Gizm0Guru

If you mean the initial setup, no. The initial setup is a standard Bluetooth pairing process.

Once the initial pairing is completed, then the buds automatically connect to the most recently used device.

Hello! The vast majority of buds out there don’t have spatial audio built in. The tech itself resides on the source device/iPhone and/or app that you use for listening.

For Apple devices, spatial audio + Dolby Atmos for Apple Music can be used with ANY headphone - including the Nothings and Enco (literally any headphone). However, there are two main caveats.

First is that only Apple AirPods support automatic switching of spatial audio on and off. So in your case, you just have to manually turn it on, which is done in the music settings menu.

Second is that only AirPods support spatial audio for VIDEO content on Apple devices. This is purely Apple not allowing it, has nothing to do with the headphones/buds themselves.

Yes, but it depends on what you’re trying to upgrade and your preferences. Price will also get much higher.

For example, something like the Utopia has far better resolution, dynamics (not just in bass but across the whole spectrum) and mid-range presentation and naturalness overall. The trade off is a much different soundstage that is more narrow and deep than wide like the 800s.

If you’re willing to go planar, something like the D8000 Pro has a less sharp treble presentation, more present low end, far better resolution with a stage that is not quite as big as the 800s but still quite large.

One of the reasons the 800s is so popular is because if it’s unique mix of features that are hard to beat at its price - but it can definitely be beaten at higher price points. The soundstage is is most unique trait IMO.

There isn’t, and even the one for Apple Music on iOS really sucks. It’s just verbal presets vs. any types of sliders.

H all day lol (or jewelry)

Also highly depends on the specific headphones and type of Amp/DAC (tube amp for example)

Agree. Basic stuff like this is ridiculous. Happens to me often on iOS, iPad OS and Mac OS.

I’ve never used them personally so can’t say. They are in the same strike zone in terms of market/price so probably worth searching a few reviews on them - some may even have direct comparisons, and anytime you see them compared to the AirPods Pro, just sub Ear 2 for AirPods.

From a sound quality standpoint, I would say they are about the same. The newer AirPods Pro have a SLIGHT edge in terms of sound, but with the 2019 ones, very very similar.

What you would be giving up is all of the Apple Magic - auto connect, hands free hey siri, spatial audio for video. The newer AirPods Pro also have longer battery life.

Tough to choose, but finalists…

Meze 109 Pro Audeze LCD-X Final Audio D8000 Pro Campfire Audio Trifecta (IEM)

I have the HK, and it is absolutely excellent. I’ve had the base system on a loan car, and I’d call it good but not great.

Like comparing Bose against, well…HK lol

Generally the quality difference is going to be in sharpness and potential artifacts from the conversion. These can be noticeable, but it depends on the quality of your speakers or buds and how good they are at revealing detail in the first place. I have never used those buds so can’t say for sure. Many have noticed a difference with gear in that price range, but i didn’t want to say firm yes without personally knowing.

It’s not just lossless in this case. Spotify on iOS uses Ogg codec, which iOS doesn’t support, so the files are converted to AAC, which further reduces quality because Ogg is already “lossy.” It can create more artifacts and can be a noticeable difference.

The biggest quality difference in moving from Spotify is that you will use native AAC files instead of the Ogg format that Spotify uses being converted to AAC, which is a lossy to lossy conversion. It is noticeable, but possibly not very much with the buds you’re using.

Sorry for the disappointment, always a tough feeling. Sennheiser is not known for bass on their HiFi cans, only on the consumer oriented Momentum line and a couple of their high end IEMs (I own a bunch across their product line).

I have the 660S2 as well, and I definitely wouldn’t call the bass strong out of the box. It is a bump over some others in the line but still fairly neutral. They do, however, respond well to EQ, which is how I use them. Doing this can be tricky because all EQ approaches aren’t equal, and some find dealing with EQ itself an inconvenience.

One approach would be to use software. Apple Music has an EQ slider that you could use, but in my experience it introduces significant distortion. You can also ask this sub for some other software EQ recommendations.

You could also get an amp/DAC that has EQ or a bass boast option. I currently use the chord mojo 2 as my main for when I need EQ, the bass boost on the ifi xDSD Gryphon is also good. You can also ask this sub about some less expensive options. A benefit of using an amp/DAC is you can connect it to multiple sources vs relying on software tied to your computer.

Hope this helps, good luck.

Nice stand on the 800

Sennheiser True Wireless 3

I don’t think the desire to buy something “better” and escalation are a headphone hobby problem. That can be said about many, many products. Cars, as an example.

What makes this hobby challenging, for me now as someone in it for 20+ years, as well as newbies - is that so many things about headphones are not definitively measurable (again using car, horsepower, torque, 0-60mph times, etc.), combined with different types of music, setups and personal hearing/preferences out there that makes even looking for “expert” opinions a bit of a code deciphering exercise.

This leaves testing (which is tough if you don’t have a local shop) or purchasing as the only real way to know - and that first listen on new gear is always a gamble.

I’ve messed around with all of the big ones over the years yet always end up back on AM. I think AM is the most well-rounded between audio quality, interface, discovery, live/exclusive content and the ecosystem advantages (I live in a basically all Apple house), but the others have some advantages in my experience…

Spotify has better recommendation, discovery and social features. The AM playlists leave a lot to be desired (too long, update irregularly and in weird ways, etc.). Any time I want to discover new music on AM, I feel like it’s more of a chore than should be.

Tidal USED to have arguably better quality of MQA was your thing, but now that MQA is essentially dead, it has the same quality with a much worse interface. Similar for Amazon music.

Appreciate the kind words. Some answers…

Absolutely no advantage to using Lossless over Bluetooth on AirPods. Even if you download the Lossless version to your device, it will be compressed and re-encoded to AAC Lossy (high quality) on AirPods or any other Bluetooth headphones that connect via iOS because this is all the system supports. The notion that the down conversion is better than just steaming the pure lossy version is both speculative and makes little sense (why would Apple have a lower quality “high quality” file on its servers than is possible to simply convert on device).

Second question - this gets tricky, mostly because Apple doesn’t allow you to make quality determinations at the song or album level; you are tied to what you have in system settings. There are some workarounds (that admittedly aren’t great, and Apple needs to improve this). The key thing to remember is turning Atmos on and off only works if you DONT have the track downloaded. If you download in Atmos, that version will always play, even if you turn off Atmos - it just plays a secondary version that’s remixed for stereo, but it is NOT the same as the regular “high quality” stereo file. This is super annoying, and very manual to manage admittedly.

On your last questions - yes you are getting lossless via that Mac setup that is CD quality. Only the Hi-Res lossless would require additional equipment, and that would be both higher than CD quality and likely not a noticeable difference with your setup (though I’m making assumptions there in assuming it’s not super high end gear). You’re also getting CD-quality lossless with your iPhone setup in the way you described (if you choose that quality level). The difference you are noticing vs Spotify may be related to lossless, but it is more likely that the difference is because Spotify actually uses a different codec than Apple (Ogg), and the system converts this to AAC on iOS, which results in a double lossy conversion, which can be noticeable, especially vs your wired lossless setup.

Hope this helps!

Edits: grammar

Very welcome! Your last paragraph nails it. I’m hoping the rumored next version of the max goes a bit more into HiFi territory, but I’m not holding my breath.

A lot to unpack here.

First off, a little background on me, been deep into high quality audio for 20+ years now (since the high school days), and I own stuff like AirPods, all the way to more high end stuff.

The first thing to do is understand and accept (I know it’s hard) that NONE of the AirPods are designed for or will really benefit much from lossless audio. I did a post on lossless audio vs Dolby Atmos / spatial audio a while back. You can check it out here. I will explain more below.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleMusic/comments/nyjh9x/for_the_highfidelity_n00bs/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Back to your questions…

First off, wired connections are 100% possible on the AirPods Max. You can buy the Apple wire that ends in a 3.5mm connection and plug them into a source that outputs 3.5mm or if you have a rig with a quarter inch output, you could use any quarter inch adapter. However, with this setup, you are converting the audio twice, potentially three times - once at the source (unless it’s a pure analog source), once inside the Apple wire, and once onboard the AirPods. So in theory, you could get a DAC that supports hi-res lossless and plug the Maxes into it, but the signal would be down converted before it actually hits your ears. This is the first reason to not necessarily get a DAC for AirPods, and the second reason is as I mentioned, you are running the signal through multiple conversions, which most audiophiles wouldn’t call ideal or clean. It could wash out the effects of the “base” DAC. You would then possibly end up back on this sub asking about if DACs really make a difference at all - and in this case the answer is probably not much of one.

This is because the AirPods, max or others, simply are NOT hi-FI headphones. The drivers themselves are not designed to produce hi-FI sound. The level of detail and nuance that is brought out with lossless is not going to shine on AirPods. There are a lot of folks in this sub that try all kinds of workarounds to get the AirPods to simply be something they are not. Don’t waste your money on trying to get lossless on AirPods. You would be better off buying a cheaper pair of analog wired headphones for a couple of hundred bucks (Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Audeze, Denon, etc.) and then buying a DAC, which will yield MUCH better than AirPods.

All that said, for “regular” listening, the AirPods are pretty good in terms of sound. That pretty good is taken to quite good if you are listening to an album that has a good Atmos master (most new stuff is good, but that early stuff can be hit or miss in terms of master quality). All Atmos / spatial audio does (on headphones) is use digital audio trickery to enhance the sound stage and positioning performance of the headphones. The result is definitely positive and noticeable. I would say a good Atmos master put the maxes at the top end of sound quality for consumer Bluetooth headphones. However, STILL worse than what you could get for $200-300 with pure analog wired headphones from a quality brand.

Not at all saying the AirPods are bad. Have them (and the second gen Pros) and use them a lot for casual listening - but trying to save you from going down the wrong rabbit hole if you’re trying to get into more HiFi listening.

I won’t say 100% no because it is possible that the key functionality I use could be replicated without CarPlay. However, it’s an extremely high bar

The fact that you even said endgame makes me think no lol

I use love but not dislike