WEBVTT

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the apple airpods max are not cheap headphones they're

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550 us dollars and yet they're already

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flying off shelves but hold on a second apple haters don't facepalm yet this

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is a good thing because the airpods max don't suck and the more people there are

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out there listening to good headphones the better but

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as a samsung user who wears an apple watch for some reason i've got to ask

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myself is there any reason to buy these if

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you're not already crotch deep in apple's ecosystem

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let's discuss that after this message from ridge wallet

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offer code Linus to save 10 and get free worldwide shipping

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gotta start with sound quality because that's what everybody wants to know

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anyway for comparison we've got the ever popular sony xm4s and bose 700s and by

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popular demand the drop thx pandas which i happen to personally really really

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like the truth is that all of these headphones sound great with the caveat

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that we of course are talking about consumer electronics that you're using

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wirelessly probably to stream music from a service like spotify that means you're

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probably using your smartphone as a source without the aid of an external

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amp or deck and yes we know that there are higher

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fidelity solutions out there but the thing is not everybody wants to carry

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around an extra brick and lots of people like the convenience of not having a

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wire of course the question is which of them is the most great compared to the

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sony's and the bose frankly i gotta go with the airpods max albeit not by a

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huge margin discerning listeners might think that it's a big margin but i would

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hazard a guess that your average person won't hear much difference between any

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of these four headsets assuming though that you are a discerning listener how

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do the airpods max compare to the pandas which are also a cut above the other two

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well that's trickier i would call them similar in quality

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but different the pandas are much more forward with

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crystal clear vocals right against your ear the maxes however have a greater

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sense of space even on Android and a

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heck of a lot more bass in fact i would call that their defining feature like

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low rumbly sacral chakra type bass that

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makes the pandas seem underwhelming by comparison and makes the sony's sound

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loose and muddy don't believe me do a side by side during the macaroni in

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a pot section of wap now a purist might still opt for the pandas given the

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choice between the two as they support more audio codecs including aptx hd and

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ldac and they advertise no digital signal processing as a selling point

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meanwhile the h1 chip in each of the airpods max's earcups enables them to

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use computational audio to enhance their active noise cancelling and allow

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transparency mode which by the way works really well to pass through the world

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around you they also enable adaptive eq which adjusts the sound in real time

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according to the fit and seal of the ear cups as for codec support though it's

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aac only which is the codec used by itunes this will probably be fine or

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even preferred a lot of the time but Android users should be aware that

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there's some evidence that aac sounds better on iphones than it does on some

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Android devices because aac is computationally more demanding leading

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some power optimized Android devices to downgrade the incoming audio to a lower

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bit rate speaking of eq the airpods max

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doesn't have a companion app like the bose and sony sets do so there's no way

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to apply custom or even candy cues according to your liking you just get

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what apple gives you which i guess is pretty on brand for them so

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make sure that you audition them thoroughly before you buy to make sure

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that you like their sound signature personally i find them a little bit

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bright on the high end which sometimes makes symbols or even snare drums a bit

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fatiguing to listen to good thing i have this pillow where's an ltd store pillow

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get me a pillow ah yes this CPU-shaped

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pillow from lttstore.com of course bluetooth headphones have

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never really been about the absolute best sound quality anyway so how do the

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airpods max compare to the competition when it comes to features

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on Android not great out of the box there's no wear

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detection for automatic pausing when you put them around your neck no battery

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level indicator on your phone and no virtual assistant support at all

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however if history is any indication these features should end up available

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to Android users using a third-party app at some point then there's the settings

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that you can tweak only if you have an iOS device for example by default this

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button right here toggles the headphones between active noise cancelling on and

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transparency mode but what if you want neither and you just want anc off well

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it can be done but only by adjusting the button behavior on an apple device same

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goes for updating device firmware and reversing the direction of the volume

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knob if you're one of those uh people who plays inverted then finally there's

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the features that are simply just not there if you're an Android user in

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other words if you're an apple customer who hasn't bought enough of their

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products to deserve all of the features it's like man

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this is the kind of arrogant anti-consumer

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sorry the airpods macs are advertised as supporting seamless movement between

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your iphone ipad and mac and if you're listening to music on your laptop and a

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call comes in they're supposed to switch over automatically which works great for

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apple but guess what the sony's and both

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do that as well except that on a pc or

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Android when i try to do the same thing with airpods max and a laptop

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they have to disconnect from one in order to play a signal from the other

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so apple got me for 550 dollars here but

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evidently i'm still a second class citizen same thing goes for their

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spatial audio feature but even though that one's really cool i'm less upset

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about it because understandably it requires proprietary software on the

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source side spatial audio is a 3d sound mode that attempts to mimic the home

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theater experience by tracking the headphones position so that when you

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turn your head the sound stays put instead of following you around i would

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definitely recommend using it for movie watching but

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only if you've got an idevice get wrecked

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while we're on the subject of apple shenanigans let's talk wires

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yes it's true that bluetooth headphones can sound better when listening to them

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wired but apple doesn't seem to want you to do that unlike every one of these

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other pairs of headphones the airpods macs don't come with the cable to plug

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them in or rather they do come with a

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cable a lightning to usb type c that seems like it should work but it doesn't

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instead you need a lightning to three and a half millimeter audio cable which

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apple is happy to suggest as an add-on item at just 35

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of course you won't be able to charge your headphones while listening this way

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oh and if you want to plug into your phone you will also need a dongle where

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i put the dongle ah there it is that's exactly the problem with these things

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which again apple doesn't include in the box anymore

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but your Android phone may finally this one's pretty bizarre when you are

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listening wired you can no longer use the crown button to pause or skip tracks

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by pressing on it but then you can still adjust the volume and

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toggle your anc just like

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why why doesn't Linus get to the point here

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all right here we go if you're an Android user the answer is

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no don't buy the airpods max unless you one

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have access to an iphone so that you can update your firmware and adjust your

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settings two find a third party app that helps

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reclaim otherwise lost features in a way that's not crappy to use which by the

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way may require a subscription fee and three you really like the industrial

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design thing is they're not a bad product at all like there's a lot to

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like here the headband is shockingly comfortable even over long periods i

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mean i thought it was going to be awful but it's great the fitment adjustment

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mechanisms are as beautiful as they are silent and the aluminum ear cups and

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tactile volume knob feel way more premium than any of these other plastic

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sets oh and by the way i haven't used the bra

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thing all week and it's been totally fine so you're not obligated to use it

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but in spite of all that it's clear that apple just doesn't want

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my money these headphones are made for apple enthusiasts who are already deeply

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locked into apple's ecosystem and if that's you then the sonic performance

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build quality and the apple magic really do combine to something that's not

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really overpriced so much as it's priced

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for people who really value those three things

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if you only care about sound though where are they there they are

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just get the pandas and eq up the bass

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LTT and start protecting yourself from potential bad times at the link in the

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video description if you guys are looking for something else to watch maybe check out the video we did

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recently featuring the xm4s from sony they're

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pretty sweet