Interesting pair of headphones to say the least. It definitely has its pros and cons.
Shipping (5/10) - I bought these on the 11th of March and it arrived yesterday, the 9th of April. So it took almost a month to arrive. To further add to how pissed I was, I originally waited another month for Beschan to deliver my headphones but ended up never arriving. I had to get a refund for it. But the drama is over now, and it has arrived.
Packaging (8/10) - I don't really have much to say about the boxing, from my eye, it looks pretty real. I have no intention of reselling this, so this statistic is purely for style points. Although, I can say the print does look pretty strange in colour, and the side stickers do say strange stuff like "This product is authorised by American Apple Company" that may give hints that it is reps. Although it did come with the startup guide paper and everything the package should have, so it's good.
Build Quality (6.5/10) - For $180AUD, I can say I am a little bit disappointed in the build quality of these headphones. The digital crown makes a scraping noise every time I turn, and does not feel like how a typical digital crown will feel, and feels wobbly. The ANC button also feels very wobbly, and feels cheap overall. The telescopic adjustment also takes a lot of strength to adjust, but that doesn't really matter too much to me. The ear cushions feel sort-of cheap too, which is why I am buying replacement ear cushions from the apple store directly to see if it will make a difference. When removing the ear cups to see the Apple manufacturing text, it becomes evident that it is fake with a faded print on both ear cups and has no regulation symbols on the bottom part of the earcup, or pinholes.
However, I can say that the overall product looks extremely close (or as some say, 1:1) to the original look of the Airpods Max. Still looks hard for the pics lol.
Sound Quality (5/10) - This is coming from a very nitpicky headphone-enthusiast perspective, so I will give this a 5/10.
To be honest, I don't know how I exactly feel about the sound quality of these headphones. I can definitely say that it appeals to the untrained ear of consumerists who thrive for extremely bassy frequency responses, but in my opinion - this just sounds muddy. In return, the overall sound quality just has low detail, overpowered by fatiguing bass. This was fixed for me when I used the treble boost EQ on spotify, but still feels fatiguing.
However, I have a theory that I haven't officially burnt into the sound signature of these headphones given that I am used to the Beyerdynamic DT990 PROs, which are notorious for its strong treble because they are analytical, monitoring headphones. Having to hear bass in the transition to closed-back headphones does make a sweet difference, it feels nice.
Because of this lack of detail, there will also come a lack of soundstage which is pretty evident. Though this is common among all closed-back headphones, so I'll give these headphones an exception.
Spatial Audio (with the head tracking) also works for those who are wondering, but not as miraculously as the real AirPods Pro (from personal reference). I'd still advise to use it though.
Noise Cancelling (8/10) - Because of the combination of ANC and passive noise cancellation thanks to these being closed-back headphones, these actually out-do my real AirPods Pro in terms of cancelling out noise. Though this is mainly thanks to passive noise cancellation, as evident with changing between Noise Cancellation on "Off" and "On". Transparency is a different story.
Transparency (2/10) - It works, but not well. I can notice a slight difference between noise cancelling and transparency, and only becomes noticeable when no media is playing. In addition, when activating transparency, there is a faint clicking on the right earcup which sort of pisses me off.
Ask me more questions if you need. Thanks for reading.