So hey what's up here I figured it out I got it I understand Air pods max now now it took me a couple days of listening and comparing and taking notes but I got it so the original question when these headphones were surprise announced was why is apple making 550 dollar wireless noise canceling headphones they better either sound incredible or have some kind of unreal feature to be worth that much over all the other headphones that we already know are good right well here's my take on where these fall so there's actually two types of high-end headphones right the first would be like reference type like studio grade actual production headphones so these are going to be lightweight they're going to have a super flat sound signature you're going to wear them for hours and hours on end and you often need extra hardware like a mini preamp or something like that to drive them they are geared for production and then on the other side there's just luxury listening there's just nice headphones that sound great for music and and podcasts and movies and and all kinds of consumer oriented features so you might have noise cancellation they might be wireless that's the other type they're geared for consumption so now this new pair of very expensive headphones I'm glad they didn't call them air pods studio because they land squarely in that second section of luxury listening and it was kind of confusing to pin them there at first because they do have a bunch of features and a bunch of really weird quirks that actually kind of resemble the other world I'll talk about those in a minute but fact is these headphones check a set of boxes that no other set of headphones I've ever tested can claim to check it's a really odd combination of pieces here but let's just start with the design right off the bat it's metal so these headphones have aluminum ear cups that get cold to the touch when you're outside in the winter and stainless steel headband frame here and so right away they've already started to differentiate themselves because virtually every other pair of high-end headphones or really any headphones out there are made of plastic but this metal build is dope it's got super tight tolerances the ear cups are even this like satin finish which I think would look even better as matte black apple why'd you send me the green one and the telescoping headband doesn't have notches but it's really smooth and it takes a lot of pull to move so it feels high quality too and the button and the digital crown up top are super nice they feel really high quality so if the metal build is so great why are these like the only pair of headphones doing the metal thing why are the rest of them all plastic well turns out the reason you don't see metal headphones very much is because all these other headphone companies have done the research and one of the primary factors for comfort for wearing headphones for a long time is their weight and metal is heavy much heavier than plastic so they've all realized that and they've all done plastic headphones because that's so much more comfortable to wear for a long time so this is something air pods macs have to work around so they do their best with this really thin flexible mesh in the top band that's supposed to sort of evenly distribute some of the weight on top of your head but there's no getting around that these are heavy headphones it's kind of like driving an electric car if you keep it in a straight line you can forget that it's heavy but as soon as you hit a corner you remember it's a heavy car and so for me if I sit still with these headphones for a while I totally forget the weight they just kind of sit on my head like a pillow but the second I nod my head or stand up to look at something or look up I remember they're quite heavy for the numbers people about 380 something grams versus 250 grams but you know what these do a pretty great job with the metal compared to how it could have been I have exactly one other pair of headphones that's made completely of metal and it's these remember these these are the beats pros 400 bucks all metal headphones and they bragged about how they're all metal and these did a terrible job with it these weigh 450 grams or something like that they're way heavier and they're about the least comfortable pair of headphones I've ever worn they pinch you right on the right underneath your ear they're on ear for some reason instead of over ear harsh they're brutal they squeeze your head like a lot unless your head is shaped like this which it's not so yeah it could have been a lot worse but then some other quick design notes there is no apple logo anywhere on these headphones so the design is actually it's actually kind of grown on me over the past few days it looks pretty clean and like I said matte black would look pretty sweet and also you should know there's no sweat or water resistance here so if you're an athlete or if you're looking to make these your gym headphones you want to walk around the city while it's raining or snowing or something like that probably reconsider apple went with over-ear headphones here instead of on-ear and I definitely prefer this the mesh ear cups with memory foam are nice and soft and very comfortable and through long listening sessions they've actually done better than leather I listen to more than two three hours in a row before my ears start to get hot and I needed a break which is pretty great and the ear cups are removable easily with magnets now this is a quirk you pretty much never see in consumer headphones but the fact is you really should be somewhat regularly replacing the actual ear cup part of your headphones that you keep for a long time but most people never do but here it makes sense you know these are going to be metal headphones that will hopefully last you a long time many many years of use but this piece that you want to stay the same will eventually compress and start to crack and get old and faded you get a new pair it keeps the driver the same distance from your ear all that good stuff just by replacing it now apple's going to sell you replacements for 69 bucks which is definitely overpriced there's no way they're worth that much money but I got to give them credit for the system here at least they're easy to replace and you can mix and match colors if you want to the lack of touch controls I think were a good call here on the air pods max apple added a larger version of that digital crown from the apple watch up top but basically it's just a fancy knob that you rotate for volume and press for media controls and it works great it's got really satisfying clicks and you can reverse the direction of the spin in IOS software if you want to but they cost 550 they better sound like god himself whispering in my ear for that much money how do they sound well they sound like luxury listening which is to say really really good now listen I'm gone preface this by saying I'm not an audiophile like probably every other review at this time but I've listened to a lot of headphones at this point I know what I like and these sound really good air pods macs have these big 40 millimeter drivers behind those ear cups and they sound excellent super clear at all volumes I was impressed by the ultra low distortion at high volumes too and they do get loud enough that I should never need to listen at 100 volume I max out at probably 75 to 85 percent you obviously approach the limits of how good things can sound over wireless when you're just listening to streaming services and Bluetooth but with high quality Spotify streaming quality I'm loving this solid punchy bass and even a little deep sub bass .Its sound is best .This is best air pods by apple.
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