Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

For clarification: I purchased these on Apple.com. I am just posting my review here. When you take these headphones out of the box you immediately notice the weight. Seeing as they are made of mostly metal, besides the replaceable ear cups and headband, this is not too surprising. The metal gives these headphones a very premium feel. The removable ear cups are very soft and comfortable and also easily replaceable (connected via magnets). The comfort of these headphones rivals most of the other headphones that I own or have owned. I have been comparing these to my Pioneer DJ HDJ-X10s and my Sennheiser PXC 550-IIs. The pioneer headphones are made for long listening sessions and DJ sets and the new Apple headphones tend to be more comfortable than those. When I initially got them I had them on for over 5 hours without any discomfort. Also, a common problem with some over ear headphones is that your ear my start to get hot or sweat over time. That has not been a problem with these headphones. The ear cups are not made out of a non-breathable leather which I am assuming is the reason why my ears do not heat up or sweat over time. The mesh at the top of the headband aids in the comfort. The other thing that makes these comfortable is the various adjustment points. From the telescoping arms to the ball point hinges, you can get an almost perfect fit for your head shape. Now let's talk about the sound quality. I will fist start off by stating that the noise cancelation, compared to the PXC 550-II is significantly better. It does not completely cancel out all noise however, it does a better job. I think. this is due to the metal design and the mass amount of microphones that they have located in various location on the headphones. When you use the transparency mode these microphones really shine! When this mode is active, and no music is playing, I can clearly hear myself as if I did not have the headphones on at all! Very impressive hardware and software magic from Apple. When actually playing music, in my opinion, the quality rivals a large selection of over ear headphones expect the high end audiophile range. The lows are not muddy and the mids and highs come through very crisp. The clarity is most likely due to the fact that the headphone boasts a 40mm driver which is large enough to reproduce a wide range of frequencies at high volumes without distortion or clipping. I am a big fan of the tactile buttons and Digital Crown that they have on the headphones for control. This control interface is simple and easy to learn and use daily. The noise cancelation button allows you to cycle between the various noise cancelation modes and in the software you can choose which of the three modes it cycles between (see image). Te Digital Crown is exactly like what you will find on the Apple Watch, only bigger. Scrolling on the watch allows for volume control, and clicking allows for play/pause. Using these headphones with Apple devices is pretty much as expected, seamless. I will say that you will need to ensure that you devices are updated to the latest operating system in order to fully enjoy all of the features. Battery life so far is very good! The smart case helps maintain battery life when not in use. From regular use I can go about three days before I need to charge them again. Now that is not travel days. If you travel a lot you may have to charge them more often. Everyones use case is different. Let me talk about the things that I don't like about these headphones. FYI these may be just personal gripes and might not bother you nor do they take away from the function of the headphones. The first issue that I have is that Apple is still trying to hold onto the lighting charging port. I really wish the would have put a USB C charging port on these headphones bringing them into the rapidly forming universal charging world that is here. The second gripe I have is with the case. If you look at the images I provided you can see how there are gaps in the case. This bothers me slightly because if I were to put these in my backpack on my daily commute there is a chance that something could slip in and scratch the ear cups. Now, I will see if this happens over time but it was not something that I had to deal with with my PXC 550-II because the case for those was completely covering of the headphones. I will add to this review overtime as use these headphones more...