kiltedgreen

MacQuadra840av said:

macgui said:

Clearly most of you aren't familiar with high-end headphones. They can range from 2-10x the cost of these Apple headphones, easy.

It's comical the way some idiots pick one feature of these headphones then compare their little POS headsets and claim some kind of victory.

And suggesting that these have to be binned when the battery dies? Idiocy. Replacing batteries in AirPods isn't really very practical, and comparing that to replacing the batteries in the Max is again another exercise in stupidity.

These are pricey for the casual listener. Not all that pricey when compared to a litany of high-end headphones, if these live up to the claims. 

Clearly you are not familiar with Apple's marketing.  These are a far cry from being high-end headphones.  They are just excessively overpriced cans.  You don't have to be so insulting to people in your comment.  No professional recording studio or person would buy these.  They will buy the high-end headphones from reputable companies in the industry that know audio very well.  Apple is not that company.  Apple is known for mediocre audio quality in their products.  Apple does not even allow you to adjust tone quality in any of their speaker products.  These are heavily marketed as BLUETOOTH headphones to use with your iPhone for playing back heavily compressed audio files.  Something a professional audio person would never listen to.  Yes, Apple charges an extra $35 for an audio cable, but again, that is not what Apple wants you to do.  These are just overpriced ugly headphones that no one will be buying, except for a few fools that think anything with an Apple logo is somehow magical.

I’m familiar with Apple’s marketing - I bought the original Macintosh at release and have spent plenty on their products over the years and currently have 4 of their products.

I wasn’t trying to insult anyone, I was just surprised that people were so surprised at the price. I agree, no professional studio or audio engineer would buy these and Apple is clearly not aiming their marketing for these headphones at those people as can be seen from their web site.

You will find that Naim Audio’s NAC 552 pre-amplifier, costing £21,000 doesn’t allow you to adjust the “tone quality” either and such controls are very rare to find on a loudspeaker anyway. As for the mention of Bluetooth, again, Apple are not aiming these are audio engineers, they are being aimed at Apple’s usual audience (Pro Apps notwithstanding).

I think they look very attractive, much more so than the endless lumps of unimaginative black plastic that pass for the design of most headphones. To say they are overpriced is unwise when you have not even heard them; you may be right, but they combine a number of features which for a lot of people will be very appealing. If no one is buying them then I’m not sure why the shipping times are already lengthening unless it’s all the fools, in which case Apple will happily take their money!

It’s seems that a most posters on here have never looked at the pricing of HiFi equipment.

£5,000 for a turntable - no problem. £1,500 for a pickup cartridge - it’s over here sir. £150 for some speaker stand spikes - how many boxes would you like?

Prices in HiFi start somewhere near reasonable and go into the stratosphere - just have a look through some magazines if you want to have you eyes (and mouth) opened wide. In 1987 I bought a pair of QUAD ESL63s (loudspeakers) which cost me about £1,4000. Most people would not have paid that much for their speakers, amps and turntable combined. I still have them, they still sound incredible, I have never regretted buying them but they are at a friend’s house because I no longer have room for them and replaced with with some much smaller speakers. However, these speakers now are a limited in this lounge I now have so 4 months ago I bought a pair of QUAD headphone for £600. They are absolutely superb - but they are ‘just’ headphones with none of Apple’s high tech flash.

So, depending on the quality, these AirPods could be priced just right if you want something with all that Apple are including. Most people would never buy a pair of headphones that cost more than £100, but there enough people that definitely would to make Apple’s pricing perfectly sensible to me.

I think Apple’s look gorgeous, but I’ll stick with the QUADs ...

Nobody has to have a “thin and small and as light as possible” mobile phone. This is the real question that several have mentioned already - is making a higher quality, closely integrated device more environmentally beneficial than a larger heavier one that is more repairable but less robust?

That end to end analysis is what needs real investigation. Something only needs repairing if it’s broken, making it better and of higher quality generally means it’s less likely to break. I’m sure I read years ago (when discussing TVs I think, but I believe it applies to electronics generally) that the most areas likely to fail are the connectors between different components. Better repairability, I would think, means a lot more connectors so what is the advantage long term if it increases the chance of the device failing and needing repair?

i don’t know, but I think it needs looking into.

MacPro said:

I am trying to imagine what Apple already has underway for the next step in the M class SoCs.  It also occurs to me that Apple added the M1 to existing designs but looking inside the Mac mini for example shows it could be far smaller, what new design concepts has Apple up its sleeve? Think about it, an Apple Keyboard could be the entire computer!

Apple has basically started the end of the computer as we know it.  Imagine what else an M1 board could slip into.  Imagine how much more an M class chip could hold in the way of component parts or variations thereof.  The traditional PC, i.e. motherboard and various parts will be obsolete in a matter of years. 

Keyboard is the computer? Siinclair did that in 1980. 😁

Is he factoring R&D for the M1 into that figure?