5 ms·

While I can understand that bluetooth limits the data transmission rate, now it becomes even more puzzling that the AirPods Max don't support data transmission

by _ph_ 5y ago

While I can understand that bluetooth limits the data transmission rate, now it becomes even more puzzling that the AirPods Max don't support data transmission via lightning cable. With that they could fully support lossless and high res audio in full quality. How can Apple release such expensive, some people even used the word "overpriced" headphones without that features, especially with the new tiers of Apple Music coming?

herodoturtle 5y ago
I tend to agree with this. For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling. That way I don't have to worry about battery running out either. I often work for 10+ hours and 4 hours of battery on AirPods pro frustrates me when I have to regularly charge them during the day. Then with USB-C could also get superior audio quality than Bluetooth. I'm considering getting the Bose QC20 as a compromise. But still... they're also somewhat battery dependent.
- nucleardog 5y ago
  For what it’s worth, I’ve got the Bose QC35 and regardless of whatever the battery claims are, I often get multiple working days out of them. They also have a pretty light clamping force compared to most over ear headphones I have or have used, so even with glasses they’re quite comfortable to wear all day. And if the batteries do run out, they still work as headphones (sans ANC) with a cable. The QC20 kinda seem like the worst of all worlds for me. Wired so you’ve got cables to catch on things, battery-dependant, in-ear…
  - herodoturtle 5y ago
    I've got the QC35ii as well and absolutely love them. Best comfort and ANC. But I'm specifically looking for earbuds with good ANC. I've got puffy hair and when I take the QC35s off my flattened valley hairdo looks absolutely ridiculous :-) AirPods pro have good ANC - almost as good as QC35 - but their battery life is too short. And it's just for desk use; so I don't mind if they're wired. Hope that helps explain my context! I sound like an absolute fusspot.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling. Well you're in luck because Huawei, Samsung and Razer make these things.
  - herodoturtle 5y ago
    Thanks for this comment. I've tried the Razer Hammerheads and the ANC is terrible. But will give the other two a go. Cheers.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      I wouldn't have high hopes though. Getting ANC to work in consumer earbuds(not earphones) is a tough nut to crack. Even the big players like Huawei, Sennheiser and Samsung struggle with it. They seem to only work in a narrow set of cases like being next to an AC unit or a food blender but get stuck at day to day sounds like cars, trains, crowds of people talking, dishes and cutlery clinking, doors slamming, etc. Sometimes I feel like they even amplify these sounds instead.
- CydeWeys 5y ago
  I'm impressed you can wear earbuds all day. I can't even wear headphones all day, let alone earbuds. Earbuds for me max out at about one hour at a time before they get too uncomfortable.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    I find it depends. I wear glasses and have fairly big ears [0], so headphones become painful fairly quickly. Some earbuds are uncomfortable, I can't stand the standard iPhone ones, and the Samsung's' wire makes a lot of noise when touching something ever so slightly. I have a pair of intra-articulars with foam tips (like the ones you buy for studying) and they're very, very comfortable. I can wear them for hours on end. The tips come in several sizes, so it's important to pick the right one. The only issue is that they're not easy to put on: I have to squish the foam, put them on, then hold them in place a bit until the foam expands. In an office setting, if I have to do this often it gets old really quickly. Noise isolation is great, too, so I can't leave them on if I have to talk to someone. --- [0] I've tried "around ear" phones, but they don't go around enough, and end up pressing on the outer ear, which, with the glasses, gets painful.
    - Godel_unicode 5y ago
      I have forgotten I was wearing my Shure 535s to the extent that I have looked for them while wearing them.
      - vladvasiliu 5y ago
        Ha, yeah, my intras are actually Shures, too, the 425. Bought mine around 2010-2011, I remember it being a pretty big purchase as a student. Probably one of the best investments I've ever made, I still absolutely love using them.
      - herodoturtle 5y ago
        Heya, pardon my jumping in randomly here, but I read your comment with interest. I wasn't aware of these Shure earbuds, so I've been reading up on the 535s and they look pretty great. Can you comment on the sound isolation? Please feel free to go full audiophile on me. And is the passive noise cancelling reasonable? Thanks :-)
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  For me, the holy grail is a 3.5mm plug.' Fantastic audio quality, and I can plug my headphones practically every audio device manufactured in the past 100 years (except for the iPhone).
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    YMMV as they say. My work laptop has pretty bad background noise on the headphone out, audible even with a cheap audio-conferencing setup while doing nothing. If I plug in an external display and start giving the CPU a workout, it becomes torture. Bluetooth on the same computer is silent, and the ausio quality seems limited by the headphones (Sony WH-1000 with LDAC). I know some computers and phones have good analog audio quality, but the point is it's not universal, especially when using an "enterprise" computer which you can't choose.
  - pochamago 5y ago
    I just upgraded from a Pixel 2 to the 4a, and I love having a 3.5 back so much. I really hope the removal of them is a temporary blip in tech history
- Kirby64 5y ago
  https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/anc-type-c-headphones-black-eo-ic500bbegus/ https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/... Samsung makes these. ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality, but I've heard they're decent.
  - herodoturtle 5y ago
    Thanks will check these out. Maybe the ANC will be good enough? > ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality I wish Bose would just make a USB-C powered version of their QC20. I don't understand why I have to rely on battery powered ANC when it's already a wired device.
darkwater 5y ago
To add on top of that, they own the full stack, they can (as they already did in the past) use their 100% proprietary way to achieve this. They don't obey to common standards.
periheli0n 5y ago
I think the real question is why AirPods Max have received tons of praise for their unmatched audio quality when they were released, and now suddenly are talked down to second tier because they don’t support lossless? I mean, surely all those audiophile testers were aware that they are listening to compressed music? Or is this a recent realisation?
- _ph_ 5y ago
  To be honest, I don't think that this is a big limitation in practice. The AirPods max do sound excellent and I do think that "lossless" audio is a bit overrated, a high quality AAC file can sound quite amazing. So personally, I am more interested in the spatial audio which is fully supported. But considering that some people think that lossless audio is important it is not understandable that the Apple flagship headphones which just have been released do not support it.
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    The problem seems to be with the data rate that is possible over Bluetooth, isn’t it?
    - _ph_ 5y ago
      Yes, for wireless mode bluetooth is probably the limitation. They could have supported data via lightning cable, if they had wanted it, but currently only analog audio is supported via a custom lightning cable.
      - periheli0n 5y ago
        But isn’t analog audio identical to lossless?
        tshaddox 5y ago
        Not when the headphones re-digitize the analog signal, which I suspect is how they are designed to support the signal processing and noise cancellation features.
amelius 5y ago
Because now they can sell you two pairs of earphones.

by _ph_ 5y ago

herodoturtle 5y ago

I tend to agree with this. For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling. That way I don't have to worry about battery running out either. I often work for 10+ hours and 4 hours of battery on AirPods pro frustrates me when I have to regularly charge them during the day. Then with USB-C could also get superior audio quality than Bluetooth. I'm considering getting the Bose QC20 as a compromise. But still... they're also somewhat battery dependent.

nucleardog 5y ago
For what it’s worth, I’ve got the Bose QC35 and regardless of whatever the battery claims are, I often get multiple working days out of them. They also have a pretty light clamping force compared to most over ear headphones I have or have used, so even with glasses they’re quite comfortable to wear all day. And if the batteries do run out, they still work as headphones (sans ANC) with a cable. The QC20 kinda seem like the worst of all worlds for me. Wired so you’ve got cables to catch on things, battery-dependant, in-ear…
- herodoturtle 5y ago
  I've got the QC35ii as well and absolutely love them. Best comfort and ANC. But I'm specifically looking for earbuds with good ANC. I've got puffy hair and when I take the QC35s off my flattened valley hairdo looks absolutely ridiculous :-) AirPods pro have good ANC - almost as good as QC35 - but their battery life is too short. And it's just for desk use; so I don't mind if they're wired. Hope that helps explain my context! I sound like an absolute fusspot.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>For me the holy grail is USB-C powered earbuds with active noise cancelling. Well you're in luck because Huawei, Samsung and Razer make these things.
- herodoturtle 5y ago
  Thanks for this comment. I've tried the Razer Hammerheads and the ANC is terrible. But will give the other two a go. Cheers.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    I wouldn't have high hopes though. Getting ANC to work in consumer earbuds(not earphones) is a tough nut to crack. Even the big players like Huawei, Sennheiser and Samsung struggle with it. They seem to only work in a narrow set of cases like being next to an AC unit or a food blender but get stuck at day to day sounds like cars, trains, crowds of people talking, dishes and cutlery clinking, doors slamming, etc. Sometimes I feel like they even amplify these sounds instead.
CydeWeys 5y ago
I'm impressed you can wear earbuds all day. I can't even wear headphones all day, let alone earbuds. Earbuds for me max out at about one hour at a time before they get too uncomfortable.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  I find it depends. I wear glasses and have fairly big ears [0], so headphones become painful fairly quickly. Some earbuds are uncomfortable, I can't stand the standard iPhone ones, and the Samsung's' wire makes a lot of noise when touching something ever so slightly. I have a pair of intra-articulars with foam tips (like the ones you buy for studying) and they're very, very comfortable. I can wear them for hours on end. The tips come in several sizes, so it's important to pick the right one. The only issue is that they're not easy to put on: I have to squish the foam, put them on, then hold them in place a bit until the foam expands. In an office setting, if I have to do this often it gets old really quickly. Noise isolation is great, too, so I can't leave them on if I have to talk to someone. --- [0] I've tried "around ear" phones, but they don't go around enough, and end up pressing on the outer ear, which, with the glasses, gets painful.
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    I have forgotten I was wearing my Shure 535s to the extent that I have looked for them while wearing them.
    - vladvasiliu 5y ago
      Ha, yeah, my intras are actually Shures, too, the 425. Bought mine around 2010-2011, I remember it being a pretty big purchase as a student. Probably one of the best investments I've ever made, I still absolutely love using them.
    - herodoturtle 5y ago
      Heya, pardon my jumping in randomly here, but I read your comment with interest. I wasn't aware of these Shure earbuds, so I've been reading up on the 535s and they look pretty great. Can you comment on the sound isolation? Please feel free to go full audiophile on me. And is the passive noise cancelling reasonable? Thanks :-)
toomanybeersies 5y ago
For me, the holy grail is a 3.5mm plug.' Fantastic audio quality, and I can plug my headphones practically every audio device manufactured in the past 100 years (except for the iPhone).
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  YMMV as they say. My work laptop has pretty bad background noise on the headphone out, audible even with a cheap audio-conferencing setup while doing nothing. If I plug in an external display and start giving the CPU a workout, it becomes torture. Bluetooth on the same computer is silent, and the ausio quality seems limited by the headphones (Sony WH-1000 with LDAC). I know some computers and phones have good analog audio quality, but the point is it's not universal, especially when using an "enterprise" computer which you can't choose.
- pochamago 5y ago
  I just upgraded from a Pixel 2 to the 4a, and I love having a 3.5 back so much. I really hope the removal of them is a temporary blip in tech history
Kirby64 5y ago
https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/anc-type-c-headphones-black-eo-ic500bbegus/ https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/mobile-accessories/phones/... Samsung makes these. ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality, but I've heard they're decent.
- herodoturtle 5y ago
  Thanks will check these out. Maybe the ANC will be good enough? > ANC is certainly not Bose/Sony quality I wish Bose would just make a USB-C powered version of their QC20. I don't understand why I have to rely on battery powered ANC when it's already a wired device.

darkwater 5y ago

To add on top of that, they own the full stack, they can (as they already did in the past) use their 100% proprietary way to achieve this. They don't obey to common standards.

periheli0n 5y ago

I think the real question is why AirPods Max have received tons of praise for their unmatched audio quality when they were released, and now suddenly are talked down to second tier because they don’t support lossless? I mean, surely all those audiophile testers were aware that they are listening to compressed music? Or is this a recent realisation?

_ph_ 5y ago
To be honest, I don't think that this is a big limitation in practice. The AirPods max do sound excellent and I do think that "lossless" audio is a bit overrated, a high quality AAC file can sound quite amazing. So personally, I am more interested in the spatial audio which is fully supported. But considering that some people think that lossless audio is important it is not understandable that the Apple flagship headphones which just have been released do not support it.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  The problem seems to be with the data rate that is possible over Bluetooth, isn’t it?
  - _ph_ 5y ago
    Yes, for wireless mode bluetooth is probably the limitation. They could have supported data via lightning cable, if they had wanted it, but currently only analog audio is supported via a custom lightning cable.
    - periheli0n 5y ago
      But isn’t analog audio identical to lossless?
      - tshaddox 5y ago
        Not when the headphones re-digitize the analog signal, which I suspect is how they are designed to support the signal processing and noise cancellation features.

amelius 5y ago

Because now they can sell you two pairs of earphones.