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00:00Okay, these headphones actually had the chance
00:02to be the best Apple headphones ever made by a mile.
00:06They're basically be like AirPods Max,
00:09but lighter weight, actually folding,
00:12with a better case, with USB-C,
00:16and a longer battery life, and cheaper.
00:19So, yeah, of course there's a catch.
00:21What's up, I'm KBHD here.
00:26I have a feeling that most people
00:28just don't think about the fact
00:30that they kind of maybe forgot that Apple owns Beats.
00:34Like they bought Beats for billions of dollars,
00:36and own and run them as a company now.
00:39And that's one of the craziest things
00:40about these headphones is,
00:41if you took the Beats logo
00:43and just erase it from the side of these headphones,
00:45and replace it with an Apple logo,
00:46these would be insane.
00:48They're just so un-Apple-like.
00:50But instead, they just seem to operate super separately.
00:52So we'll just call these Beats headphones,
00:54but these are their new $350 over-ear
00:58noise-canceling headphones.
00:59It's right in that premium tier of like,
01:02you could get the Sony Mark 5s,
01:04or you could get the Bose QC45s,
01:07and these kind of slot right in alongside those.
01:10I just, I want you to listen to all of the ways
01:12that these new Beats are actually just straight up better
01:16than Apple's flagship AirPods Max.
01:18So first of all, with the design,
01:20even though they're not metal everywhere,
01:22I would actually argue build quality is nicely done
01:25and will actually be probably preferred
01:27by most people over the AirPods Max.
01:29Most headphones are plastic for a reason.
01:31And in this case,
01:32that means they are much lighter than the AirPods.
01:35And the ear cups are still quite soft.
01:37They're very flexible, comfortable pair of headphones
01:39to wear for a long time,
01:41for like a flight or something like that.
01:43And then they actually fold up,
01:45so they're much easier to travel with.
01:47And they fold into this actually reasonable case
01:49with pockets for cables.
01:51And even this little zippered pouch inside for,
01:55well, I actually don't know what that pocket is for,
01:58maybe another cable, but whatever,
02:00it's there if you want it.
02:01And that's a huge win for these,
02:02for just daily practicality and usability over this.
02:08Basically the overall design is,
02:09honestly, you can tell already,
02:10it's very similar to the previous generation
02:12from a few years ago.
02:13It's got the physical music controls on the left ear cup
02:16and a power button with a set of battery indicator lights,
02:19which is nice, on the right.
02:22But it's also a bit more tame.
02:24Like it's a bit cleaner all the way around.
02:26Like they've removed some of the shiny,
02:28the Chrome bits and the Beats branding
02:30that used to be a little more obvious.
02:32Like the text that used to be on top of the headphones,
02:34that's now gone.
02:35The only downside I could really find is
02:38these darker matte colors really pick up fingerprints
02:41like extremely easily and they're hard to clean.
02:44And then the shallower ear cup
02:46might be a little more fatiguing.
02:48It doesn't feel quite like on-ear headphones,
02:50but they're kind of right in between on-ear and over-ear.
02:54So the mesh on the inside is actually touching your ear.
02:57Otherwise, yeah, I'd say these Beats,
03:00the design is, dare I say, classy.
03:04Then there's the headphone jack on the left side,
03:06another thing AirPods Max doesn't have.
03:09And it also does come with a nice little,
03:11I think this is a three foot aux cable.
03:13So if you're plugging into your source,
03:14these headphones will do that.
03:16And on the other side, the right side,
03:18a USB-C port, not a lightning port.
03:21And through that USB-C, again,
03:23the most un-Apple-like thing with these,
03:26you can plug, it comes with this USB-C to C cable.
03:28It's kind of short, but I don't know,
03:30maybe two, three feet,
03:31but you can plug directly into your source
03:34for lossless compressed audio.
03:37So I can plug this into my Pixel, it charges them,
03:42and that's the highest bit rate audio
03:44that these can achieve,
03:46which of course won't happen with an iPhone,
03:48because that's a lightning port.
03:50They have longer battery life than the AirPods Max.
03:52They're rated for 40 hours with noise cancellation off
03:55and 24 hours with ANC on,
03:58plus fast charging will get you like four hours of listening
04:00in 10 minutes being plugged in.
04:02And the cherry on top is they're like $200 cheaper.
04:06I think if we stopped right here,
04:07this would be the best Apple headphones ever made,
04:11certainly the best Beats ever made.
04:14But we can't stop right here
04:15because these headphones do have a few interesting,
04:18how do I say, quirks about them, a few quirks.
04:21So first of all, there is no on-head detection,
04:24which isn't necessarily something I care about,
04:26but in the world of all the other $350
04:29over-ear noise canceling headphones out there,
04:32they pretty much all have it.
04:33So it was kind of interesting to see that these don't,
04:35but then even more interesting, these lack any Apple chip.
04:39So these don't have any H1 or H2 chip in them,
04:43which to be fair is also true about the Sonys
04:46and the Bose of the world, but this is made by Apple
04:52and previous Beats headphones
04:54have literally already had the H chip in them.
04:56So it's just kind of weird
04:58that these just don't have it suddenly.
05:00So what does that mean to not have the chip?
05:01Well, they're still Bluetooth headphones,
05:03Bluetooth 5.3 actually,
05:04and they still fast pair to an iPhone
05:07and instantly show up in your iCloud.
05:08So they're available across any of the devices
05:10in your account.
05:11That's still great.
05:12It's on your phone, your iPad, your Mac,
05:14all that right away,
05:15but they cannot do the instant switching back and forth
05:19because they don't have multi-point connectivity.
05:21So that like magic moment
05:23where like you're listening to music on your computer
05:26and then you get a phone call on your iPhone
05:28and you accept it and instantly you're now listening
05:30to the phone call on the same headphones.
05:33This won't do that.
05:35You'll have to take a few taps
05:37and go through Bluetooth settings
05:38and switch which one it's paired to.
05:40It's not quite as seamless.
05:41And then there's some also smaller things
05:43like there's no wake and instant pair.
05:45Actually, they're just kind of always on
05:48until you turn them off,
05:49which can be a bummer if you forget to turn them off
05:51and then they're just sitting around draining the battery.
05:54And then the transparency mode,
05:56which is new to these,
05:57isn't quite as good as AirPods.
05:59And I know that's like the highest bar possible.
06:02And I don't know exactly how much of that is the chip
06:05and the processing on the H chips
06:07versus the actual microphones.
06:08But what I do know is the AirPods
06:10have a superior, amazing transparency mode
06:13and these are just a notch behind.
06:15It's still fine.
06:16It's still fine.
06:17It's just a little more dull,
06:18a little more processed and muted sounding.
06:20These headphones also do have spatial audio.
06:22They can do the head tracking spatial audio
06:24if you're into that.
06:25And they also show up in Find My on the iPhone,
06:28but, huge but,
06:31they don't stay always like sort of pinging
06:35in the background on the Find My network
06:36because they don't have that H chip.
06:38So when they show up in Find My,
06:40they just show up in the last place
06:42that they were on and connected.
06:45So if I were to go on a trip somewhere
06:47and like fold these up and turn them off
06:49and put them on my backpack and go travel,
06:51and then I lose my bag and I'm like,
06:52ah, I gotta find my headphones.
06:55It's just gonna show me on the map
06:56the last place that I had them on and turn them off,
07:00which is not really that helpful.
07:02Now in the grand scheme of things,
07:03maybe these are more luxury features
07:05than absolute necessities.
07:06You could certainly argue.
07:07But again, you're paying in the realm of luxury headphones.
07:10Like you being able to separate these
07:12with ecosystem plug features,
07:15like that's exactly what I would expect Apple to do,
07:18which is why it's almost funny that they didn't.
07:21All that being said,
07:22I'm happy to say this is a pair of Beats
07:24that I would be totally happy living with.
07:26Like for my Android people out there,
07:28they have fast pair with Android as well.
07:30And they actually do automatically add it
07:32to all of your Chrome devices.
07:34So if you have a Chromebook, that works great.
07:36Same deal for Find My, it works when they're on,
07:39but it just shows the point of last connection.
07:41And it will let you mess with all the same settings
07:44as the iPhone if you just grab the Beats app,
07:46then you just get that same UI.
07:48So as far as sound quality, look, yes,
07:52they are a V-shaped equalizer with strong bass
07:55and not that great mids, but it's fine.
07:59It's not dramatic.
08:00It's not terrible.
08:00It's actually fun.
08:01I think for a lot of different genres of music
08:04and watching movies and videos and even podcasts
08:07and phone calls and things like that, it is completely fine.
08:11And I mean, I'd never edit videos with these or anything,
08:14but hey, not bad for fun headphones.
08:16Just know that if you're after a more neutral flat EQ,
08:19like you were probably never considering these
08:21to begin with, and that's also totally fine.
08:23But then here's the last quirk.
08:24Here's the last kind of a interesting feature
08:27with these headphones.
08:28There is technically an EQ,
08:31but only when you are plugged into the source
08:35via USB type C.
08:37So you've got this C to C cable.
08:39I can plug into a pixel, plug into whatever,
08:41and then you're getting your lossless audio.
08:43And then, and only then, can you switch between,
08:46there are three built-in EQ profiles.
08:49So to change them, you plug everything in
08:51and press the power button twice.
08:54That switches you between the signature profile,
08:56which is the default, entertainment profile,
08:59which is a little more dramatic with bright highs
09:01and a huge boomy bass, and then a conversation profile,
09:06which really boosts the frequencies of human voices.
09:08That's basically just for phone calls
09:10or listening to podcasts.
09:11There's like no bass at all.
09:12And they have these little light codes too
09:14that indicate which mode you are in.
09:17So you can get the most out of these new 40 millimeter
09:20drivers in these Apple headphones
09:23by plugging in via USB type C,
09:27and then going with lossless audio
09:29and swapping between three baked-in
09:33firmware coded EQ settings.
09:37Wild.
09:37Do I wish there was more?
09:38Do I wish I could actually just like pull up a graph
09:40and untoggle and make my own custom EQ myself?
09:43Yeah.
09:45Do I also realize that most Beats customers
09:48would never dig in that far to begin with?
09:51Also yes.
09:52But the microphone quality is also solid.
09:54The Bluetooth latency is fairly minimal.
09:57Very easy to watch videos and play games with them.
09:59And there is technically no IP rating.
10:02It doesn't say it's water resistant anywhere,
10:04but I would wager, if I was betting,
10:07that these are probably gonna be okay as gym headphones.
10:09You can probably sweat in these
10:11and they'd be similar to previous Beats.
10:13That's not an official IP rating.
10:16That's just me going, eh, the way it's built
10:18feels like they'd be okay.
10:19So well-played Apple slash Beats.
10:23These aren't complete enough
10:25to completely cannibalize AirPods Max,
10:28but for people on the know,
10:30they are very, very good and almost complete enough
10:34and much cheaper enough to be basically
10:36a really good alternative.
10:37And I fully expect to start seeing these on flights a lot
10:41because these are gonna be really solid,
10:42fun, entertaining headphones.
10:44It also seems like Beats and Apple just don't talk.
10:49I wonder what's up with that.
10:50Either way, that's been it.
10:52Thanks for watching.
10:53Catch you guys in the next one.
10:55Peace.
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