AirPods Max vs Sony XM4 Best For Me
Who Best For Me AirPods Max vs Sony XM4
Today's article is all about my two favorite pair of headphones the airpods max and the sony xm4s both of these headphones are great in their own way but to be completely and brutally honest only one of these products should be seriously considered unless you fit into a very small niche of people.
A new pair of wireless headphones like these six main categories are the most important to me comfort sound quality noise
When I'm evaluating a new pair of wireless headphones like these six main categories are the most important to me comfort sound quality noise cancellation whatever extra features come with the headphones battery life and finally the price and these six categories that I want to use to compare and contrast these two headphones.
Let's start with comfort when I first put the air pods max on my head I could instantly notice the extra weight the max is made almost entirely of metal giving it a weight of 385 grams whereas the mostly plastic build of the sony xm4s weighs much less at 254 grams.
Now that's not to say that the airpods max is uncomfortable however because they actually are but I definitely do prefer the lightness of the xm4s and when I took them out again to compare to the max the xm4s almost feels weightless on my head by comparison.
The airpods max all that metal build quality does make it feel much more premium than the sony xm4s
Now to be completely fair to the airpods max all that metal build quality does make it feel much more premium than the sony xm4s but hey at the price that Apple is charging for these things they should the other consequence of the airpods max being so heavy is that it needs to rely on a stronger clamp force on the sides of your head to prevent all of that weight from coming down on the headband and then eventually hurting.
The top of your head over time now I'm not all that sensitive to clamping force so you know it really didn't bother me but I have heard some people complain about it alright sound quality time this is actually starting to be one of my least favorite parts of reviewing headphones because the sound is just so darn subjective and without me physically showing up at your door and then putting each of these headphones on your head well.
It's going gonna be just hard for me to communicate exactly how these sound but I'll give it a shot to my non-audiophile ears the airpods max is the better performer in most circumstances the mids and highs for vocals are crisper and clearer and the bass and sub-bass frequencies are tighter and more well-controlled I also think that the airpods max has a bit of a wider sound stage although neither of these headphones is going to be great in that regard.
Since they are closed-back headphones the sony xm4s does have some advantages over the airpods max though for one the xm4s have an equalizer built natively into the app so if you're a little unhappy with the sound or maybe you're just a bass head and you want to add more low end.
The airpods max don't have is a dedicated 3.5-millimeter jack for wired listening
You can do that with the airpods max, however, doesn't have that at all the other thing the airpods max don't have is a dedicated 3.5-millimeter jack for wired listening like the sony's have to listen to the airpods max wired you actually need to go out and buy apple's 35 lightning to 3.5-millimeter audio cable sony includes their cable inside...
The box the sony also has a better Bluetooth codec while the airpods max can only use aac the sonys can use ldac which has a much higher bit rate if you select the prioritized sound quality mode in the app all right next up is noise cancellation.
While I could just tell you how each of these does in various scenarios I'd rather you listen for yourself so I fired up my surround sound home theater and played a couple of noises on the speakers with my lavalier microphone inside the earcups of each of these headphones here is.
The result [Music] wow to my ear the airpods max did better in noise-canceling both in the cafe sounds where people were talking and music was playing and in the airplane cabin with the static roar of the engines, not a crazy amount better but better nonetheless both of these headphones also have a transparency mode which is the opposite of noise canceling.
The airpods max has the most natural-sounding transparency
They use the microphones that are built in to let sound in as opposed to trying to keep them out I'm gonna keep this one short because honestly there's just no contest here the airpods max has the most natural-sounding transparency mode I have ever heard the xm4 transparency mode or ambient sound mode as they call it isn't bad but the max just does it better.
Now let's talk about the extra features that each of these headphones come with because there's actually a lot let's start with the new kid on the block the airpods max apple really likes to throw in a lot of features that work extremely well with other Apple devices and well not so well with non-apple devices, for example, spatial audio is a very cool feature.
That lets you listen to your headphones with essential adobe digital surround sound in supported apps but it only works with ios devices so if you're intending to use these with android or a pc you're out of luck and that's true of a lot of features android users won't get the seamless switching ability that lets you switch from say your iPhone to your iPad instantly by simply pressing the play button and they also won't get the adaptive eq which supposedly adjusts.
Start looking much more seriously at the sony xm4s when you pair the airpods max to an android device
The sound to the fit and seal of the ear cushions in real-time you also won't be able to hold down the digital crown and activate the voice assistant either because it only works with Siri if you're not already heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem I'd start looking much more seriously at the sony xm4s when you pair the airpods max to an android device you lose a lot of the features.
That make the max a great pair of headphones speaking of the xm4s let's talk about all the extra features that come with those starting with the touchpad on the right ear cup lives a giant touchpad that uses gestures to do different things you can use it to control music turn up or turn down the volume activate a voice assistant or my personal favorite place your hand over.
The ear cup to temporarily activate the transparency mode or ambient sound mode it's really neat to have when someone wants to talk to you for a quick second and you don't want to turn off your noise cancellation completely look if you want my opinion i do actually prefer the physical controls of the airpods max to control audio with that really satisfying digital crown.
It is neat with little features like that to make the touch controls on the xm4 is a bit more bearable while the xm4s aren't quite as good with seamless switching as the airpods max do support multi-point Bluetooth with two different devices.
How little ambient sound you want to let in a speak to chat feature
It is great to have most of the extra features that come with the xm4s live inside the dedicated sony app though in here you get manual control over how much or how little ambient sound you want to let in a speak to chat feature where it will automatically detect when you're speaking to activate the transparency or ambient sound mode a full equalizer like.
I mentioned earlier for changing up the sound and an audio upscaler called see extreme also worthwhile to note is that the sony xm4s come with a proper carrying case and an actual power button for turning off the headphones manually the headphones fold down to save space and the case protects headphones like all cases should.
Now,, why am I mentioning that well this is not the case for airpods max because you actually have to deal with this thing not only does it not protect the headphones fully but if your headphones aren't inside this weird purse looking case thing they won't shut down and they'll drain the battery.
Battery life and the sony's come out on top there too with a whopping 30 hours of claimed battery life in my experience
Until they're dead and that's a perfect segue into battery life and the sony's come out on top there too with a whopping 30 hours of claimed battery life in my experience I get a little bit less than that with the headphones turned up almost to the max and then the noise cancellation on.
But we're talking you know 25 to 26 hours still the airpods max on the other hand gets about 20 and that's only if you keep putting the headphones back inside that little purse after each use if you don't and you just let them drain on their own you'll get far less than that finally let's talk about the price the sony xm4s will run you about 350 us dollars maximum and that's if you don't wait for any deals and these go on sale frequently where you can grab them for you know 300 or even 250.