AirPods Max vs. Sony WH-1000XM5

The AirPods Max and WH-1000XM5s are two of the most popular over-the-ear wireless noise canceling

headphones in the industry and with sales on both models bringing their retail price closer to each

other than they’ve been before, the decision on which pair to get becomes a bit harder.

I've used both now for over six months, and I definitely have an opinion on which one I think

you should get. First, let's start with the Sonys and for the purposes of this video, I'm just going

to call them the XM5s because that's an easier name to say than the actual name of the product.

They come with a protective case that covers the entirety of the headphones so if you wanna just

toss them into a bag with a lot of other loose stuff, they’ll be protected, but the case is less

convenient than the AirPods Max case if you’re just using them around the house since the AirPods

Max just slip right out of their case, which gives it a smaller form factor and you don’t have to

constantly adjust and readjust them, like you do in order to get the XM5s to fit into their case.

Next I think the Sony XM5s have better mic quality but don't just take my word for it,

here's an example of how both of their mics sound. These are the brand new Sony XM5s. I

shortened the name, the product names too long, anyways, theis is how their mics sound. Allright,

this is how the AirPods Max’s microphones sound. I'm currently recording this right now on my Mac

studio through QuickTime, making sure that I'm using the mics and not the Studio Display’s

microphone. And speaking of which we're gonna have a review on that and why this camera looks so bad,

so, subscribe to the channel if you want to see the review of the Studio Display and all of my

many thoughts on it, but yeah, this is the AirPods Max, this is how they sound. Which pair did you

think had better mics? Let me know in the comments below. And next up, let's talk battery life.

The Sony XM5s are rated for 30 hours of playback and in my experience they’re far better with their

battery life than the AirPods Max, which are only rated for up to 20 hours, ⅓ less than the XM5s.

The next thing I like about the XM5s are their lighter weight,

weighing only 249g compared to the AirPods Max which weigh 384g.

Also the XM5s typically cost anywhere from $100 to $150 US dollars less than than the AirPods Max,

which is nice too, And I've left purchase links in the description below so you can check the latest

prices for each pair. The last thing I like better about the XM5s are that they include an EQ feature

that lets you tweak and customize their audio to your liking. The AirPods Max have nothing like

this feature and even though i've done quite a bit of tweaking on the XM5s, I still can't get them to

sound as good as the AirPods max. By default the XM5s are a bass heavy. On a track like Anti-Hero

by Taylor Swift for example, its very bass heavy, but also a bit less punchy than the default sound

profile on the AirPods Max, which makes vocals sound much clearer, and the AirPods Max has

better separation and detail even though the XM5s support LDAC, which is a proprietary codec

developed by Sony that lets you stream higher quality music over Bluetooth, which is about

the only major feature of the XM5s have that the AirPods Max don't that I think makes a difference,

at least in my experience. And thanks to 6 Club Member Jigabyte for submitting that question.

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the channel, and becoming a member of The 6 Club by clicking that join button below.

And if you want to see more comparison videos, like this one, well, you already know what to

do. Hit that subscribe button. So now let’s talk about the AirPods Max and what I think

they’re better at than the XM5s, and first is actually comfort. Even though they're heavier

than the XM5s, I actually find the Airpods Max to be a more comfortable set of headphones for

a few reasons. First one is the mesh material used here on the mesh canopy. It allows the heat

Generated from your head to vent more easily than the material used on the

XM5s. The ear cups are also deeper than what you'll find on the XM5s.

My ears never touch the mesh, covering the drivers,

which happens quite a bit with my ears when I wear the XM5s.

The next thing I love about the AirPods Max is their sound quality. Now, yes, while they

don't support high quality music streaming codecs through bluetooth like the XM5s do,

to me, they still achieve better sound quality. This is likely due to Apple’s

better custom drivers combined with what Apple calls their computational audio,

which utilizes Apple’s custom-silicon H1 chips in each earcup that help adjust the sound based on

the fit and seal created by the ear cushions, which are very easy to remove because they’re

magnetically held into place, and you can buy new ear cushions off Apple’s website.

The sound of the AirPods Max has more dynamic range,

sounds more clear than the XM5s with vocals and have better separation and space,

especially with something like a film score. All right, I'm going to get a little film score

nerd here. But take any film score written by John Williams, like Home Alone or Harry Potter,

where he uses an instrument called the Celeste otherwise known as a bell piano.

This instrument can create high-pitched sounds and when you listen to one of his

scores with the airpods, max it just sounds so crystal clear and bright. On the XM5s,

this type of sound doesn't pop as much and blends into the rest of the mix more. Now,

if you're wondering why i'm randomly talking about John Williams and film scores,

besides the fact, yes, I am a fan of just listening to film scores in general.

It's actually because the Airpods Max are a superb choice to listen to movies and TV

shows on with their support for spatial audio with head tracking, which is important. Through

Apple devices like the Apple TV. This is a very underrated feature of these headphones that

allow them to make it sound like you have a 5.1 surround system around you by decoding

a 5.1 or Dolby Atmos signal and being able to create a similar effect with headphones. It's

perfect for if you want to stay up late and watch something with excellent sound,

but not bother the people around you.And the Apple TV has a feature that allows you

to listen on up to 2 sets of any airpods, so you and your partner could listen to

the same show on your own set of AirPods without waking up the kids. Pretty cool.

The XM5s do support a competing sound standard to Dolby Atmos

called 360 Reality Audio developed by Sony that’s also an object-based sound codec,

however, it’s not as widely adopted as Atmos, so for these headphones,

you’ll be able to use them with a service Amazon Music or Tidal, and you won't get

the same cool experience that you get with the AirPods Max when watching TV shows and Movies.

Now the next feature I really like about the AirPods Max is called transparency mode,

which I have enabled now. You just press a button and it turns off noise cancellation

and allows you to hear the surrounding environment and the transparency mode on

the AirPods Max. It basically sounds like I'm not wearing headphones at all. It is still the best

transparency modeI have ever experienced on a pair of noise canceling headphones

or earbuds and compared to the XM5s where it basically still sounds like you're underwater,

like you can still hear the environment around you but it's just not this crystal

clear and doesn't sound like i'm not wearing any headphones at all.

The next thing I like about the AirPods Max is you don’t need an app to set them up,

you just bring them close to your iPhone or iPad and go through the steps to set them up.

Another thing I think Apple did with the AirPods Max that was really smart

is bring the digital crown over from the Apple Watch to use for playback and volume

controls. It allows you to precisely set the volume level you want by rotating the dial.

Now, another controversial thing i like about the AirPods Max is

they do not have a power button. So when you're done listening to them,

you just slip them back into the smart case, and that puts them into a low powered state.

And then when you want to listen to something, you just take them out, put them on and boom,

it automatically connects to the device that you want to listen to music on,

you don't even have to think about using a power button, which to me

is actually a more simple experience than any headphone with a power button.

Having the headphones immediately turn on and start pairing with devices when I put them on

my head just saves you a bit of time and is one less thing you have to think about. And

while it’s not great for every situation, I do like the smart case Apple designed for

them. It makes it very easy to slip out the headphones, is less bulky than the XM5s case,

and you don’t have to constantly unzip and rezip the case all day long.

And that's everything I like about the AirPods Max. So, which set of headphones do I think you

should get? Well, if you're an Apple user, you've got an iphone and a bunch of other Apple products,

like a Mac, iPad, Apple TV, etc, You should go with the AirPods Max, it is not even close.

They're pretty much better than the XM5s in every category for me, at least if you have

a lot of Apple products and we didn't even talk about one feature that's great with these if you

do have a ton of apple products is when you put them on and you start using an Apple accessory,

like my iPad here, which has my script on it, if i just start playing music on this iPad,

these headphones will automatically connect to the iPad through iCloud.

That is something the XM5s cannot compete with, if you have a lot of Apple accessories and devices.

Now, the XM5s do pair to multiple bluetooth devices at a time which these do not, these can

only pair to one bluetooth device at a time for music playback, but with the automatic switching

feature, that is kind of mute, because they'll just switch to whatever device you're using.

Now, the automatic switching feature, it doesn't work great 100% of the time but it works well

enough most of the time for me to make that, like, it's something that is actually worth

considering when you are thinking about getting these headphones. Now, if you're an Android user,

you may be wondering, well, do I think the XM5s are better for Android users than the AirPods Max,

and that really depends. If you don't have any Apple devices in your life to be able to set up

and maintain the firmware on the AirPods Max, then yeah, the XM5s are really your only choice, but if

you're asking me like as a set of headphones, even when you remove some of the Apple device specific

features from the AirPods Max like the spatial audio with head tracking and for TV shows, movies,

and then music through Apple Music, which one do i think is the better set of headphones?

It’s still the AirPods Max. They are more comfortable to me, they're better designed

in terms of just hardware. And yeah, the sound quality is still better too. So i would still

say the AirPods Max are better, so if you're an Android user or you use a windows machine, etc.

But you do have some Apple products around. I’d go with the AirPods Max because you'll still get

the spatial audio and device switching features with your Apple devices. But with your Windows

and Android devices, you'll still get a solid set of bluetooth headphones to use with those devices.

Also, the AirPods Max come in five colors, which is pretty cool. Compared to just two colors you

can choose between with the XM5s. If you're interested in purchasing either of these two

headphones, I've left the purchased links here in this video and in the description below, so

you can learn more and check current prices. And I've left the links to the full reviews of each of

these headphones in the description, as well. Hit that thumbs up button if you like this video and

found it helpful and subscribe to the channel to see more comparison videos like this one.

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join button below to learn more. And if you’re looking for what to watch next,

check out some of our other comparison videos by clicking on the playlist to

the right. For 6 Months Later, I’m Josh Teder, thank you for watching.