 Hey guys, Thundee here, and I have the Apple AirPods Max. And today we're taking a look at how they compare to the true king of true wireless, the Sony WH-1000 Mark IV. Sony, please change your name and structure, it's a bit odd. Even Apple AirPods Max also is kind of weird. Anyway, let's take a look at both of these true wireless headphones. Now, Apple's AirPods Max coming at $550 compared to the $278 or $299 you will find for the Sony WH-1000 Mark IVs, or the Mark IVs we'll call for this video. Now, in terms of design and build, that's the first thing we're gonna take a look at. I think you'll notice that with the AirPods Max it's got this very premium look and finish to it. You've got this mesh headband that has a wide spacing here, and also the slider for each ear cup is pretty smooth, and it's got that metal finish all around. Now, when we take a look at the Sony Mark IVs, it's an all-plastic build from the headband, except the top which has leather padding to the ear cups themselves. The coloring, of course, is nice. It comes in black and a few other colors, but again, all-plastic build. So, in terms of the look and finish, the AirPods Max look really nice and premium, and it's priced at $550. The one thing you notice also is when you move this hinge slider here, it's just really smooth. There's no clicks in comparison to the Sony Mark IVs where you can hear that. So that's the difference there. Now, when it comes to comfort and fit, it's a little different story mentality. The AirPods Max come in at around 12 ounces, they are much heavier than I'd expected, as opposed to the eight ounces for the Sony Mark IVs. Now, putting them on, they're easy to put on. You can actually put them and you can slide around quite comfortably. The ear cups do lock around your ears pretty tight. Give me a much tighter seal than the Mark IVs. Now, in comparison, the Mark IVs feel really comfortable when you're putting them on. It's much easier to throw these on. They don't feel as tight and as heavy. I would say in comparison though, the Mark IVs are much more comfortable. In my own use case, the AirPods Max I probably would only wear them for about 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes. I can wear the Mark IVs for hours on end because of how light and comfortable they are. This is a trend that gotta give Bose props for because they started in the QC35. So that is just something to take note. Now, another thing to, in terms of design quickly before we move forward, is the ear cups. Now, I mentioned how tight the seal is on the AirPods Max because of how they're designed. They've got this really big oval feel so they fit your ear all entirely. But also they are removable and replaceable ear cups which is a nice thing. It's simply magnetized clips which you can just take open and just pull off and replace with either a different color or just replacement ear cup and they give you a nice fit and seal. As opposed to the Sonys which are of course leather and there is no set way to replace them without going to do some major work on them. So in terms of replacing the ear cups I'll give that to the AirPods Max. Now when it comes to features and controls on the headphones they have two very different philosophies. With the AirPods Max you have basically two buttons on there. They are no touch controls and the buttons are on the top right hand corner of your AirPods Max. It's a little bit weird in terms of controlling it just because the volume crown is at the back of your ear so you have to kind of lift your head up this way. So basically you have this routine of just lifting it and rotating and your arm being up. And of course the transparency button is right in front. I wish the controls were lower than behind but in terms of controls they work really well with you increasing the volume, reducing the volume or changing tracks. Compared to the Sony Mk4s which have touch controls on the right ear cup which allows you to swipe up or down for volume, left or right for music playback controls double tap to pause and play. Now for me they work really well because a lot of people don't realize you have to swipe from the very bottom to the top or from the very left to the right. It's easy, they work well. I think work controls work well but touch controls of course need improvement and I think the AirPods Max needs a better location. Now what about software? How does it work with some of the software features that each of these headphones have? Now the AirPods Max have the ability for you to take them off or put them on and when you take them off it pauses your music. It's a very simple thing, it works pretty well and also you've got the built-in transparency mode as I mentioned. Now within the software there's not much on your iPhone in terms of software features other than the fact that when you go to your volume controls you can see that you have connection to the AirPods Max and you've got the ability to switch between active noise cancellation and transparency controls and that's pretty much it. Now when you move over to the Sony Mk4s this is where you get the plethora of features that Sony has to offer. First of all of course you can put them on and you can take them off and it will pause your music. So that is also built-in there. That's just the first feature. Diving into the software there's so much more you can actually do. So with the Mk4s you can go in there and you can customize your EQ, something you cannot do. Now Apple has mentioned dynamic EQs which can change within your situation but I haven't really noticed it and I'm not sure how exactly it works. I do know very well I can go in and customize my EQs and have it sound more brighter, more bassy whichever way I want. Also you've got the adaptive ANC which allows the software to figure out your location and learns where you are. So if I'm at home and I want the ANC to be less it basically starts learning my environment and knows that I'm at home or I'm at work and it can change the ANC levels with my commute which is a really cool thing and I've seen it in action a couple of times. Another cool feature is speak to talk. So the ability for you to have your headphones on while you're listening to music and once you start talking it stops the music for you. So allow you to have a conversation with someone else so say you're on a flight, a flight attendant walks by and you have your headphones on they ask you for a drink you're like yes I would like a gin and tonic. You stop and then you can continue. That is what it does really well. I can go through a lot of the features it supports a lot of codecs, high res audio a lot of high end codecs as well which is something that Apple does not do with the AirPods Max. Apple says they have their own proprietary codecs we don't know exactly what they are but just in terms of industry standards. So I think on the software department it's quite clear that the Sony Mark IVs give you a plethora of features that we go through. Now of course you guys are thinking what about audio quality? Yes, this is the big one that we all care about how well does it sound, right? So with the AirPods Max they sound really good. I have to say that I think Apple has done a really good job with the audio for it. You've got some really crisp sounds and this is very little reverb the 40 millimeter drivers here work really well and I think the sound tuning is solid. What I will note is that the mids are a bit crushed and the sound stage is not as large as I would like. It sounds like it's got a smaller sound stage you expect for something like these. Now in comparison to the Sony Mark IVs you've got a much larger sound stage and the mids and highs come out pretty clear. Also you've got those EQs to play around with it. So if you want to put on neutral you can or if you want it a bit brighter so that your highs come up a bit more you can do it as well. So on the audio department I have to give the win to the Sony because the Sony has much more customability as well as also just a very cleaner baseline for me than the Apple AirPods Max. Granted AirPods Max, AirPods Max sound really really good so I'm not complaining about that. The one thing I will mention though with the AirPods Max is that the volume levels are quite interesting. So when I'm listening to the track on my AirPods Max I usually have to push it to about 80 maybe 90% to get those nice highs to come out well just a cleaner volume range. As opposed to the Sony Mark IVs I usually drive this at maximum 60% volume. That is just something to take note here between both of these headphones. So if you're one of those who is looking to get the most amount of your music it looks like the Sony Mark IVs might hit your mark. Now before we get into ANC I know you're thinking now how does that work? We talked about audio for both of these headphones and how they actually sound. I want you to actually bring something else to bring in as a reference. These are the Hi-Fi man Diva. Now the Diva's are Bluetooth wireless headphones from Hi-Fi man who are a high end manufacturer of headphones. They make a lot of high end headphones, audiophile headphones, a lot of wired headphones but this is one of their wireless solutions. Now what's interesting about the Diva is that it's got this dongle here. Yes, it's got a dongle for Bluetooth. It's not built in. You're basically sliding to the 3.5 headphone jack and boom you're connected. Now these are open ear headphones so everyone's going to hear everything you're listening to but they sound really, really good. They're priced around 350 maybe 400 depending and if I were to compare the audio of all three I will still put these ahead. These are Planet Magnetic headphones and they just drive audio really well. I think the Sonys can get us close to that while the AirPods Pro come in as third. Just to give you guys a reference where I would place this in terms of Bluetooth audio. Sony comes in second compared to that but you get the idea. Now finally, active noise cancellation. This is of course something a lot of people care about now. When you think about it we're all working from home even if you commute or you travel you like the idea of active noise cancellation and how do they function? Plus the different modes like transmissive mode and also you like speak to talk. So transmissive mode we'll start with that quickly first. Works really well. It works well on the AirPods Max also works well on the Sony Mark Force. Mark Force you can either use speak to talk which stops your music or when you have them on you put your hand to the side it allows you to talk through. Now some people would ask does it sound more natural than the other? To me they kind of sound the same. I just say it works well and quite effective so when you want to use it you can. When it comes to active noise cancellation I think Apple has done a really good job. They've stepped up the game and I think they are on par with what Sony has. I was sitting down listening to music Daniel was yelling at me, throwing stuff at me completely missed me by the way but I couldn't hear him at all. We were in the AirPods Max. Same thing as well with the Sony Mark Force. The only thing I would say that is a slight edge is that Apple has a much tidal seal with those ear cups and compared to the Sony's. So it feels like it just gives you a slight lower edge but also you can hear the pressure building up as well. Now the other thing too is that if you look at the software of the Sony Sony has a pressure atmospheric pressure reader calculating the pressure there so you can customize that within the application to give you more if you want to. So in ANC they're roughly about the same. Final part with ANC and travel which I almost forgot to mention is of course accessories, right? These are headphones you're paying either $270, $300 or $550. What does it actually come with? The AirPods Max come with something that a lot of people have made fun of. I have to, it comes with a purse, sorry a case, it comes with a case and yeah I would like to make more fun about it but it's just one of the weirdest designs that I'm not sure why Apple went with this and this is what it is. This is a case that puts into low power mode, it doesn't turn it off. This actually doesn't turn off because there are no buttons to turn it off but what you do is you put it flat, it doesn't actually fold in and you slide it into the case and boom, that's it, this is what you have. Now this is interesting because if you're traveling this does not protect your headband, doesn't protect the metal, it can scratch, it can be tossed around, in the airport you have to throw it into the bin, you get the idea there. Now that's for the AirPods Max and it doesn't come with anything else other than a lightning cable. Now the Sony Mark IVs come with a hard shell case. Now it's also a larger case as well but it opens up, revealing of course 3.5 millimeter cables and you've got that dreaded, you know, airplane adapter which we all hate but we love to have with our headphones and of course the Sony's do fold in so you can put it into the case and close it up and you can toss it into a bin, it's protected. So the benefit there of course is clearly with the Sony's. Okay, so when you look at both headphones, whether you're looking at the AirPods Max or the Sony Mark IVs, you're gonna ask yourself a question, which is worth the price? Now the AirPods Max are priced at $550. They sound really good, they've got good A and C but they lack a lot of features and some of the features that Apple touts like spatial audio, things like that are great for watching movies but also features you cannot transfer from your Apple device to your Android device. While with the Sony's, they've got a ton of features that are geared to audio. They've also got 360 audio which actually helps in giving you a very unique sounding experience while listening to music and you can have that same experience both on an iPhone or an Android device. So for me, it's pretty clear that the Sony Mark IVs are still A and C True Wireless Bluetooth King at its price point at $278 currently right now on Amazon and the Apple AirPods Max are really good but definitely not worth it at $550. So if you guys have any questions or any comments, let me know. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe to the channel and you know what, I'm just gonna listen to some music. Enjoy your entertainment guys.