19 ms·

There's an exponential curve of cost vs quality. Buying in the bend is best. The difference between a $50 and $200 pair of headphones is staggering. From $200 t

• gambiting 6y ago
  I mean, they do own Beats - they know exactly how to make headphones that are good enough quality and which sound nice for an average consumer. Now they can bundle that with some of their proprietary tech and that's how you can easily arrive at that price. No one will be comparing these with $500 Sennheisers because Sennheisers don't have all the features you'd buy these for.
  • nemetroid 6y ago
    Beats are widely considered to be overpriced for their audio quality. I think it's reasonable to expect the AirPods Max to be as well, but I think the main draw of this product is seamless integration rather than pure audio quality, and the question is whether you're willing to pay a (substantial) premium for that. I expect that many will be.
    • rob74 6y ago
      > Beats are widely considered to be overpriced for their audio quality That's why Beats was a perfect fit for Apple, Apple products are also overpriced for their performance...
      • larrywright 6y ago
        The new M1-powered Macbook Air would beg to differ.
        • ybbond 6y ago
          I am shocked by how rationally priced are M1 Macs
          • kllrnohj 6y ago
            The upgrade pricing is still straight robbery. It's $400 to go from 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD to 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD. The M1 Macs really just continue Apple's traditional pricing - the base model & price is fine, but the upgrades that you're almost certainly going to want are ludicrously priced and oh hey all the user-upgradability (or any post-purchase upgrades) was removed would you look at that what a total coincidence.
            • ybbond 6y ago
              You either buy the upgrade up-front, or prepare to struggle in your device's lifetime.
        • colinmhayes 6y ago
          Literally the first product apple has released in the last 15 years that isn't priced pretty far above competitors.
          • Jtsummers 6y ago
            That’s not true. My first three MBPs (I tend to sell them after 3-5 years years, it’s nice that they hold their value), I specced out equivalent non Mac laptops. For size, screen, storage, ram, CPU, and graphics they were equivalent or lower cost than a non Mac laptop. I can’t comment on the last 5 years because I haven’t done the comparison in a while. That was even accounting for the Apple tax on components like RAM that (at the time) could be upgraded after purchase. Upgrading myself or through Apple, they were still price competitive.
      • stouset 6y ago
        The 2000s called and they’d like their meme back.
    • matwood 6y ago
      > Beats are widely considered to be overpriced for their audio quality. Sound quality is also subjective at a certain level. Not everyone wants flat sound like an audio engineer. I like bassy music and headhphones (which the Beats are known to be). Now, Beats may still be overpriced since they crossed into fashion, but I'm not a fan of this blanket talk about sound quality like it's always objective.
      • eptcyka 6y ago
        Regardless of how the bass response is tuned, higher total harmonic distortion is objectively worse than less total harmonic distortion. Headphones are a tool to enjoy audio experiences, and a good tool should get out of the way of said experiences.
        • dagw 6y ago
          Headphones are a tool to enjoy audio experiences Yes, and the truth is that many people seem to enjoy the experience of listening to Beats headphones and enjoy that audio more than the audio from many 'better' headphones.
        • compiler-guy 6y ago
          Higher total harmonic distortion is an objectively less accurate reproduction of the original sound. But people can have a preference for less accuracy and that is not objectively “worse” except on one single scale that the consumer may not value. Just like sepia toned prints are objectively worse reproductions of the original picture.
          • stouset 6y ago
            Hell, every photo filter is a less-accurate representation of the original. And filters are wildly popular.
            • eptcyka 6y ago
              Yet, all of Apples devices are equipped with screens that have best in class color accuracy.
    • tomc1985 6y ago
      > the main draw of this product is seamless integration rather than pure audio quality, and the question is whether you're willing to pay a (substantial) premium for that. I expect that many will be. The main draw is that it's an Apple product, and it is yet another way for the rich and spoiled to signal their wealth
  • paultopia 6y ago
    Yeah, this. They're not trying to take over Grado's market, they're trying to sell more stuff to people who have already bought heavily into the Apple ecosystem and value comprehensive and simple functionality. For example. I own Sony MX3s. They have decent sound and great ANC but the use is massively frustrating. Swipe controls don't work, the app sucks, pairing with multiple devices is a nightmare. But I keep them for planes, and use my AirPods pro for everything else. If these headphones have sound and ANC at least as good as my MX3s, and in addition have the standard Apple package of features (insta-pairing with multiple devices, tightly integrated with iOS and Siri for effortless feature control, best in class microphones for voice calls, etc. etc., plus looking cool) I'll buy them and give the MX3s away in a heartbeat. (Though... how do they charge? Its not clear anywhere I see...)
    • robertn702 6y ago
      "Simply charge via Lightning connector" source: https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/ https://www.apple.com/airpods-max/
      • corobo 6y ago
        wait the old one? Or does this somehow mean USB C in Appleese?
        • jackson1442 6y ago
          Yes, the old one. USB-C is sometimes referred to as Thunderbolt 3 but it's usually kept to USB-C.
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
          • pdpi 6y ago
            USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 are different things. USB-C is a connector defined as part of the USB spec, which was developed in tandem with USB 3.1. TB3 is a different spec, basically an external PCIe interface, that uses the USB-C connector (used to use mini DisplayPort). Typically, TB3 ports are also compatible with USB 3.1, but I don't think that's a requirement.
  • mikestew 6y ago
    Yeah, but Beats Studio already do most of what AirPods Max do. I own not one, but two pair of the Beats (like ‘em enough to get the wife a pair), so I’m their “sucker” target market. Sure, maybe one can get better sound for the same money, but as you point out, other headphones don’t connect to my Apple stuff as neatly (or at all; yea, Bluetooth), yada, yada. So I’ll will sacrifice a bit of sound quality (or so the sound nutters say) for convenience. But $550? Even this high-income Apple fanboi has his limits. At that price, the reviews better say the sound is outstanding. Because for one, Apple is competing against the Beats I already own.
    • wegs 6y ago
      Hey, this is cheap by high-income Apple fanboi prices. It's cheaper than a simple monitor stand: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MWUG2LL/A/pro-stand https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MWUG2LL/A/pro-stand A monitor stand ... holds up a monitor. This has noise cancellation, wireless connectivity, rare earth magnets, and a ton of precision manufacturing. I'd definitely take the Apple headphones over a monitor stand. At at 45% lower price, they seem like a bargain in comparison. Disclaimer: I'm not an Apple Fanboi, so I'll spend my $550 somewhere else. But I don't think this is that far beyond the pale.
  • chrisweekly 6y ago
    The thing is, Beats' build quality and technical design absolutely suck. The hinge is weak plastic, and even a little bit of over-opening them can and will break it. This is leaving aside the relative merits of the electronics, audio quality and featureset, where they also fail to deliver for the $. I'll never understand what led Apple to align itself w this overpriced junk.
    • gambiting 6y ago
      Because Beats have the same quality that Apple products do - people who buy Beats headphones continue buying them, regardless of any other options. I myself own several headphones from different brands, and yet Beats Studio are still my favourite ones - there's just something about that muddy, dirty bass that no other manufacturer can replicate. Even Sony's extra bass headphones with bass cranked up to +10 in EQ don't get anywhere close. For certain styles of music, they are the best headphones I own. And yeah, the hinges have broken years ago, the headband peeled off just as long ago, but they still work and sound as I like - I'd happily go and buy another pair. Apple aims to capture the same market - people who buy AirPods Pro don't compare them with earphones from Sony or Sennheiser - they buy them because they are made by Apple and they integrate well with other Apple products. That's all.
      • owenversteeg 6y ago
        Thank you! I don't own any, and they wouldn't go well with most of the music I listen to, but I'm glad to see someone actually defending Beats on HN. One of the weirdest myths around audio is that it's possible to objectively rate specific speakers/headphones/etc - while there's no such objective rating for music, which is _the thing that you are playing_ on said headphones! I've listened to a number of very high end setups, and frankly for a lot of music (most pop, for example) you're better off with a pair of AirPods. Yes, with the $2000 setup you hear all the details, but did anyone ever ask if you wanted all those details? And while bass with more "oomph" might not be the most accurate, it often makes the music more fun to listen to. In my opinion, the entire debate around audio has been focusing on completely the wrong thing: some sort of objective measure of "quality", as if it's some measure you can put a number on and simply compare A to B. Many of my favorite songs, in my experience, lose their power and emotion when listened to on an "audiophile" setup. Sometimes you don't need the details: maybe a bit of distortion and bass is a good thing. And that's just talking about the sound! Getting into the actual experience, there are a ton of non-audiophile products that provide a far superior experience. The actual sound quality of some beat-up 70s rock records and an old turntable isn't great, but the experience is lovely. And the user experience of AirPods + an Apple device is wonderful. Meanwhile the user experience of audiophile products is often (not always, but often) terrible. I've tried a couple of those portable hi-fi players and they are incredibly frustrating. And I love my Etymotics earbuds, but they have to be inserted so deep into the ear that they freak out your average Joe that tries them. That is to say: I feel the whole audio world should stop with the obsession of some weird measure of accurate, "high quality" sound over everything else. Imagine if other things had the same obsession - people looking at art based solely on some weird measure of "picture quality" and "crispness", or buying extremely expensive, ugly, uncomfortable cars because some Internet reviewer made some graphs showing they had better "drive quality".
  • chrisweekly 6y ago
    My sub-$300 Sennheiser HD1 closed, over-ear, BT (w/ cable option), active noise-cancelling headphones are hands-down the best purchase I made in a decade, maybe ever. I'm not a deluded "audiophile" poseur, but I'm a musician who cares deeply about music, and a software dev / architect whose family depends on my ability to focus deeply on my work, and I wear them for about 8h/day.
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • anubiskhan 6y ago
      I love mine. Really wish they had the option to turn off the noise cancelling while on BT though.
  • twox2 6y ago
    The build quality of beats though is complete garbage. Plastic that can snap in half and then you're boned out of hundreds of dollars. These airpods will live or die based on their durability and battery life. Personally, I love my nose cancelling Sony's. They come in at a lower price point and last YEARS.
    • comfyinnernet 6y ago
      Is cancelling your nose really a price worth paying?
  • centimeter 6y ago
    Beats are mostly cheaply made crap that aren't competitive on price.
    • gambiting 6y ago
      And their marketing knows this, just like Apple does - their products aren't competing on price. They are competing on the image and brand recognition, and there are people(me) who genuienly like how they sound and are willing to pay the premium for all of these features.
  • MR4D 6y ago
    You really think they won’t compare them??? The Momentum Wireless are pretty nice headphones! https://en-us.sennheiser.com/momentumwireless https://en-us.sennheiser.com/momentumwireless
    • gambiting 6y ago
      I really really do, because it's not a product for people who compare brands and prices. Like, think about it this way. Few years ago if I told any of my friends that I have a £200 pair of earphones, they would genuienly think I was crazy. Now, they all have a pair of AirPods, and no one thinks it's crazy. You know why? Because not a single one of them was in the market for a £200 pair of earphones - but they all(as apple users) were in the market for a new apple gadget. Same reason why people who would never consider spending £400 on a watch, happily bought an apple watch. There's just no comparison, no one buying an apple watch considers a £400 mechanical watch instead - it's just not competition. So yeah, in my humble opinion - people aren't going to be comparing £500 Sennheisers or anything else to them - they will just wonder if they can justify it as a new apple gadget or not. It will be sold to people who would never otherwise in a million years consider £500 headphones.
      • MR4D 6y ago
        Wow. I honestly never thought of that. Now I’m questioning my own buying behavior!! LOL!!
  • zamalek 6y ago
    As far as I recall, Beats were using dime-a-dozen drivers. That may have changed in the interim, but people were buying them like hotcakes even when they were garbage.
• mrtksn 6y ago
  >There's an exponential curve of cost vs quality No there isn't. The audiophile culture could be replaced with a form where you type how much money you have and it gives you the equipment that you are supposed to buy but this is not because of the costs but because the industry taught the market that it must be that way. Often, the difference of sound quality between high end and low end headphones comes from tiny bit of foam. It's really about branding and market segmentation.
  • reader_mode 6y ago
    Umm that's just straight out wrong. If you're not hearing the difference between 200$ headphones and 50$ ones or even 500$ vs 200$ and think it's foam then there's something wrong with your hearing. Like the parent said the differences get more subtle as you go up the range and at some point it becomes bullshit (gold HDMI cable stuff)
    • andybak 6y ago
      You might be able to hear the difference and you might be able to say with confidence that the $500 ones sound better. But 10x better? If you want to spend that extra $450 and can afford it then fine but that kind of price gradient sticks in my gullet.
      • dahfizz 6y ago
        Yeah, hence OP's original point: >There's an exponential curve of cost vs quality
      • throwanem 6y ago
        The experience is a little like that of photography, I've found. Starting out, you can spend substantial but reasonable amounts for very significant increments in image quality. After a while you hit an inflection point beyond which you'd be spending effectively unbounded amounts in search of just that little extra bit of sharpness or depth of field or so on. The people with the money and urge to climb that curve are very like "serious audiophiles" in my experience, but there's still a range in which you can spend and see a real difference. My 105mm macro and flash kit cost about a grand, and let me take pictures of hunting wasps from six inches away - something I couldn't do without them. Likewise, the headphones I use let me hear things I otherwise wouldn't. You can get stupid with money for sure in this space, but that doesn't make everything in this space stupid.
• keymone 6y ago
  Apple’s hardware game is very impressive in recent years. I’m prepared to be impressed further.
• adolph 6y ago
  As a counter point, Apple is bringing computation closer to ears. The Sennheiser 650 is an analog cabled experience and will accurately reflect the upstream digital to analog conversion, typically made without regard to the destination device. If Apple can use on-ear computation to make a plastic driver cone sound like a more expensive material, why would you care about the materials used? https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/sennheiser/hd-650.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/audio/sennheiser/hd-650.htm [edit] Think for a moment about what is possible in a device as large as the Airpods Max. It could fit the guts of an Apple Watch, which can already stream audio via cell modem without a host computer (as long as you are using the Apple services). https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691
  • tomc1985 6y ago
    The last thing I want with my audio is some bullshit "computational experience" fucking with things and telling me what I want to hear. Mainstream taste in audio is crap. Designing headphones for a target audience that thinks Spotify HQ mode is sufficient is not going to produce a very good product, audio-quality-wise.
    • Bjartr 6y ago
      He's talking about the computation involved in turning any digital sound into the analog one needed for a speaker. If there's no cable between the digital-to-analog conversion chip and the analog speaker, there's no chance for cable characteristics to have an impact on the sound. I think you're taking about audio pre-processing stuff that Spotify or others do to qualitatively ""enhance"" audio for their lowest common denominator listeners, which is completely independent from what's being discussed.
      • tomc1985 6y ago
        The wording implies there is at least some level of extra DSP going on (talk of "dynamic EQ" or whatever notwithstanding). Calling a digital-to-analog converter a "computational experience" seems beyond the pale, even for Apple PR hacks
• clolege 6y ago
  > A $400 Sennheiser 650 will no doubt blow them away while still being $150 cheaper. Of course they will. But it's not fair to compare open backs with closed backs without a huge asterisk [0] > If you want the best sound quality for the buck, you usually need to go with open-backed (or simply “open”) headphones. The open (but uncomfortable) SR60 is probably the best value in the business, followed by the awesome DT-880, which is far better than everything in this review in both comfort and sound quality. But open headphones are like screen doors: they let all exterior noise in, and more importantly, they let all of your music out. This will annoy anyone around you, so it’s extremely inconsiderate to use open headphones in buses, trains, airplanes, shared offices, or anywhere else near other people, and it’s irresponsible to recommend them without this huge warning. [0] https://marco.org/headphones-closed-portable https://marco.org/headphones-closed-portable
  • pc86 6y ago
    Serious question. If open headphones (which I've never used) let everyone else hear what you're listening to, why would anybody ever use them? Isn't it better just to have decent speakers and not use headphones at all?
    • vorpalhex 6y ago
      TLDR sound bleed can be ok. With headphones, I can still hear my music at a loud volume with high quality while the noise outside of my home office is none. The only time someone would be affected would be if they walked into my home office. If I set my speakers to the same volume level, it'll disturb most nearby rooms in the house.
    • CDSlice 6y ago
      Not everyone has the space for a decent speaker setup. An open back pair of headphones will work anywhere as long as the environment isn't too loud. Another reason could be if you are living in an apartment with neighbors who won't be very happy with your speaker setup blasting sound through the walls into their apartment. Open back headphones do leak sound but in a much more localized area. Also, you can get a great pair of open back headphones for $200 or less and then with a $50-$100 amp have amazing sound. I haven't looked closely into speaker setups but I feel like a good speaker setup is going to cost more than that.
• PartiallyTyped 6y ago
  The scale you are looking for is logarithmic.
• andybak 6y ago
  I grew up listening to music on $20 dollar earphones (taking into account inflation). In later life I've upped my limit to around $80. I thought that was extravagant. I'm never going to come to grips with the concept of $500 headphones. It just seems insane.
  • matwood 6y ago
    I agree, and I own a pair AirPod Pros which I love.
  • iamben 6y ago
    TBF, until I spent what I considered 'proper' money ($200+) on headphones I didn't really 'get it'. But the difference my first 'proper' pair of headphones made to listening to music, I'm not sure I'd ever be happy going back. Agree $500 is a punchy headphone purchase though!
    • throwanem 6y ago
      TB equally F, by the time you have headphones, amp, and DAC, you'll be pretty close to that price anyway. HD 6XX + Magni/Modi is about the most cost-effective you can get, and with shipping you're looking at about $450 all told. Worth it for sure, but it's pretty rare when you get into this kind of stuff that you're just paying for headphones. (That said, an HD 598 or whatever replaced it in Sennheiser's line is a great intro - the quality of reproduction is very much in the same ballpark, and you don't need specialized equipment to drive it. Considerably cheaper, too.)
  • larrywright 6y ago
    A few years ago I bought a pair of Hifiman HE400i headphones for around $300 (they’re less than $200 now I think). These are wired, open-backed and have planar drivers. Going from a pair of $100 headphones to these was like night and day. I’m not an audiophile by any stretch, but wow is there a big difference. If you enjoy music, and are in a position to use open-back headphones, I’d highly recommend trying something like them in the ~$200 range. With proper care they should last many years.
• sirn 6y ago
  I have $4,000 audio setup (Sennheiser HDV820 + Sennheiser HD800) and honestly a $500 Sennheiser HD650 plugged directly to a 3.5mm adapter sounds way more fun in everyday use. The exponential quality curve only goes up to certain point and beyond that it's all about the sound characteristic (HD800/S is good for classical/jazz) and how much the manufacturer is going charge for it. That being said, I still use AirPods Pro a lot more than both HD800 and HD650 due to convenience of using it even though the sound quality is way worse. Fidelity isn't really much of a concern when I'm doing something else with background music. I'm very excited about AirPods Max.
  • tylerhou 6y ago
    FYI you can get an official HD650 equivalent (HD6XX) for $220. https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-sennheiser-hd6xx https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-sennheiser-hd6xx
• gumby 6y ago
  > Apple looks to be using plastic driver cones How is this apparent by looking at the stock photos of the assembled product? What factors make a better cone?
  • drcoopster 6y ago
    Maybe it's lighter than the alternative? Not everyone wants to wear a brick on their head. But just the word "plastic" doesn't really give any useful information. With all of the different formulations of plastics out there, the physical properties span an extremely wide range. Source: I work in the polymers/materials industry.
    • abc_lisper 6y ago
      Thanks for saying this. None of the people here have even tried the headphones yet, don’t know what they are made of, and don’t know how computational audio plays with material..
    • bzzzt 6y ago
      I own a pair of midrange Dali speakers which use compressed paper cones and sound really great. You need some material which is rigid enough to push the sound waves in the air, but light enough it can be pushed to high frequencies. If plastic works, why not?
• gowld 6y ago
  The defining featre of an "exponential" curve is that there is no "bend". The bend is an illusion create by arbitrarily imposed scale. What there is, "quality that matters to to you" and "price you can afford", and you should ignore the part of the curve with too-high price and too-low quality.
  • dev_tty01 6y ago
    Hmm. Don't see that. The defining feature of an exponential is that there is a bend everywhere. A linear plot has no bend. As long as my y axis is linear, I can always see a bend in the exponential curve no matter what scale I use on the left, provided you have the correct x axis limits to visualize the bend. As far as only paying attention to quality that we personally value and is affordable, I agree.
    • thehappypm 6y ago
      The point is a “bend” implies a spot like an elbow, where suddenly diminishing returns kick in. Exponential growth is a clean curve with no such spots. Move x units right, you’ll always get a y% boost.
• ghaff 6y ago
  That's true of a ton of things in audio, video, and lots of other things. Pros and enthusiasts spend thousands on gear that makes a tiny difference in experience, output quality, etc. It makes sense in some situations. But a lot of people who have the money also just overspend.
  • omosubi 6y ago
    so much of it seems to be a status play
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• nomeddie 6y ago
  You are paying more for the design and user experience with Apple. Sure, there is always something better though I doubt many listen to music that is of sufficient enough quality via their devices to hear the difference or had a really good pair to compare it to. Beats headphones proved that audio quality is not always what moves the market.
• spaceisballer 6y ago
  I’m curious of what is the quantifiable difference between those price brackets. It’s especially confusing to me how people are buying in ear headphones and spending hundreds of dollars and somehow getting a better sound than $50 ones.
• bzzzt 6y ago
  Your Sennheiser examples are wired headphones which are (essentially) unpowered speakers. The Apple one is technically a lot more complex with a good bluetooth chip (especially compared to the rest of the bluetooth offerings), some digital signal processing to make the 'simple' speakers sound better, a battery (+charging circuit) for 20 hours of wireless playback and a gyroscope to adjust the sound stage to your movement (and gives a decent Atmosphere representation). I presume a big part of the price of these high-tech cans is contributed by research and software development, not by materials...
  • fhood 6y ago
    The price is steep as is the apple way, but I agree that saying "EGAD How can they charge as much as HD6-whatevers" when those headphones basically require an external amp just to run is just a little silly.
• c1b 6y ago
  Both AirPods that have been released have already been wayyyyy better than every “established” earbud product in their price category. Don’t see why you would assume that AirPods Max would all of a sudden be worse.
• simias 6y ago
  >The difference between a $50 and $200 pair of headphones is staggering. You fall exactly for the trap the parent is talking about. "$50 earphones" and "$200 earphones" is meaningless. There are many reasons why earphones can be more or less expensive, many of which have nothing to do with audio quality. Things like wireless support, quality of the materials used and whatever brand is embossed on it. My $50 "studio" AKG 240 are probably as good as many $200 earphones, but they're all plastic and not wireless.
  • fhood 6y ago
    That's true, but when op says that, I assume they don't mean any $50 headphones, they mean the best (lets go with least harmonic distortion as our arbitrary criteria for "best") ones you can get in that price range, and for the most part they are describing a trend that DOES exist to some degree in almost any category of physical good you can buy, from power tools to kitchen appliances.
  • emsy 6y ago
    That’s an uncharitable interpretation. I understood it as “average quality to price correlation”.
    • simias 6y ago
      Right, but that's the thing, because these products these days are often fashion statements there's less and less correlation between price and quality, especially as you go towards very expensive devices. A $50 pair of headphones is almost certainly better than a $20 one. $500 vs. $200? Maybe. $5000 vs $2000? Who the hell knows.
      • tarsinge 6y ago
        The point is that at $50 the AKG 240 are already the maximum audio quality you can get (in the sense reproduction). They are literally made for studio professionals to monitor recordings. Do you think non professional people need better gear to listen than what was used to record? What you are really buying above that price is build quality, comfort, or misc features.
• UncleMeat 6y ago
  What does outperformed mean? Beats by Dre sell incredibly well in large part because they are a fashion statement. They also have cranked bass, which aggravates people who want accurate response but sounds great to people who put them on in a shop and hear "wow, this one sounds different". Apple products have long been sold as fashion and status symbols alongside their tech specs. Then they add the ease of integration into their ecosystem. Is that really the same as being "outperformed"?
• adembudak 6y ago
  Logorithmic
• janekm 6y ago
  Have another look at that internals picture (which is a render so take it with a grain of salt), they appear to be using an extremely unconventional arrangement of a rigid cone driven by two linear motors mounted at 45 degree angles to the driver axis. A rigid cone is challenging but a goal in many high-priced designs (less so for headphones but definitely in speaker drivers with say carbon fibre drivers). Dual actuators mounted like that could be interesting for spatial audio and may also be used to overcome some of the challenges with suspending rigid driver cones. In other words it should be interesting to see the reviews...
• JohnBooty 6y ago
  When it comes to high-end speaker/headphones drivers, plastic and/or paper are the preferred materials. Metal is not inherently superior in this application. It is different, not better. Stiffer materials are more resistant to cone breakup but that is not really an issue in tiny headphone drivers. Some headphone makers probably choose metal drivers for marketing reasons, because (as we see on this thread) consumers understandably think that metal is better than plastic. $100 Sennheiser HD 280 pros. A $400 Sennheiser 650 will no doubt blow them away Sure, lets look at the 650's objective performance. https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/sennheiser-hd-650.php#gsc.tab=0 https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/sennheiser... https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/sennheiser-hd-650-hd-6xx.3872/ https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/s... A +6dB hump at 5khz, followed by a (checks notes) -12dB (!!!) dip between there and 10khz. You may enjoy that sound, but it is (in a literal sense) not high fidelity. Above 4khz those Sennheisers do random things to the frequency response that an individual may or may not find enjoyable. And above 7khz it starts to become a simulation of high frequency hearing loss. I would probably enjoy it, because my old ears aren't great in the treble region. More to the point, we're comparing active DSP EQ'd headphones (the Apples) to a bunch of passive models. Physical construction of the drivers becomes less relevant when you can use onboard EQ to bend the frequency response however you like, and you don't have to worry about making your headphones' impedance curve work with a ridiculous array of amplifiers because it is mated to a known onboard amplifier. Now, I'm not claiming that the AirPods Max will be headphones to buy. I really don't like the sound of Bluetooth headphones in general, with the caveat that I haven't heard Sony's near-lossless LDAP codec. But these seem like a reasonable value proposition if you want wireless and a bunch of Apple-specific convenience features and you're in the market to drop a few hundred on some headphones that you might use for several thousand hours.
• tarsinge 6y ago
  What is the difference you are noticing? What is the performance you are talking about? It's the exact problem the parent is talking about, people have no idea so they talk about price.