WH1000XM4 is still much cheaper than the apple headphones. I doubt it's studio quality but I also doubt that of apple's offering (or the need for such quality).
I don’t know if these will find the market Apple is hoping for, but seriously what is the point of this comment? Just to be negative for negativity’s sake? I’m not trying to be confrontational or dickish—I just don’t get it. Every time Apple launches some new expensive product it’s the same old story, people saying it’s going to be crappy and anyway who would buy it at that ridiculous price? and then it turns out that it’s actually not crappy, and some people buy it and like it a lot. I don’t see why we should expect anything different here.
Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.
> I doubt it's studio quality but I also doubt that of apple's offering (or the need for such quality).
Seems to me that the doubt is on charging $550 for mediocre sound or on whether better sound actually matters, depending on whether the sound turns out to be mediocre or not. That way we can be negative about Apple’s pricey new doodad regardless of whether it’s actually good or not—how convenient!
> Airpods don't have the best sound, several rival wireless earphones beat them to that.
I have not claimed otherwise and probably never will.
Why is being skeptical of a product announcement problematic? Is stone-faced indifference the only acceptable response? Can I also not speculate on a film's quality from its trailer?
Your comment was just pointless, unfair criticism. You start by pointing out that there exists a cheaper product that is broadly similar to Apple's new competitor. Then you claim that the latter probably won't exceed the quality of the cheaper product, and that even if it does, nobody could possibly want or need to pay the premium attached to that exceedance. So in the end you've put Apple in a box where their new product sucks no matter what, because it's not exactly the same as a product that already exists.
That's just obviously not valid, as previously noted—people pay a lot more than $550 for headphones that offer a lot less in the feature department than modern BT over-ear noise-cancellers. If you want to speculate on whether Apple will succeed in pushing the market higher in a way that makes sense for their business, that might actually be interesting, but you haven't offered anything nearly that substantive. It's just vague negativity of the kind that seeps out of the internet's pores whenever Apple releases something new, and it's usually wrong.
> there’s a cheaper product out there that’s inferior to what Apple claims of their new headphones
If your claim is that Apple made a product using expensive and tough materials, more expensive than, say, Sony's counterpart, and thus that is better, you may be half-right.
But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.
What we know now is that Apple did not include support for high quality audio codecs. That itself is quite a red flag.
I would not argue with this and in fact I specifically addressed the does-the-market-actually-exist concern in my comment.
> But if you claim that Apple made a product that sounds better than Bose or Sony's counterparts, and has better ANC, that is not verifiable, at least not until there are in-depth reviews out there confirming it.
I don’t claim any such thing. The point of my comment is that the parent comment implied that there is no real difference, then said that even if there is a difference who cares because does anybody really need better sound anyway?
So my point is, what is the point of that comment? What is it bringing to this discussion, suggesting that Apple’s new headphones may be overpriced wrt. their sound quality, and if not then they’re overpriced anyway? Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.
I'm going to take a guess and say that, given the facts, there are reasonable doubts about Apple's offering, compared to other products. Mainly two: noise cancelling is not on par with Bose and Sony, as stated by early reviewers, and the lack of high quality codecs.
Functionality-wise then, they may be overpriced.
And I would be the first to admit that I like the overall design. I'm an Apple user myself. But I'm skeptical that Apple has achieved the technical proficiency to make some reasonably good sounding, wireless, ANC cans, that compete with either Bose or Sony.
I see this more as a luxury product or a status symbol, like Bang & Olufsen.
> Good sound is something some people care about and will pay for.
The people willing to pay +$500 for a pair of headphones would be even more skeptical than me, I presume.
Since we’re talking about it now, though ... Apple has a decent record building products that meet a reasonable quality bar, even in markets they’re relatively new to. So I think there is a good chance these will end up being regarded as pretty good headphones, worth the asking price for a certain class of consumer. There is also some chance that they will be regarded as overpriced Beats by Dre trash, though I think that window is closing as more positive impressions come in. Outcomes in between those extremes are, obviously, also possible.
Apple’s hardware design and engineering are first rate, and the things they build with speakers in them don’t sound half bad. Personally, I’d be surprised if these weren’t competitive on features alone, and I’ve paid up to around $1000 for (wired) headphones.
So, without a doubt, people will pay for these. And I don’t know what sources that other guy has, but all the early impressions I’ve seen mention much better ANC than the competition
Anecdote: I drive a newer BMW 328i. I live in the northern US where it snows, and it's a rear-wheel drive car so it sat on the lot because no one around here wants to buy an expensive car they have to park half of the year. I bought it certified pre-owned for under $30k, but the MSRP brand new was more like $50k with the package/options mine has. And yet I get so many comments about how it's an impractical car (It's a four door with a full size trunk and gets 30mpg...) and I must be rich for driving a BMW. Oftentimes I get this comment from people who drive pickup trucks that cost $60k-$70k, but that's apparently okay because Ford isn't a "luxury brand".
I got my "luxury car" for less than the average purchase price of a new car in the US, and I still get comments about how it's so expensive and I must be rich and I've had family tell me not to drive it to family events because it makes people feel like I'm showing off. Because when they think BMW, they think "fuck that's an expensive car" but it's not. BMW makes expensive cars, yes, but mine was not. Heck I was looking at replacing my SUV and the base-model Chevy Blazer costs more than my BMW.
But also yes, I've frequented some Toyota forums for my SUV and I've seen a lot of comments when someone wants to discuss their Lexus because "it's just a Toyota that costs $10k more!".
- Controls are annoying i.e. you have to swipe 20 times on the earcup and then waiting for a deafening beep to set the maximum volume.
- Loses track of current volume on different devices.
- Pairing with multiple devices rarely works.
- Audio quality is average.
The only reason people rave about is its noise cancelling.
IIRC you can swipe and keep holding to keep increasing/decreasing volume until you let go.
> Loses track of current volume on different devices.
That might be somewhat intentional, Android remembers volume per-device (or in case of wired headphones, one separate volume for all wired headphones). When you connect/plug in a device you plugged in before, the volume automatically changes. Sony could be offloading this logic to the device on purpose.