Battle Over the Ears
AirPods Max VS Beats Studio Pro
This year, Beats, Apple’s sub-brand, released their newest headphone: Beats Studio Pro. This was their latest release in almost half a decade; the Beats fans anticipated that the headsets would offer improved sound quality and noise cancellation. As an Apple fan, I couldn’t hold my excitement and added it to my cart. Apple finally got their contender, Beats Studio Pro. It is a battle between AirPods Max and Beats Studio Pro, a duel in the family.
It is a fight in the family. I will rate them by aesthetic, features, sound quality, comfort, and price.
Aesthetic: The Design:
Beats and AirPods are structured in different materials: Beats are composed of plastic, aluminum, and vegan leather, and AirPods use aluminum, mesh, and stainless steel. AirPods get a point in terms of medium, giving users a luxurious feel. Beats have a plastic rail around the sound gears, which looks cheap for its price. Moreover, it tends to collect many fingerprints if your hands are greasy, and it disturbs people with OCD like me. Beats and Apple offer a variety of colors for users: Beats in Sandstone, Deep Brown, Navy, and Matte Black.
AirPods Max in Space Gray, Pink, Green, Sky Blue, and Silver. The overall design is subjective, but I prefer Beats Studio Pro’s sporty design over Apple’s simplicity.
Features: Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode:
Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode are two of the most indispensable features in modern listening devices. Beats and AirPods offer world-class noise canceling by eliminating the most external noise. However, the AirPods Max stands alone in this feature because they are much better at drowning out loud noises in the airplane or subway. Beats is better at depleting noises than its competitors, Bose QC45 and Sony WH1000XM5, but is less proficient than the AirPods Max.
Moving on, transparency mode is the primary factor influencing people’s preference for the AirPods Max, Apple excelled in this feature with their inaugural noise-canceling earbuds, AirPods Pro. There is no white noise that is common in most of the headphones, and you can hear your clear voice. Beats struggle to master this category; the white noise is relevant when you turn on this feature.
Sound Quality:
The Apple AirPods Max and Beats Studio Pro have good default sound tunings. AirPods have this flat frequency, delivering well-rounded audio quality. Bass, midrange, and treble are consistent in every genre of music. Spatial Audio is a unique feature in AirPods Max; your head becomes the center of the stage. It gives you a three-dimensional audio system using an accelerometer in headphones and tracks users’ heads as they move around. For example, if you are watching a movie and a sound is supposed to come from the left side of the scene, as you turn your head right, the audio won’t remain fixed in the left earcup. The system adjusts the sound to continue to feel like it’s coming from the left, maintaining the direction of the user’s head.
The disadvantage of using the AirPods Max is that customers can’t change the equalizer to customize their audio taste, and no personalized profiles exist.
Beats Studio Pro features bass-heavy sound as the founder is one of the influential rappers. Even though it is bass-heavy, other music like Pop, R&B, and Classical is still excellent. Beats Studio Pro delivers diverse sounds with the redesigned driver, including support for Lossless Audio (Original Source of Music) and three optimized profiles connected through USB-C: Beats Signature, Entertainment, and Conversation. Similar to AirPods Max, it also showcases Spatial Audio.
In terms of sound quality, Beats Studio Pro offers a better acoustic signature than AirPods Max. The Lossless support was the killer feature that stood out among the sound quality. Since Lossless delivers the exact music the artists produced, users can listen to the precision soundings of bass, treble, and midrange.
Comfort:
Regarding comfort, AirPods Max weighs 384.8 grams (similar to the iPad’s mass), and Beats weighs 260 grams. The 100-gram difference is significant because pressure due to heavy weight frequently disturbs users from enjoying music. The AirPods Max is meticulously designed with mesh-structured over-ear cushions that are soft and immerse ears comfortably. However, the pressure for a few hours gives a headache, a fiasco in comfort level. It ruins the overall experience.
Beats is captivating after trying AirPods Max. Beats Studio Pro targets athletes; therefore, their goal is to make light and comfortable headphones. Since Beats’ body is made of plastic, it outclasses AirPods Max, which is designed with aluminum. Beats upgraded their over-ear cushions, leveling up the comfort.
Price:
AirPods Max is known for its overpriced tag, which starts at ₩769,000 ($549). Beats Studio Pro begins at ₩449,000 (349.99). They are top-tier headphones, but an AirPods Max is unreasonably expensive. There are better alternatives in the AirPods Max’s price range, such as the B&O’s BEOPLAY HX, Bose QC45, etc. These alternatives support higher music codecs, noise cancellation, and sound quality. However, the design and integration of AirPods appeal to the users, as celebrities use them for commutes.
Beats Studio Pro is perfect with its price tag. However, it lacks on-ear detection (automatically playing and pausing the media), support for Lossless audio, and integration with Apple and Android, which illustrates why Beats is better than AirPods regarding connection. Before, Apple kept its products limited to its ecosystem. But with the Beats Studio Pro, Apple made it adaptable, so now people can use it with any device to listen to music.
Conclusion:
Winner: Beats Studio Pro
Beats Studio Pro beats AirPods Max! Here is the conclusion: if you want to buy AirPods Max, get the new Beats Studio Pro. The sound preferences are subjective, but I loved how the Beats impressively coped with the sounds in any genre. AirPods Max dominates noise cancellation and transparency, but Beats supports both features. The Beats Studio Pro deserves special recognition for its comfort and convenience that surpasses AirPods Max in aspects. The more I use Beats, the more I appreciate its lightness and portability, making it an undeniable winner in this match-up.
In the debate between Beats and AirPods, my choice is clear: the Beats Studio Pro. It’s not about affordability but the superior features that make the Beats Studio Pro stand out. From functionality to performance, Beats emerges as the winner in numerous aspects, making it the natural preference for my next headphone choice.
