First post so apologies in advance for mistakes.
Apple AirPods Pros are $799 at Rosman Computers with free postage, can price beat at Officeworks (have confirmed) for $759.
Have noticed the Space Grey ones are also on sale for $809. Link here: https://rosmancomputers.com.au/apple-airpods-max-space-gray/
+1 on the AirPods Pro's ambient sound mode. It is just so natural and as if you don't have anything between your ear and the outside. The AirPods Pro's ambient sound mode also acts like a hearing aid and I was able to hear conversations of people behind/beside me. Helped me secure a rental property without overpaying!
For (profanity) sake, James Bond should use them.
Quick call Q
Could you please expand on the rental property situation and how your AirPods Pro helped? That sounds awesome though (literally).
I was in the market for a short term rental apartment. I visited one apartment that I really like during inspection day and there were 4 other who were also interested. In the night before I had already submitted an application with a price within my budget. I've visited the building before so I was very familiar with the internal layout. The visit during inspection day is basically to confirm what I already know. The rental agent informed me over the phone that the 'owner' wanted a higher price than the price I proposed. The variance was about $100 per week which was ridiculous. Back to inspection day, the 4 other prospective tenants were lining up, taking their turn to ask questions and negotiate. Since I already know most of the details of the apartment unit, I 'stayed away' but not too far from the 'private discussions'. I think the distance was about few metres. I had to look away so that my Airpods' mic is directly angled to the discussion. To my surprise I could hear their conversation if I really focus on it. From this, I found out how much they could afford and their budget. None of them were able to meet the landlord's rental price. And my price was merely $25 higher than the highest offer the other prospective tenant was willing to pay.
So after the rest has left, I stayed back to discuss with the agent further. Knowing what I know (oversupply, little tenants in the price range and very competitive market) and the fact that the agent don't know what I already know (lol!), I maintained my price position. You should see how fast the agent switch tactics from letting you chase them to courting you when they realise they have no better offers.
@Davesday: That's a great story lol, glad to hear that your super hearing abilities allowed you to maintain that price position :)
@Davesday: I did similar with my XM3 headphones today while I was at the hospital waiting for my son to get an xray except it was just me be nosey and listening to people describe their ailments to the check in desk.
@Davesday: this is why i prefer email or electronic conversations… there is always someone listening into in person convos 🤪
AirPods Pro's ambient sound transparency mode (FTFY)
yeah… i feel the WF-1000XM3 (the TWS) ambient mode is not good.. anyone think different ?
These are great, I went from Bose QC3511, Bose 700, Beats studio wireless, AirPods pro, to these.
Does the metal construction make it feel heavier on your head?
No they don't feel heavy on and are a great fit for me, get better with use too. Worth it if you have multiple apple gear switching between. Transparency is so good and the NC, the button to switch between is excellent. So is the volume dial.
Def worth it at this price.
AirPods pro never worked for me.
Were you keeping the old once or selling them? Just curious
Sold the bose, returned the airpods pro and my daughter has the beats if that is what you meant.
Cool, I thought you might be collecting them all.
are the Bose 700's or the Max a good fit for fat heads?
are you joking lol?
no I'm serious… every headphone I've tried just has too much clamping force on my head.
@robo11: Ok, i don't find them tight i am 6"3 90kg not sure if my melon is big or not lol. You can stretch them out.
Check this.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/airpods-max-too-tight-o…
Do you use them in public and if so do people look at you like you are crazy and unique, or do people not seem to notice? Always worried about wearing huge headphones outside.
No, I work from home so don’t go anywhere I would use them, maybe a plane one day. I use one AirPod for waking my dog lol, that probably looks worse.
Hope someone does the price beat at Officeworks. Fun.
Too rich for my blood though.
thank you for making me feel better.
Worth a try, just don't be surprised if Uncle Jack visits
I almost barfed my coffee onto the monitor reading this comment.
Didn't get the joke :(
Only showing $50 off
Thanks for the link, $730.15 with the ebay voucher today
Sub 700 if you use the Swap GCs 5% off.
Took me months to justify getting Airpods Pro, then a few weeks to get them replaced by Apple lol Now that I couldn't get the mic to work with my NUC, won't go anywhere near it until I know this would work with Windows 10 >_< It's the price of half a new iPhone too.
A big advocate for the AirPods pro. Not sure if I could fork out the price for over-ear headphones but I'd imagine they would be really good for anyone currently in the apple ecosystem / has the need for over-ear headphones
Got mine and absolutely love them to bits. The noise cancellation is top notch so much so that I cant even hear myself speaking, transparency mode is magic and the sound quality is seriously good - so good infact that I think these are the best sounding bluetooth headphones I have ever heard. Its like listening to my music all over again, i am hearing instruments that I never heard before. The only con is that they are heavy - which is not a problem at all when wearing because the design spreads weight over the head like no other but when you are walking about, the inertia due to weight is something you need to be careful about.
If you can afford it, I would say they are well worth the money.
Ya I know you mate :D, but you have never used a Sony WH1000XM3 with an android phone that support LDAC, Apt X HD and Hi Res Audio though.
https://www.headphonecheck.com/test/sony-wh-1000xm3/
On that note this is potentially $80 cheaper ($40 price beat OW , $40 using gift cards) than at Costco :D
Just curious, what is your source of music - Spotify, Apple Music or your own local collection? Jsut owndering would the source file quality play any role?
Apple Music. I have owned Bose QC 35II and Bose 700 in the past.
These only support 256 kbps AAC, so doesn't matter if you're using lossless files or not
Oh a troll, nevermind.
It's like Apple just make up stupid prices and the fanboys keep paying it
just like samsung hiked their prices to match apple lol, now that is overpriced garbage that lasts half as long and prices tank.
As correct as you are, this is a very Apple product, with the prices to match the badge. The H95 is probably for the more serious audiophile, while the AirPod Max is targetted at audiophiles, but I'm confident more casual listeners are more likely to cop this due to the badge over something like a H9 or H95
And it's priced to match. People shit on a product because it is Apple. Whether it is worth the asking price or not is beside the point. Case in point, all the comments on the Airtags post saying how crap and overpriced they are despite the fact that they are cheaper than similarly specced competition and have a user replaceable battery.
Fact is, the AirPods Max have a lot more in common with the H95 than they do the XM4. XM4 to APM is not an apple to apple comparison (no pun intended).
@Morien: Yeah agreed. APM is far better than the XM4s. Sennheiser M3s are the only pair of wireless headphones I've tried that has better sound compared to the APM. However, with APM you get a shit ton of convenience within an Apple Ecosystem and class leading noise cancelling.
I think its more that Apple, blended audiophile grade sound but wireless with ANC, and the first thing a general person would think is that "well is it better than the XM4s", which is been hailed as the "best" for ANC and just overall performance. But most audiophiles would not approve the XM4s.
But yeah the APM is very good. They are better than XM4s and QCs. But is it worth $800, probably not if you're just gonna compare the sound quality and stage - which is obviously very important when listening to music.
But if you're apart of that ecosystem and are looking for a wireless headphones, there is none better, because it still sounds very good, its seamless with Apple devices and the ANC is great. But most audiophiles won't go there unless they're in the second category, which means normal consumers will pay the premium for that experience if they can afford it.
@cactusjuice: Shure Aonic 50 is worth your money at $350ish if you're not enamoured with fancier ANC and metal earcups. LC3Plus should bring a string of new wireless headphone designs into the mix though, and I'd expect a lot better value in the ANC and non-ANC segment.
But what you can do for $150-$350 with wired audio still steps all over every ANC headphone you guys are discussing here. You're paying for all the ANC R&D.
These surely surely can't be that much better than the XM3s which are less than half the price (and XM3s are still considerably more expensive than competitors). Are Apple products just a status symbol now and if so, is OzBargain really their target demographic?
Mine havn't left the house so no status symbol here, don't be so shallow lol.
Not sure how you can infer that I'm shallow from asking a question. Cynical? Maybe. But shallow?
I have xm4's. These do sound better, not double better or anything like that but they do sound very good.
Their strength is in seamless use. Just put on your ears and away you go. No BT pairing, just pick them up with whatever device you want and use them if you are on ios.
The transparency mode is truly amazing for phone calls though.
I wonder how much an all-metal set of XM4s would cost…
They are better than Sony's for sure and not just at one thing, overall. I am not sure how do you quantify if the music quality is good enough to pay twice the price for them. I am not even sure what people mean when they say "do they sound twice as good". To be honest anyone can build a good enough set of headphones, as proven by Taotronics and it can be argued if the Sony's are 4 times as good as them as they are approximately 4 times the price.
As with any expensive gear, most of the cheaper products would be within 70-80% of the best (just like a mid level Android phone), the good one's among them would be 90% as good but as they the last 10% is the hardest to reach and that is where Airpod Max win it.
Prior to any Airpods with noise cancellation, transparency mode just meant amplifying outside noise without ever caring about how to make it into an experience that it almost feels like wearing no headphones at all. It is not just amplified sound being played into the ears, like everyone else does it, it is placing you in the middle of the noise and you can make out what noise is coming from where. Has anyone been able to match it? No, they arent even in the same league. So how much are you prepared to pay for that? Same goes for the sound quality - for a closed back headphone the imaging is absolutely first rate, you can hear the instrument go from left to right or that the sound of the guitar string as it moves the air around it. Perhaps you dont want to feel it or dont really care or it is there although not as obvious as Airpod Max, again the question is, how much are you willing to pay for it? Question is are you looking for good enough or the best and whether the best justify's your value equation whatever that might be.
To me they are worth it - the battery is replaceable, the ear cushions are a doddle to replace and it also makes you wonder why did no one thought about having magnet ear cushions at first place and the reason is that all of them are just trying to build a product good enough to compete either noise cancellation or EQ but not the best overall product. Their music quality is the best in class and so is transparency mode and noise cancellation and most importantly they are not built like a cheap disposable product and a lot of care has been put into their design and their materials and such care does not happen by accident. I can believe when someone says that they have been under development for a numbers of year - I can see the effort right from when I hold the product in my hand to when I actually use it to taking it to Apple for aftersales support if I had any issue with it.
Yes the carrying case looks ridiculous but its functional. It was not designed to protect the headphones as much as it was designed to put them into ultra low power mode so that when they are taken out of the case, they simply connect to your iPhone without you pressing a single button. There is just no friction in using them, just like the original Airpods or the Airpod Pro's. There are no silly touch controls just so that it can be put into the spec sheet as a feature without ever caring how people actually use their headphones or whether they even want touch controls in first place or whether those touch controls even work as advertised. They are just trying to complete with each other and not paying enough attention in creating the best product they can.
In case you want to hear them for yourself and still think "how much better do they sound", have a look at this review and please wear your headphones while you do - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReuDIYYk3fk&t
I am not saying they are for everyone but if you care for such stuff, they are worth their price easily.
Great sales pitch, I'd be curious to try a pair some day. I don't get why Apple fans keep boasting about the seamless connection to their devices; is Bluetooth really that hard to use? When I turn on my XM3s, they automatically connect to my phone too. My XM3s touch controls are amazing as well and I can switch to what you guys call transparency mode without pressing any buttons (hand on left ear and it's incredible how responsive it is and how great it sounds). The experience with ANC is incredibly immersive; it feels like a VR headset for your ears. I remember comparing the XM3s to QCIIs when I was buying and the former by far had better transparency mode, as well having a slightly better ANC, while being cheaper. I think people should remember that while price range can sometimes be an indicator of quality, price itself definitely isn't.
The only thing I can see that sets apart these cans are the metal frame, which do look pretty cool. But I've look at quite a few review websites and just about none of them put AirPod Maxes above the XM4s for audio quality, not that us laypeople will be able to hear the difference anyway without some immediate point of comparison. Weighing it all up, it's hard to justify this near-extortion of their loyal user base.
I'll say this though. Apple fans are always so positive when touting Apple products and they do it in a way that doesn't necessarily disparage competitors. It's always great to see the excitement about new technologies, but it can be a little misguided in some cases.
I dont care whether you buy it or not. I can also see why people find them expensive and they are but if you are going to tell me that XM3's are as good without even trying them once, I am going to call you on your BS. XM3's arent even close. Read that again. Not even close.
@dealsucker: Not according to just about every 2021 top 10 list on over-ear headphones.
https://www.techradar.com/news/audio/portable-audio/best-ove…
1. Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro
2. Sony WH-1000XM4
12. Apple AirPods Max
https://www.ign.com/articles/best-over-ear-headphones
1. Audio-Technica ATH-M50x
4. Sony WH-1000XM4
9. Apple AirPods Max
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-over-ear-headphone…
1. Sony WH-1000XM4
3. Apple AirPods Max
I've tried the XM3 and the Apple ones and the difference with music is very noticeable. Is it worth it for better sound? Up to the individual, but the sound cancelling was streets ahead and the sound quality was in another league.
Try them out, they are very, very good. They aren't cheap, but around the $700 mark seems about the right position price-wise. You have to step up over a grand to get better sound, and you miss out on the other features. The thing that blew me away was how it maintained the same sound, even when you moved them around on your ears, not sure how they manage that.
They are big, but very comfortable. My brother left them with me for a week, and now I really, really miss them. I've ordered the refurb XM4s from the other deal, they will do for work, but if I was buying a pair for home, for dedicated music listening, I'd go the Apple ones for this price. Im just not home enough to justify it.
Got a pair of these since launch day so I have been using them for over 4 mos and I will honestly not use anything else in the wireless around the ear space. I have owned QC35 i and ii, Sony XM3 and 4 and the Bose 700 and the sound quality of these is just better, noice-cancellation: best of the best and if you have multiple apple products, it’s a joy to use/switch audio sources. If you can afford it, go for it!
Do you have issues with condensation ?
Ref: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/07/airpods-max-owners-ear-…
I only had a pair on loan for a week, but didn't get that issue.
Worth of they have a M1 inside 😂
They do but it's a H. H1
in b4 ‘oMg EiGht HUNDRED dOLLars’
excellent headphones and price OP thanks for sharing
Cheers :)
You could get 10 Taotronic BH090s for the price of one of these. I think I will stick with Taotronics for now.
It is a good product for those people who actually buy headphones for $700-$900. If you can’t spare that much money for headphones (regardless of the brand), this is not for you.
However, there is one serious drawback with AirPods Max. They don’t come with a travel case. What Apple includes with them is a freaking abomination but not a proper case. And in that price range you expect a good case to be included (please correct me here if I am wrong).
Your not wrong, I haven’t even looked at that thing it’s still in the box, if I ever travel again will have to get something cheap off Amazon/eBay. Although the beats and Bose cases I never used just chucked them in my backpack pocket.
People still travel?
How do I get ow to price beat if I were to order online?
You have to ring them.
Once upon a time Apple used to make a killing selling iPhone charging cables… it looks like they want to get a larger share of the govt COVID hand outs…
Does anyone know if you get the $50 ebay plus voucher instantly for signing up?
You get it almost instantly, but you wouldn’t want to use it for this deal as it negates the 15% off coupon.
thanks
I saw these out in the wild the other day - some dude at a tram stop in Melbourne. Looks crazy and unique! However IMO the price is still far too high - I recommend my combo of Sony WH1000XM3 + AirPods Pro. Although you can probably get the XM4 for a great price now.
XM3’s for the great sound quality and incredible noise cancellation, and AirPods Pro for the best sound in-ear and the convenience along with Apple integration. The AirPods Pro’s ambient sound mode is second to none.
Can get both together for cheaper than this.