100 dollar cheaper than in Apple's website.
It looks like Space Gray is the only colour they have at the moment.
Apple AirPods Max Space Grey $799.99 Delivered @ Costco Online (Membership Required)
1721
Lkongkee on 16/12/2020 - 14:48 costco.com.au (5367 clicks)
Last edited 16/12/2020 - 14:48 by 1 other user
Last edited 16/12/2020 - 14:48 by 1 other user
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I'm low key surprised you haven't received a flurry of downvotes.
Why? This is a really expensive product, exactly the opposite of ozbargain philosophy
People still buy $2k iphones and samsung phones. I expected the apple fanboys to come out in force.
Expensive can still be a bargain though.
Like if they sold a iphone 12 pro max for 1.2k it'll get over 200 upvotes here even though you can get a mobile phone for under $100 at woolies.@Chchnu: You are not making an argument by using extreme examples.
100 off (with a membership) for a very expensive/overpriced headset is not really a deal.
The case is optional for a low RRP of $999.
That is the most expensive bra for cans I've seen.
nah, the case comes with it.
because it’s literally the only way to turn them off. i wish i was kidding
almost like ifixit should run a harddrive magnet on it to see if it sleeps.
And its required to put these to Low power sleep mode without having to wait two hours.
Apple taking full advantage of the old slogan "there's a sucker born every minute"
They probably replaced minute with second.
The fuccboi sneakers of the headphone world - statement pieces for people with a lot of money, who have no idea what they're doing.
If you want wireless headphones and sound quality is important, get the Drop Pandas for significantly less. If you want wireless headphones and noise cancelling is important, get the Sony WH1000XM-4 for significantly less. If you want wireless headphones for gaming with spatial audio, get the Audeze Mobius for significantly less. All really well made headphones that have been very favourably reviewed.
These in comparisson are heavy, come with a terrible (optional!) case, poor battery management policies and only live up to their full potential on iOS. Really hard to justify it.
You make a lot of sense about the price and the fact that the cost to some degree includes their function as a fashion statement.
However, and I'm not saying that I know better, no one has actually tried them on and used them in person. So your recommendations for the other headphones don't seem to make a lot of sense for me at this point. Ticking the feature boxes isn't necessarily the best way to compare products. For example, if these headphones have better sound quality than the Drop Pandas, better noise cancelling than the Sonys, and better spatial audio than the Audeze Mobius, then buying one pair of Apple HeadPods would possibly be better than buying three pairs of headphones (most people only have two ears). Extra points if they end up being more comfortable and if you like the design. I'm not saying that this is likely, but I am saying that we don't really have the information to make the claim you've made here.
I've based the above comment on the reviews that I've come across so far, noise cancelling are about as good as the Sonys, audio quality is slightly better than the Sonys - but it doesn't seem like they could go up against something like the Pandas, which has a driver that competed with top of the line closed back headphones. I haven't seen a comparisson of spatial audio against the Mobius - but I suspect they'll be somewhat comparable.
That said, you do raise a good point around having JUST enough across each of these different headphones to convince people to buy in - especially if they're already tied into the Apple ecosystem. However, while I have no problem with people dropping a lot of money on audio gear (I do so myself) - this just seems like a very silly way to do it when you consider the calibre of products you can pick up for far less.
EDIT: I didn't neg you by the way!
@poppingtags: Thanks for the respectful discussion. I expected negs because the internet dislikes nuance. I didn't even say that these headphones are good or good value, I just hinted that they might be.
I'm looking forward to trying them out for myself before having an opinion, but honestly I'm not a big enough audiophile to spend this big on any pair of headphones, and I doubt many others here are either.
@victinini: Well the good news is you don't actually have to spend a lot of money to get excellent sound quality anymore. If you like earphones, you can check out the BLON BL03, which can be had for about $35 delivered - they are wired, but they sound better than any wireless earphones on the market. If you're willing to stay wired, headphones like the Sennheiser HD58X and the Audio Technica M40x can be had for well under $200 and again offer sound quality that will run circles around their wireless counterparts.
Although again, to your point - I think most people are more than happy to trade audio quality to go wireless and gain noise cancelling, but even in that case the Sony MX3/4 can be had for $2-300 and are exceptional value in their category.
@victinini, there are already a ton of reviews out there.
@Jojo-Ma: Yeah, they look pretty good. All of the reviews say that they're really high quality, with a high price to match. I'm not so sure if they're worth it to my ears, but sound can be a very subjective experience.
Beats are the original fuccbois
and what if I want all at once?
IM totally here for the comments!
OMFG, it's more expensive than the iPhone SE 2020!
Probably because iPhone can only make the noise but this one does the cancelling as well :)
Most phones (including iPhones) do noise cancelling. Just not for you, but for the person you are speaking to.
Noise reduction or filtering. Cancelling is different.
Is it connected to twitter in order to get cancelled?
Miss those days when you could get flagship iphone for the price.
I recalled the Nexus was $400 back in the day.
Recently got the LG V50 for $600 which is not bad.
Wife got the iPhone 12 Max for over $2,000 :$V50 (single screen US import) is currently $480 at Amazon
Some of the Nexus phones weren't that great that and it shows it through poor product reliability (esp the ones manufactured by LG).
I remember owning the LG Nexus 5x (which died in it's warranty period and required a logic board replacement) and was super glad to replace it with Galaxy S7 the next year.
I mean YMMV, but I bought a Nexus 6 when it came out and now my dad uses it as a spare. 6 years of usage from a $450 ish phone isn't that bad tbh.
@NigerianGirthLord: That was a Motorola. LG had a huge amount of failures and a family member went through like 4 in warranty before giving up
I'm still using 5X as a backup phone, never had a problem with it. My experiences with phones made by LG were all good.
*ex-wife
Sure as hell not buying but $100 off a new release Apple anything is good.
Don't kid yourself
Your comment makes no sense, are you disagreeing?
Good golly. Look at the price 😲
Where do you think you are? We can only afford Sony 1000XM4 around here and only if they are box damaged.
Adam's forbidden fruit
Not unless you think new cars are high yield investments.
Waiting for ebay to drop $400 airpods max
that'll be the day … if they do do it, it will be $150 off RRP.
And there will only be 6 available
and gone in -6 seconds
Rather get TWO pairs of Sony WH-1000XM4 with money left over for lunch
That's a nice lunch!
I prefer to buy jabra evolve2 85 lol
ozoutrageous
ozrageous
How do these compare to TaoTronics?
They are not as good.
Have you seen the case??The 'airzier'
Slightly better noise cancellation
You probably won't need to wear pants with Airpods
Won't need to wear pants? Or because you bought them you can't afford pants?
They have an Apple logo
They actually dont
Damn no cosco membership
But do you have a Costco membership?
This guy reads
That's OK, at this price you can get the AirPods Max and the membership for less than anywhere else.
And cancel membership later if needed
I am genuinely curious on how these sound, has any reviewers done any kind of measurements on them instead of just talking about, I felt that highs were blah blah, etc?
Does he actually measure anything or is he like other reviewers who basically talk about how it sounds?
I kinda like looking at the graphs because it at least gives me a point where I could see what the reviewer is talking about.
All his review videos I've seen show the rtings sound profile graph. So you could wait for him to upload his video after rtings uploads theirs or just go off rtings review.
@Wattler009: I might do that :P I am just curious to see what Apple has done and hasn't done.
Reviews that say "Sony's sound bit darker" or something like these sound bit brighter, is all good and they are all describing how the reviewer has perceived the device, but I think a graph gives a point where I could actually see what those perceptions might be based on.
@Spizz: It's still his impressions, not a measurement of any kind.
He can say it sounds wider, it sounds clearer than blah blah, but that doesn't give me a solid ground to look at how it actually performed.
I don't have his ears, I don't have his preferences. I don't have any headphones that he compares it to, and even if I do, it's how he perceived the differences.Marques is a good tech reviewer (I think anyways) and I am not trying to imply that his reviews aren't valid. It's just I want more details that impressions can't convey.
@iridiumstem: Don’t Apple have an excellent return policy? Just buy them check out how it sounds for YOU and return them.
@natslovR: I don't like messing around with returns and such, and even before COVID, I hated going to an Apple store.
Plus the device itself isn't something for me (as in, I do have iPads, but that's about it). The thing I am interested to see is the technology behind the headphone and how it sounds (whether Apple can justify that kind of price tag by it being an "audiophile" quality headphone).
If it does succeed and ends up creating a whole market segment of expensive noise cancelling wireless headphones that are as good as an "audiophile headphone", that'd be interesting.
He’s an actual professional musician/sound engineer, and apparently he does have a test bench, one of those ear-replication headphone test-benches.
@TheRealCJ: Oh nice, that would be nice to see, if he does upload one. Since the first impression video? (A short one that he did that I kinda watched fully) he did, it looked like he was going to compare it to headphones that are used for studio recordings and such.
@iridiumstem: I mean, at 900 dollars they are asking to be compared to other 900 dollar headphones.
To use a tired old analogy, you aren't gonna compare a 200k car with a 50k Kia, you're gonna compare them to other 200k cars.
@TheRealCJ: Definitely, with $900, I can get HD600, an DAC/Amp and have enough money left over for XM3s probably?
@iridiumstem: Oh definitely, my go-to wired cans are still my Sennheiser HD-25II (Irish made), which admittedly aren't the most amazing, but have a sound that is lovely to me. The Wh1000xm2 are good enough for me to stream high quality audio with anc and good battery life, and my airpods pro work well enough for me when I'm riding my motorbike, although I'm curious to see how the alleged Samsung Buds Pro work, since quite a few things about the Airpods Pro irk me, especially as someone who only owns an ipad and no other Apple devices.
Honestly, I think Apple is banking on people comparing them to the Sony and Bose, and assume these are better because Apple+High price, which all considered if you ignore the price these appear to be on par with those two standard setters. But I can't ignore the price.
@TheRealCJ: Eh, I personally am hoping that this will at least create a market where other manufacturers to make something noise cancelling, portable and something that is comparable to what Audiophiles enjoy (preferably with a better design).
Anyways, that's my hope. If I had something like that I wouldn't have burnt my ears out with loud music from my horrid childhood, but I digress.
@iridiumstem: It won't, I guarantee all that will happen is that the divide between high end and low end will grow wider. These will set the new standard for 1000-dollar headphones, so really high quality stuff that now costs a grand will push closer to 2 grand, the decent mid-range stuff that costs around 3-400 now will start to head towards 1000, and anything less than 300 will be garbage.
True audiophile-grade and reference gear will likely not change, as "modern" standards like Bluetooth, ANC, etc. Are often detrimental to sound quality, for instance most high end Bluetooth headphones employ aggressive digital equalisers and DSP, which makes the music sound "better", ie more bass and treble, at the detriment of mids, soundstage, sub bass, and general quality. Is that a bad thing? Usually no, since most of those things require years of training to notice, but to those who are able, it's very noticeable. Even I, someone who is happy to admit I'm nowhere near an audiophile, find instrumental moments in songs that through Bluetooth headphones are lost in the general blend of noise, but on very expensive headphones are clear as day.
ANC especially causes a marked drop in audio quality, but ANC is for very specific uses, commuting for instance, where outside noise would cause the same if not worse quality degradation, so the hiss of ANC is the better option compared to the loud hum of a jet engine.
They're currently getting trashed on. Apparently even when you disable spatial audio, it still uses a DSP to try and increase soundstage width, but it's awfully tuned.
These need a lot of work, and they're still nothing compared to good quality wired headphones for $120-$500. For cheaper than this you can get the Shure Aonic 50 and get a much better experience, or you can EQ the bass down on the Sony WH-1000XM4 and get a better version of whatever Apple are trying to do here.
Hmmm, so it's like a typical first gen device issue, where a feature is not polished out properly.
Not too sure why they even wanted to increase soundstage to begin with, since I thought audiophiles hated anything done to the audio.Eh, I might still wait and see how it all turns out, I had my doubts on how AirPods will go with having separate pieces and they somehow seem to made it work.
Before I sound like I am trying to defend this device, I do think the entire headphone needs bit of work done on it (to put it politely). I still don't understand how you are expected to lift a headphone on the most vulnerable looking part. They should've just made it fold and give out a case. I thought they had Beats. They sounded awful, but they were making headphones that you could at least carry around.
DSP done right can actually be fantastic, but you really need to know what you're doing, and you shouldn't have a goal of doing anything other than refining a driver's inadequacies where possible. Audeze do a great job of this on the Mobius and the Penrose.
These headphones are just crummy when you consider the existence of the Audeze Penrose, the Sony WH-1000MX4 and the Shure Aonic 50. You just can't justify the price at all.
It's possible it's all just an issue of DSP and EQ, and a firmware change might clean it up a lot, but Apple and Beats have a history of crappy audio for the price.
They're currently getting trashed on
These headphones are just crummy when you consider the existence of the Audeze Penrose, the Sony WH-1000MX4 and the Shure Aonic 50.
Can you say why this is? Have you used them or can you post a few sites which say this?
I mean I would never get these but the reviews I have read say they have great sound. Forget about price comparisons but are they this bad or is this just a few peoples opinions. Not arguing what you say, just the vast majority seem to say they sound great
@slipperypete: Those same reviewers probably rate the Sony and Bose offerings as best-in-class. I take a lot of reviewers with a grain of salt in enthusiast spaces because they talk far too much about the experience of owning the product, than what it actually does for you and what technical achievements it offers.
Up in the $700 range, you're competing against the best of mid-fi and starting to touch the absolutely high-end, and in terms of audio quality, early info suggests these wouldn't genuinely separate themselves from a well made pair of wired headphones in the $100-$150 range.
@jasswolf: again I just wanted to clarify why you said they were currently getting trashed. I haven't read anything saying as much other than price.
the comparisons are against the Sony, Shure and Bose as that is what they're compared against. From that perspective they seem to say that the sound is great
I know they are over priced and would never buy them but what I wanted to know was whether you have used them and compared them against Sony, Shure and Bose or are just speculating.
I gather you are a high end enthusiast but that doesn't mean you can trash them without having a genuine reason.
Not having a go at you but you have made a lot of remarks about specific feature and I just can't seem to find those reviews anywhere. I am just curious
@slipperypete: I'm speaking about early remarks from people who actually sample headphones and have sizeable headphone collections, which I take with slightly less salt than a 'headphone review'.
Eventually there will be proper technical analysis, but subjective impressions about the sound quality can offer a great deal when it's coming from someone with a genuine breadth of experience (and decent ears).
@jasswolf: yeah I'm half deaf so I can't critique them….crazy price for this.
I'm just more curious about how these compare to the competition and how much apple are taking the piss
wonder if they'll sell many
@slipperypete: Got mine today, the sound is actually really good, not as good as my hd600s, but definitely quite a bit better than my xm3’s, more clear sound and better sound stage, not as bass heavy, but I’m gonna return them, not worth the money IMO, a bit heavy and the claim force is a bit high, xm3’s are much more comfortable for me, I owned qc35 2’s before, I prefer xm3’s fit over them, but they all more comfortable than AirPods max. But AirPods beats them in sound.
@jasswolf: Eh I thought their in-ears had positive reviews. The one that used a BA, not the EarPods. It was always on my list of earphones to try/buy, then I remembered that I absolutely hated what Apple cables are made out of.
Anyways, fixing a problem vs changing the sound so that it sounds good I feel like is a completely different approach, which I have no knowledge of whatsoever so I am going to say eh.
@iridiumstem: The AirPods Pro are definitely an improvement, but they are using a dynamic driver, not a BA one. That being said, at $200-$300, they are not good value, and I would recommend the Samsung Galaxy Buds or Buds+ wherever appropriate. Both need updates with better bluetooth codec support though, but I respect that there are space-related constraints for TWS IEMs.
The DSP/EQ component I'm describing is firmware/software based, versus the drivers being outright crap. It may turn out that both are true, but I'll be waiting for some fairly technical reviews to determine that. Early subjective descriptions suggest it's true worth is half the asking price (save for the aluminium build).
@jasswolf: Oh, I meant their wired In-Ear monitors that go for like $100? $150? Something like that. It was fairly cheap too, considering that I think it used Knowles BA (and it's been available for a long time too).
The price, eh. They’re apple.
The heaviness, eh. They’re metal and 400 grams is heavy but not unmanageable
But what really gets me is the control scheme. Yes, they have that pot for controlling the volume, which is really cool… but no otherr controls. You have to click on the pot to play/pause, and beyond that it’s the same control scheme as the tiny earbud airpod pros.
As in, double click to go forward, triple click to go back. As I pointed out elsewhere, if you want to go back just two previous tracks, you have to first triple-click to return to the start of the current track, then triple-click to go back one track, then triple-click to go back another track. and you have to pause between each click, but only just enough that the song doesn’t start playing, otherwise it returns you to the start of that song.
It’s one of the things that really irks me about my APP, but in that case I can kinda understand, since there’s little room for anything beyond a single button, but these are massive cans, and a forward/back button or swipe gesture is easy to implement.
Me: Sees price
Me: 🤦♂️