AirPods Max teardown makes Sony and Bose headphones look ‘like toys’ | Hacker News Reader

AirPods Max teardown makes Sony and Bose headphones look ‘like toys’

theverge.com

31 pointsevo_913 comments

Does anything in the design indicate the Sony and Bose headphones are more prone to breaking ?

Sure, you can get better build quality with a metal chassis but plastic headphones are much lighter on the head than metal, which make them more comfortable.

I still have a pair of Sony MDR-1RBT; in their prime they were £400. I've had them going on 8 years now, they still work perfectly after daily use outdoors, in the rain, thrown in bags etc for ~7 of those years. Battery still lasts 2-3 weeks with ~2 hours use per day and the only "damage" is the faux leather on the headband and ear cups peeling.

I replaced the latter and it's like having a brand new pair of headphones.

Now granted that the codecs are old and audio quality will be better on something more modern, but I'd love to see if the air-pods last as long, particularly if given the same abuse my Sony's have had.

Next up, build quality of Mercedes is superior to cars costing half as much. I kid just a bit, but it does make that price tag go down a little easier. The question for me becomes: will they sound better and last longer as a result?

Right? There are other $500 headphones, why not compare those?

They don’t have comparable feature sets.

What feature sets are missing? are the similarly priced headphones missing noise cancellation and terrible cases ( :D :D :D )?

I am genuinely curious what the mismatch is, and even if there isn't comparing cheaper to more expensive isn't useful - do other $500 headphones have more or less features? what are the feature differences, etc

“are the similarly priced headphones missing noise cancellation”

Yes.

The rest you can search for yourself easily enough.

I think you missed the point of what I was asking - what are the features that similarly priced headphones do/don’t have?

No - I answered the direct question about noise cancellation.

As to other feature comparisons - those really are well documented in public reviews.

I'd rather just got a device with a headphone jack and splurge on proper high-end studio headphones.

The Verge is a joke. They compared the Max to headphones that are ranked C and C- by crinacle while calling them their favorites. Not even similar prices or even quality (Max is B-), so what's the point?

Combined with their PC building guide I honestly don't think they're worth reading at all.

Kind of a meh article, especially given they're comparing $350 headphones to >$500 headphones. That's a >30% increase in price so I would hope for some improvement in quality (I'm not dumb enough to expect it :D ).

Good thing you use headphones to Listen, and not look inside.

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