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This is big. Although to be honest I'm still trying to understand how a company that sells quality stuff is buying the headphones that most audiophiles think is

This is big. Although to be honest I'm still trying to understand how a company that sells quality stuff is buying the headphones that most audiophiles think is meh. Is all this really just for the name?

JonnieCache 12y ago
Audiophiles already think ipods sound meh. Which they in fact do, it is a fact that the DACs aren't great. Neither are the headphones that ship in the box. Apple products are not marketed on their audio fidelity.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Not quite true - Mac desktops are marketed as audio processing units. They even come with the software preinstalled. They took pains to make the mic-speaker loop low-latency so you could listen to yourself as you record. Since other products are all about the audio experience, it does seem strange that the iPod, the device which most of humanity uses to experience music, does such a poor job. And Apple doesn't care. And neither do the people listening. Strange.
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    The inbuilt microphones do work very well. The whole loop is, as you say, heavily adjusted to compensate for the resonances of the unit. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some quite fancy DSP powering that. I thought that was for making facetime and skype etc work well though? Musicians are not using the built-in audio interface, regardless of quality considerations, it lacks the necessary functionality.
  - bananas 12y ago
    I don't buy that. Everyone I know has a sub $100 USB interface hanging off their machine and swears constantly at the latency and wishes they'd just stuck with ASIO on Windows... Personally I still have a workstation... As for the iPods they sound horrible. The latest line of nano has noticeable noise on the outputs.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Since Windows Vista there has been 100ms latency added to the audio loop. So you're experience was Xp? Keep that machine around. USB interfaces are a terrible idea - they are polled and add latency every time.
      - bananas 12y ago
        That's basically rubbish and misinformation. You're complaining about WDM audio. There's built in WaveRT and external ASIO stacks as well. The latter has become the standard on Windows for professional audio and is direct hardware access. USB audio devices are and aren't polled. The cheap ass speakers and stuff are but anything $20+ are buffered raw device access. I can get 8ms out of a Windows 7 laptop with ASIO over USB that isn't even tuned. My Korg Triton Studio manages about 4ms and that's seriously high end kit.
        JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Right, ASIO isn't Windows its 3rd-party to work around the Win7 issues. WaveRT is what WDM uses, right? With the associated delays going user/kernel mode. How does that help? And USB devices are polled, at three levels as I recall - 'control', 'interrupt' including 'isochronous' and 'bulk transfer'. The frame interval depends on the USB speed - and I see they are sub-millisecond. SO very adequate for audio sampling. I used to use it for serial protocols, and that frame rate was entirely inadequate for signalling so I formed my low opinion of USB at that time.
wging 12y ago
This confused me too, but the quality of the headphones that come with Apple's products is not reputed to be great either. (I can't say whether this is true. Hearsay at best.)
- taiki 12y ago
  EarPods are quite decent and the design is very ingenious. However, the response is pretty neutral. I'd imagine the Beats acquisition is probably at least in part to make better headphones. I don't know if Beats' streaming licenses are transferrable.
- CodeWithCoffee 12y ago
  The old Apple headphones were average (for their price), but overall the newer EarPods are much, much better.
digitalengineer 12y ago
It's about the streaming music service: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/beats-music-vs-spotify/#!LqZbk http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/beats-music-vs-spotify/#...
- brown9-2 12y ago
  1. Isn't it likely that any streaming rights are cancelled in case of acquisition? That seems like a no-brainer for the music execs to put in a contract. 2. And aren't streaming rights only good for a few years anyway?
  - ianhawes 12y ago
    Not to mention, Rdio destroys Spotify and Beats Music on all levels.
gurkendoktor 12y ago
Apple's iPod division was always more fashion-based than the rest of the company. Now that iPod sales are declining, maybe the fashion aspect will live on in the headphones?
- kevin818 12y ago
  Never looked at it that way. Great point!

JonnieCache 12y ago

Audiophiles already think ipods sound meh. Which they in fact do, it is a fact that the DACs aren't great. Neither are the headphones that ship in the box. Apple products are not marketed on their audio fidelity.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Not quite true - Mac desktops are marketed as audio processing units. They even come with the software preinstalled. They took pains to make the mic-speaker loop low-latency so you could listen to yourself as you record. Since other products are all about the audio experience, it does seem strange that the iPod, the device which most of humanity uses to experience music, does such a poor job. And Apple doesn't care. And neither do the people listening. Strange.
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  The inbuilt microphones do work very well. The whole loop is, as you say, heavily adjusted to compensate for the resonances of the unit. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some quite fancy DSP powering that. I thought that was for making facetime and skype etc work well though? Musicians are not using the built-in audio interface, regardless of quality considerations, it lacks the necessary functionality.
- bananas 12y ago
  I don't buy that. Everyone I know has a sub $100 USB interface hanging off their machine and swears constantly at the latency and wishes they'd just stuck with ASIO on Windows... Personally I still have a workstation... As for the iPods they sound horrible. The latest line of nano has noticeable noise on the outputs.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Since Windows Vista there has been 100ms latency added to the audio loop. So you're experience was Xp? Keep that machine around. USB interfaces are a terrible idea - they are polled and add latency every time.
    - bananas 12y ago
      That's basically rubbish and misinformation. You're complaining about WDM audio. There's built in WaveRT and external ASIO stacks as well. The latter has become the standard on Windows for professional audio and is direct hardware access. USB audio devices are and aren't polled. The cheap ass speakers and stuff are but anything $20+ are buffered raw device access. I can get 8ms out of a Windows 7 laptop with ASIO over USB that isn't even tuned. My Korg Triton Studio manages about 4ms and that's seriously high end kit.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Right, ASIO isn't Windows its 3rd-party to work around the Win7 issues. WaveRT is what WDM uses, right? With the associated delays going user/kernel mode. How does that help? And USB devices are polled, at three levels as I recall - 'control', 'interrupt' including 'isochronous' and 'bulk transfer'. The frame interval depends on the USB speed - and I see they are sub-millisecond. SO very adequate for audio sampling. I used to use it for serial protocols, and that frame rate was entirely inadequate for signalling so I formed my low opinion of USB at that time.

wging 12y ago

This confused me too, but the quality of the headphones that come with Apple's products is not reputed to be great either. (I can't say whether this is true. Hearsay at best.)

taiki 12y ago
EarPods are quite decent and the design is very ingenious. However, the response is pretty neutral. I'd imagine the Beats acquisition is probably at least in part to make better headphones. I don't know if Beats' streaming licenses are transferrable.
CodeWithCoffee 12y ago
The old Apple headphones were average (for their price), but overall the newer EarPods are much, much better.

digitalengineer 12y ago

It's about the streaming music service: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/beats-music-vs-spotify/#!LqZbk http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/beats-music-vs-spotify/#...

brown9-2 12y ago
1. Isn't it likely that any streaming rights are cancelled in case of acquisition? That seems like a no-brainer for the music execs to put in a contract. 2. And aren't streaming rights only good for a few years anyway?
- ianhawes 12y ago
  Not to mention, Rdio destroys Spotify and Beats Music on all levels.

gurkendoktor 12y ago

Apple's iPod division was always more fashion-based than the rest of the company. Now that iPod sales are declining, maybe the fashion aspect will live on in the headphones?

kevin818 12y ago
Never looked at it that way. Great point!