That's true, I was more thinking of the smaller, boutique companies he mentioned. Sennheiser had $916mm in 2019 revenues. But consider that Apple is estimated t

That's true, I was more thinking of the smaller, boutique companies he mentioned. Sennheiser had $916mm in 2019 revenues. But consider that Apple is estimated to have close to $18b in total AirPods revenues in 2020. And my point isn't that they "must know nothing about audio," it is that they do not have some kind of monopoly on audio engineering. There is absolutely no reason why a company like Apple can't hire the very best people and give them insane amounts of resources to produce a better product. Also, it's important to remember that Sennheiser has dozens of products (I count 26 over-ear headphones alone on their website) and must spread R&D resources much thinner. Apple focuses all their energy and spend into just a couple of key products.