comments:
I just got a pair of APM2 and have had them for a little over a week. My previous pair of ANC headphones was the Sony WH1000-XM4s. I liked the XM4s. I had to replace a yoke and I didn't find the multipoint to work very well so not having that feature was frustrating. The sound was also just fine to me. I didn't love it. Didn't hate it. It was a little muffled to me. Even with EQ. I am a bit of an amateur audio nerd so I wanted something that had good sound quality but I also wanted something that had good noise cancelling because I work from home and even with my office door shut, I can still hear my kids being kids. It took me awhile to decide between the Bowers and Wilkins PX7 S3's and the Airpods Max 2. I was hesitant with the APM2 because of all the concerns about their reliability but as someone with tons of Apple products as well as a lover of my Airpods Pro's, I decided I would give the APM2 a try. What finally pushed me to the APM is the better ANC, the transparency mode, as well as the upcoming EQ capabilites. ANC and Transparency are really useful to me with my previously mentioned situation of both needing to be able to drown out noise as well as hear things outside my headphones if my kids and wife are talking to me. So, it has been over a week and so far I am extremely happy with my APM2. The ANC is insanely better than the XM4's (which isn't necessarily a fair comparison given how old the XM4's are but still, much better). I am honestly surprised how well it reduces the kid noise going on around me. If I have the ANC on and music or youtube on at a reasonable volume when I am working, I don't hear anything from the outside. The transparency mode is amazing as it allows me to keep working while my wife needs to do something real quick and I can keep an ear on my kids. The sound is really fun to me as well. Every review said that the PX7's have better sound, and that may be the case, but I wasn't in a situation where I could A/B them. Of course, the sound is not as good as my $800 wired headphones run through my dedicated DAC/Amp but I didn't expect that. If I really want to listen to music for a purely enjoyable experience, I will use my wired ones when I am not distracted. Otherwise, music is just in the background. Still, I find the sound to be very enjoyable with the bass (to my ears) sound impactful and precise as well as detailed. I haven't encountered any muddiness. All in all, I am enjoying them more for music than I thought I would and they are amazing for movies and TV, especially Dolby Atmos content. I will be buying Apple Care for them just as an insurance policy but hopefully that won't be an issue. I wear them all day sitting at my desk and despite being the kind of person who runs very warm, I haven't noticed the condensation issue so many people mention. I don't know what people are doing to cause that but I can't imagine wearing these at the gym or on a walk or anywhere but my desk. Way too heavy for that. That is what Airpods Pros are for. Bear in mind I have only have them for a week so if I encounter problems, my opinon could change but I am very happy with them so far and I have been using them for 8 hours a day for the entirety of that week and I have encountered absolutely zero issues. Again, not crazy long but I have been using them a lot. The only negatives for me so far have been the weight and the clamp force. The weight isn't terrible for me as I have other heavy headphones and so have learned to get used to it but it is noticeable. Not bad enough for me to return them as of yet. The clamp force was such that it almost made me return them because I was getting headaches. But I decided to try and stretch them out and so left them stretched out on my desktop speakers for several hours (they are wider than my head) and for the last two days the clamp force has been fine and I haven't gotten a headache or felt uncomfortable. All in all, unless something happens in the next couple of days before my return window ends, I plan on keeping them as they have been extremely enjoyable for me and I hope they will last me a long time. Oh, I did get this accessory too, even though the netting on mine haven't stretched out yet and I found this to help distribute the weight better and provide a tad more cushion: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XP8FTKX?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title