 24fps over 30hz judder reduction), audio sync issues with sound bar, etc.
I'll get an LG soon.
I suspect it's because they are considered fashion items now, people want to show them off. So they spend all they money on finishes and gizmos and screens. Then spend as little as possible on durability.
Personally I think some research suggests it might be the suspension of the drum which should be easy to replace but there is no need for that to ever fail, even after < a year. Sorry for the off topic chat everyone :-/
Most people do not have the time or the inclination to exhaustively survey the market and technology when they want to buy headphones, speakers, laptops, and so on. They use low-effort proxy signals to judge the quality and desirability of products.
Brand is a reasonably reliable proxy and most Apple stuff is pretty good. At the very least, its rarely terrible, which you can't say about many other brands. If you know nothing about headphones but want a decent quality pair without looking into it too deeply, these are a rational option.
Their computers and general design is top shelf as far as I'm concerned, but when it comes to audio I'll put my trust in companies who've been in that specific business for decades.
Apple Beats for example are a bit of a joke to anyone who knows anything about audio (and I don't mean people who spend $$$ on cables).
Edit: Looked it up and apparently Apple's buyout was an April Fools joke some years ago. I've definitely talked about it on HN before and I'm surprised nobody's corrected me until now.
Majority owner of Bose Corporation is MIT, yes, that MIT:
Volumes have been written about them so I'll sum it up by saying that while they make some real overpriced crap at times... it is also true that over the last 50 years ago they have probably advanced home audio reproduction more than any other individual company.
Car audio, as well. Their role in car audio is extremely undereported, because a lot of Bose-engineer car audio is unbranded. But if you're wondering how factory-installed car stereos went from "sounding like clock radio speakers" to "honestly, fine" in the past few decades, Bose is a big part of that answer.
That's the thing, will people who know nothing about audio be disappointed by Apple Beats?
1. Don't distort.
2. Don't otherwise hurt the user (there were cases of earbuds and over-the-ear headphones where the maximum volume would damage the wearer's eardrums, for example).
3. Easily and reliably connect them to the desired device.
4. High quality enough that the product lasts years.
5. Trusted by users that 1-4 apply.
Most audio brands are obscure for the average user. If I ask someone random on the street about Sennheiser they won't know about the brand.
1 is restating what I said. Nobody* actually knows or cares about 2. The rest are, as I said, non-audible parts of the experience.
As long as it gets loud and bassy, people will say it has good quality audio. See also, loudness wars.
* You'll note that Apple's earpods were capable of hearing loss causing levels of volume, yet people loved those things.
Similarly, the HomePod. I have used a Nest Audio (returned), Nest Hub Max (returned), Echo Studio (returned), a Sony GTK-XB7 (really like this one for parties as it gets very loud), and a UE Hyperboom (also really like this one as it has a 24 hour battery). HomePod has the best audio quality. Are there speakers that are better? Oh hell yes; I have a pair of Mackie MR5s that blow the Homepod out of the water. But also, they're five times the size.
I would not put it past Apple to do something great with these. In my mind, they've established themselves as being a top-tier audio equipment manufacturer, alongside Sennheiser, Sony, Grado, Beyerdynamic, etc, and I really think the people who don't believe this just haven't been using their full scope of audio products.
I do think one needs to answer whether $500+ is something one is willing to spend on a piece of audio equipment. Its a ton of money, and audio naturally has a rate of exponential decay of return (you can get 95% of the audio quality of $1000+ headphones with a $100 pair of the right ones). That's a separate question from whether they deliver value previously only seen in $800+ devices. If they can do that, then these are worth it to some people.
Over the past 10 years or so it's the traditional hifi that's become the niche, a bit depressing.
No it's not. Not in this era of marketers, influencers, social media and fake news.
I'm not sure why Apple receives this kind of contempt for having built a brand people trust for valid reasons (i.e., "I've had a consistently good experience trusting this brand"), going by the comment that's gotten so many bothered here.
Part of the value of the Apple brand is that people will pay some fraction of that cost to avoid that search while also being sure that their product actually works.
I recently bought a car. I spent about a year deliberating over it, picking the right market segment, picking the right model, picking the right financing option.
Last week I bought a microwave. I just walked into the store, looked at what they had on the shelf, and picked a Panasonic one that was around the right size I was looking for. I didn't even look at the features, I just looked at 'Panasonic.'
I suspect Panasonic hasn't added any new features to their microwaves in the last decade anyways
The commenter is simply saying that they can afford the price and that they trust Apple's brand not to disappoint them based on previous experience.
That seems fair enough to me.
Personally, I wouldn't buy these because I don't like the styling. I'm also moving towards products made by OEMs rather than outsourced manufacturing as I'm not too price sensitive. i.e. I'm not in the target market segment.
If I could get over all that I'm sure these would be good enough.
I wish Apple had a competitor in the US. Google competes with software and phones, but is losing the phone battle hard. Microsoft puts out an operating system that is too busy making sure legacy software from 1995 still runs. All (most) of the hardware "competitors" run Windows and can't compete on the performance side. We need a company that produces their own hardware and operating system that competes with Apple, I think.
Here is a review: https://thatgeoguy.ca/blog/2020/12/06/Librem-5-Evergreen-vs-...
TLDR: If you want to join a community of people who are interested in working on a competitor, buy one of these, or a pinephone.
I strongly encourage people to buy these and contribute, but don’t expect them to work as a daily driver.
"I know nothing of OP's set of priorities..."
"Not going to enquire after them, just make blind judgements of them compared to mine..."
"I'll take OP's probably hyperbolic label of overpriced at face value, and criticize them for making a purchase they project to cost them only an extra $3.33/month ..."
This elitist take is telling, though not really refreshing.
I'm sure there are mindsets other than that of anti-Apple zealots, but none that exemplify the phenomenon more.
I'm sure there are other brands with that sort of
attachment, but none that exemplify the phenomenon more.
Do you research evvvvvvvvvvvvvverything you buy? Toothpaste? Underwear? Toothpicks?
Ever order from Amazon even though something costs slightly more because you're not sure if the other retailer is trustworthy and you don't feel like spending an hour figuring out if Bob's Wholesale Toothpick Emporium is a site you can trust?
I don't know about you, but my life is a combination of things I have obsessively researched and stuff where I just sort of relied on the brand name. When I need a pair of pants I usually just buy Levis or something because they'll be fine. I've only got so many hours in my life and I don't really feel like becoming a... pants expert.
Also, Ferrari don’t make scissors. To presume I have knowledge of something that doesn’t exist, is confabulation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation
Second, I know a thing or two about audio. I saw an earlier comment mentioning that these use "plastic" drivers, as a sign that they are cheap. Generally speaking, the greatest speakers in the world use plastic or paper material for the cones in their drivers. (Google SEAS or Scan-Speak drivers for some examples). A minority of speakers use aluminum or other lightweight metals instead, but generally it is not preferred.
Third, most of the comments on this article are comparing them to traditional, passive headphones in the ~$500 range. These are active headphones with onboard DSP. The physical construction of a speaker matters much less when you can simply shape the response via DSP. If you've ever listened to Bose QC headphones with and without the onboard electronics engaged, you know there's a night and day difference and in addition to the noise cancellation, that difference is due to DSP EQ'ing of the headphone's output.
Fourth, Apple has a solid track record when it comes to audio engineering. They've had some misses, but their laptops, phones, tablets, and other devices tend to measure very well[1][2] in the audio department. So trusting Apple to "do the right thing" with an audio product (if perhaps not at a desirable price) is a reasonable proposition.
_____
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aaudiosciencereview.co...
Apple doesn't shit on their own brand for a quick dollar. The HN reader might argue nuance, but their consumer base is the proof.
There is nothing wrong with people having a bit of brand loyalty. It's one of a thousand shortcuts our brains take a day in making decisions.
Nobody has time to exhaustively research every product they buy, and most people don’t have the inclination. Therefore when they find a company that meets their needs reliably, they tend to keep buying from them unless there is a problem.
This is a normal feature of business. Every business tries to satisfy their customers in this way.
If there is something special about Apple, it is that they have a lot of satisfied customers.
Could they have had a great listening experience with a more established audio name? Sure, but so what. Those companies failed to reach these customers. Apple will sell them a new listening experience (for them) and they will love it. If they don't love it, they will return the product. That's how it works. No good or evil, just products and customers. If the customers like them and find value Apple will sell a lot of headphones. If not, these will go on the trash heap of other failed Apple products. Customers always have the final say.
Bought airpods pro, love the noise cancelling sound, think they sound great (to me)
Bought homepod, sounds great
As a customer, I just trust that Apple will not put out a crap product in this price range. It may be missing a headphone jack or some audio balancing features that audiogeeks will care about. I trust that they will sound very good (to my average ears), good good and most importantly have a great resale value if I get bored with them
They will also make a great gift for the people on my list that have everything
I have a very hard time believing you're not aware of this, and feigning ignorance in order to criticize the fact is just disingenuous.
According to that link’s definition of a “Veblen” good, if Apple had raised prices, then demand would have increased. Either someone in charge of pricing Apple products missed out on huge revenue increases by failing to raise the price, or it’s not a Veblen good.
And there is no contention that the amortized cost of an iPhone SE, iPad Mini, or MacBook Air gets you the lowest cost to quality ratio of any competing product that also last the longest.
The iPad Pro, the iPhone X, and the Mac Pro were all shockingly expensive. I remember the chatter on Hacker News like it was yesterday.
The first two sold like gangbusters and the last is less of a Veblen good and more of an anchor price for the rest of their lineup.
Apple's 'affordable' version of a product is always "a good price for an expensive X", rather than actually cheap. And they go up from there.
There isn't even a competing product for iPad Mini.
Maybe a case can be made for the highest end Apple products are Veblen goods, but that's a far less interesting comment than all Apple products are Veblen goods.
In contradiction to your post which I replied to, Apple has raised the price of their flagship iPad and iPhone, and continued to bust through sales records. That's Veblen enough for me.
They have also lowered the price of their most affordable product in a category, and in any case, this being tech, each new product isn't the same as the predecessor, which complicates the analysis.
I don't think "people buy the latest flagship iPhone because it's expensive" is as true for Apple as it is for, say, BMW.
But it's reasonably true, and there's a trope to go with it: Apple keeps releasing products where the commentariat say "that's so much money for an X! who is going to buy this?" and then sell millions of that product.
Seems like a useless concept to me. If the flagship phones are getting better and better each year, why is it noteworthy that the price might increase? Is there a business that sells a better product at the same price as an inferior product?
For example, these cost more money than an average resident of Sierra Leone earns in a month. You could donate to feed their family.
Or for $550, you could spend $300 on buying a Kenyan family 5 sheep, $100 on gifting 5 Serbian women a month of literacy classes each, and $150 on 15 rides to school for refugee children in Egypt. Taxes not included.¹
You have airpods and airpods pro, and you don't care enough about sound to spend an hour or two researching headphones. Why would you want these then? What about your current headphones isn't good enough that you are willing to pay $600?
> They will also make a great gift for the people on my list that have everything
I mean, so would a really great pair of headphones that costs $200 less. Also, if you are giving out $600 headphones as gifts, I would like us to be friends.
I'm just saying I get having trust in a company, but what you are describing sounds like more than that.
This happens in just about every hobby. e.g. Some people buy expensive golf clubs and don’t know how to properly swing them.
My brother spent $2,000 upgrading his golf clubs, and didn't improve his score at all. GP said he's willing to spend an extra $200 to avoid two hours of research. Most of us here make at least $100/hr. The opportunity cost alone makes the purchase reasonable.
Well, that's definitely the type of thing you don't let people know, haha
It’s like they have some kind visceral reaction to seeing someone who isn’t being thrifty and researching every little thing out with spreadsheets.
It doesn’t affect you. They’re not telling you to do it.
If you want to get a better deal by doing the research then do it.
I’ll probably get these for the same reason as the parent; I vaguely want some air pods but I haven’t got around to it and I prefer this form factor.
I trust apple not to sell useless knockoff rubbish in a shiny box. My relationship with them is no more complex than that.
Anyway, the issue for me is that these are supposed to be audiophile/professional grade headphones - something you buy explicitly because you want the best audio quality. If you need these in the first place, then it's worth doing 20 minutes of research to see if it's the best quality for your money, or even in general.
I hate to say it, but I agree with the comments that mention these being more of a status symbol than anything. There's nothing wrong with that either, but that's the reality. I mean, they are pretty much guaranteed to perform worse than high end Sennheisers while still costing more, so what else could it be?
I find the argument of "I need professional grade headphones to do my job, but don't have the time to research the best option" just disappointing I guess.
I own AirPods Pro myself, but those are intended for a different market and are actually a decent value (compared to the Sony which has better sound quality but worse integration with Apple stuff).
This is where you’re wrong. That’s not the audience they’re targeting. Their target is Apple users bought into the ecosystem who may or may not use AirPods. If they see an Apple made headphone, they implicitly trust it to be not crap and hardy even if it may not compare well to the competitors. Your passionate arguments for why there are cheaper alternatives don’t matter, this has been the same argument for a lot of Apple made products. They are one of the few companies on the market that has demonstrated a commitment to quality (for a premium, of course) for the masses. Their brand is very very strong.
I am not an audiophile and I don’t care to be. I like AirPods and my first reaction to this was: oh nice, my Bose headphones are pretty old. These look quite pricy but it’s Apple, I trust that I’ll get a fairly reliable product that looks beautiful and works really well with my phone (no custom janky apps).
No, they are not.
It's unlikely professionals are buying any wireless headphones and professionals definitely don't want/ need ANC.
These are headphones for people who want good quality sound and value the other features these offer. If you don't find the other features these offer appealing, they aren't worth the money.
Almost every criticism of these pits them against top end wired audiophile headphones... that's not what these are primarily competing against.
Would you pay $100 for a 100MB usb drive? Would you not react and try to dissuade a friend from making a purchase you recognize to be ill-considered?
It’s your money, do what you want, but people are upset because there are (probably, since we dont know yet) better options that don’t have an Apple pricetag. The purchase would be based on complacency with a brand, and not conformity to rational principles and knowledge.
Few have already posted that they would buy this because it’s Apple, in order to avoid 1-2 hours of research. I really hope these aren’t the same people complaining about how terrible capitalism is.
I'm not about to be upset that someone still wants a Yubikey though.
Sure it does. This religious consumerism is favouring one of the biggest polluters on earth, with products that are as hard to repair as possible. And the favorism it's not even warranted: Apple produced a bunch of crap over the years. But zealots just ignore that.
And not only has this a negative effect on our shared resources, many people also plainly abhor when other people refuse to think.
Also, the comment about people refusing to think is a bit obtuse, don't you think? Assuming that people who buy Apple products don't think is a ridiculous claim. At least recognize that those people might have a different calculus for their purchasing choices.
It's nuts how much toxicity there is around Apple.
Some. They also make good stuff. But look at Louis Rossman's Youtube channel, he rants about the common defects in the bad Apple products better than I could.
> Also, the comment about people refusing to think is a bit obtuse, don't you think? Assuming that people who buy Apple products don't think is a ridiculous claim
It was the nice variant of what I was trying to say ;) The mechanisms of Apple fanboyism work like a religion or a cult, and that's not a novel thought by me. In that context it's not absurd, it really is what happens: People buy these products often enough without an ounce of thought, it's religious conviction and our primate brain wanting to signal status. Not always of course, but often enough. And that does produce the negative reaction in others -> parent was asking.
Just in case: I did not say that people care about how things work. You get in every category Apple sells products in other products that are more affordable, do not suck and look good. Besides, many people buy Apple products that they can not afford, that's part of the problem.
OK buddy. Lemme go find you a soap box. BRB.
And it looks like you are implying comments like mine are made without thought, which would be neither nice nor correct.
That's a myth.
I mentioned 2011, which is well before the nasty keyboards.
You guys are spending a lot of effort to respond to things I didn't say, including anything at all about competitors. Sony Vaio laptops probably hold their value longest, AFAIK, but that doesn't mean Apple laptop haven't traditionally held value quite well.
Apple products have high resale value, at least before the recent keyboard crap, because many people find them to be very useful for a very long time.
That's what I should have said.
It's a similar story for me with smartphones. My first was a Droid X2. After about 9 months I switched to an iPhone 4 and used it for the next 5 years. Then upgraded to a 6s which I only retired for an 11 Pro last year because work bought it for me. They all work fine today.
I babied every Dell/Sony machine and that Droid just like every Apple product I've purchased since; this is just the proof I've found in the pudding after eating both kinds.
I very much doubt you can find anything to substantiate your claim that Apple is one of the biggest polluters on earth.
They feel uncomfortable that the person above can shell that money on stuff that is slightly more than what they can afford. They then need to rationalise their decision that they made the best choice.
If I make $50 an hour, I am not going to waste 8+ hours searching and doing spreadsheets to figure out 'what is the best for the money' because I am already losing 50$ per hour. The new pair that is 'cheaper' costs as much as the device itself + as much as I 'paid' searching for it.
If it isn't my hobby, there is no reason to waste time on it.
I can't even imagine why my response sounded "upset".
> someone who isn’t being thrifty and researching every little thing out with spreadsheets.
No, I don't think spreadsheets are required. I probably wouldn't spend $600 on something that doesn't seem like it usually costs that much without reading a couple of reputable reviews first, or maybe checking to see if the features I want exist in a popular cheaper brand. OP isn't doing this because OP isn't buying the headphones to fulfill any need, but because they "trust apple". It's bizarre and hard to understand for anybody who isn't used to thinking of $600 as pocket change, I guess.
> I’ll probably get these for the same reason as the parent; I vaguely want some air pods but I haven’t got around to it and I prefer this form factor.
This was the part that confused me. OP has AirPods and AirPods pro and claims that he loves both. The part I don't get is blindly dropping $600 to buy something that doesn't even solve a problem for you. Apple puts it out, OP buys because it's an apple product.
> I trust apple not to sell useless knockoff rubbish in a shiny box. My relationship with them is no more complex than that.
This is the part that DOES upset me.
You think Apple never made useless rubbish? As we speak I'm typing this on a piece of shit 2019 MB Pro issued by my job. It sucks. Bad design (no ports, no magsafe, no escape key).
* Knowing little about headphones it would take me more than a couple hours to research properly
* I don’t enjoy this research. So unlike most leisure this could be evaluated as a time cost against other activities like working on my business, which translates into a money cost.
* There is a seamlessness when everything is apple. It all works very well together. Having another sort of device makes it the odd duck out and a source of friction even if it is superior on one or two metrics. These headphones will seamlessly switch between multiple devices and work with Siri/Apple music etc
* If there is ever a problem, Apple support is excellent and there are apple stores all over the world. I’m also in the stores reasonably often if I need to buy some other thing, check out a product or need servicing on another device. Apple also offers excellent mail service with premade labels and pickup. Servicing things is work, so this servicing convenience lowers the effective cost.
I won’t personally be buying the overear headphones. I really like my airpods and have tinnitus so I’m not sure I should be using noise cancellation. But hopefully the explanation above gives you some explanation of how buying an apple product can make more sense once you’re already in the ecosystem.
Can't speak for others, but I simply want good quality over ear headphones for sitting at my desk listening to music while coding. I have a set of decent AKG over-ear headphones, but I'm tired of the cable and there are times when ANC would be nice. It would also be nice to have a set for watching TV in the evening.
Not sure why so many people have their panties in a twist about this. Apple makes arguably the best wireless tech in the business. People keep comparing these to high end wired headphones (without ANC) which completely misses the point.
Also, please get me a line on these wireless over ear headphones with good sound and ANC you can pick up for $200.
Edit: I should admit that you are correct that $200 (MSRP, not paid price) won't buy a fair competitor. More appropriate is $350, which is what the XM4/QC35 II cost.
It's good to have a realistic comparison. All these comments comparing it to wires, non ANC headphones, and studio monitor headphones are pretty far off base.
- Sennheiser HD650s
- Schiit DAC
- Schiit Amp
They sound good (price ~$500, more after the DAC/Amp), but the build quality of the HD650s is poor, they feel like plastic crap. The Schiit devices are really nice and I like them.
Sennheiser also differentiates one of their lower models simply by stuffing a piece of foam into the ear cup to make it sound worse and then sells it cheaper than a more expensive model with the same driver. I find this to be a pretty disgraceful way to differentiate.
I think these Apple headphones are probably a better overall product at a cheaper price point. They've improved the beats products and the build quality is better than Sennheiser.
Audio stuff has a lot of snake oil around it and (ironically) a lot of extreme anti-brand tribleness that I'd argue is more irrational than what the parent comments suggests about buying Apple stuff. (Hatred for bose for example).
I think it's more about signaling some sort of in-group status than about the products themselves.
All of that Sennheiser stuff is currently in a cabinet, because it's a hassle to use and Airpods/Beats studio work better day to day.
My usage is 50/50.
Plus, the old apple stuff was hilariously bad on certain sound things; but it’s clear they’ve focused on it, and usually that means it’s fine.
Adding 550 for something that will sit on one's head for hours and hours isn't outlandish in comparison.
I'm in the Pixel 4 / cheapish Sony headphones camp, but for people riding the high tide it doesn't look out of place pricing wise.
Always trying to get the best for the smallest possible price starts to drain you. You get to a point where you say "I trust them and I can afford it" and that is ok. I wish I could do that.
So true. I've been doing this lately, and have realized how mentally draining it really is to conduct exhaustive research to maximize the value/price you get for a product. Not to mention the time spent easily runs into the hundreds of dollars worth.
For enthusiasts it can be a joy to research a product. For example audiophiles with headphones. But for average consumers like me, just going with the expensive but safe option is on average a really good heuristic.
I never turn it on, I use my TV speakers. Even with cinematic shows I find they mix the dynamic range so high that it's insufferably loud when something exciting happens, and then I can't hear anyone talk for the rest of the show. I'm constantly changing the volume.
I mean, we all know apple fan-bois are vividly after the apple logo, but come on, there's still the majority of sensible people who put actual value higher than the show-off effect.
YES. People are vain. News at 11.
Stop betting against vanity.
I did notice the Apple website does not list the Frequency Response specs.
I totally get how much engineering goes into the Apple products. There's also something beautiful about a completely passive headphone using a hundred year old connector technology made by a 67 year old company with a BIFL philosophy that is repairable and will never go obsolete. White and seamless is not the only kind of cool.
These are Apple Beats.
- 20 hours battery life
- wireless
- noise cancellation
- has microphone(s)
Does audio quality matter that much when they have to work with bluetooth where the bandwidth will be halved whenever you have to use the microphone?
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/what-you-need-to-kno...
And by the way, the Bose and Sony's are considered top of the line for noise canceling wireless headphones. You absolutely lose sound quality from the noise canceling though, so that feature is a trade-off. Airpod Max may well be a contender, though it is not out yet, so it's premature to give it the noise canceling crown.
It's not strictly fair because you asked for 20 hours, and these do 30, so perhaps disqualified.
I use a similar model MPOW at home. They sound great! Not like audiophile perfect great, but good enough. I have a kid who likes to play with everything, so $500 headphones are a big no. I'm not arguing that these are dumb, or overpriced, or anything, I don't really care. But there are decent alternatives in this space already.
$200
https://www.amazon.com/WH-1000XM3-Wireless-canceling-Headset...
$300
https://www.amazon.com/Senheisser-Momentum-Cancelling-Headph...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08K3TWS4W/ref=sspa_mw_detail...
$500
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07RHWDY9N/ref=sspa_mw_detail...
I really really don’t think Apple is going to make better headphones than Sennheiser and Shure, or even Sony. I’m particularly intrigued by the Sony XM4’s battery life of 30 hours, and 10 minute charge that gets it a 5 hour charge. The worst thing about all day use of wireless headphones is that it will just die on you if you have a podcast or music on in the background all day.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-over-ear-hea...
~ 5 minutes of reading time and done.
EDIT: would love to continue this conversation with those who replied to me but HN has decided I am "posting too fast" (my last post was an hour ago?) so... shrug.
That categorically sounds like not wanting to read any such articles. I highly doubt the barrier is to do with Google skills or finding them in the first place. GP just doesn’t want to. Not to mention most people will not feel they have sufficiently researched a topic by reading the first piece they see.
First of all, you have to trust that the reviewer is truthful (this case, NY Times, might be given a pass). So you either check a bunch of reviews and frequently come out more confused than going in, even as someone who's knowledgeable about the subject or you just buy something from a brand you already trust.
Secondly, the problem with reviews is that they're done by specialists. To give you an example for movies. I've watched some of the movies which are top rated by experts. Frequently I've found that I just don't like them. Too artsy. You know what they say about specialists: they know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. At some point specialists basically turn into aliens. Their tastes stop intersecting with those of the average J. Doe.
In many cases you just want a brain-dead solution to a problem because you're using your neurons for something else. And one of the safest brain-dead solutions is to go with a brand you already trust. Another one is to go with the crowd. Apple is kind of both.
And I say this as someone that generally avoids Apple products :-)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16443213
> We rate limit accounts when they post too many low-quality comments too quickly and/or get involved in flamewars.
I've had a huge list of problems with it:
- The noise cancellation sets itself to maximum power every time you put it on and there's no way to completely turn off noise cancellation when using a computer; here's a thread of people complaining about it: https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/NC-70...
- The only way to use it with no noise cancellation is to pair it with your phone, install the Bose app (there are three, make sure you use the right one), open the Bose app, find the settings which are not easy to find, and turn it off, and repeat this process EVERY TIME you use the headphones (there's plenty of lag in every step in this process, of course)
- It requires a Bluetooth connection to use the mic (the cable only supports speakers), which means I can't use it in Boot Camp because Boot Camp Bluetooth is currently broken
- It mispronounces my name every time I put it on, with no way to fix it, which gets very aggravating
- There's sometimes some weird static noise when connected to my Android phone, and they also automatically reconnect to my phone every time I turn it on, even after I manually disconnect it every time (my AirPods Pro don't do this so it's not just a problem all headphones share)
It's otherwise pretty good, but these flaws are really frustrating considering how much I paid for it.
The reason people are willing to pay more for Apple is because Apple products usually don't have problems like these.