Apple Music could be a bastion of high-quality audio streaming thanks to its lossless quality offerings, but even Apple’s premium AirPods Max cannot provide lossless wireless audio due to Bluetooth constraints, leaving the best audio quality on the market for wired headset users. So far.
Swiss audio company HED Unity today unveiled the world’s first wireless headphones, powered by Wi-Fi to enable high-resolution audio streaming up to 24-bit/96kHz.
For reference, this is not quite the full experience of Lossless Hi-Res Audio from Apple Music, which streams at a maximum resolution of 24-bit/192kHz. But that’s a lot of bandwidth for Apple’s regular lossless audio streams that run at 24-bit/48kHz. However, bandwidth is only half the story, and headphones will still have to work hard under the hood to turn that data into good sound, especially at the exorbitant price HED demands, but more on that more late.
AirPods Max blown out of water
These closed headphones make us wonder why anyone would wait AirPods Max 2. They even have Apple-esque aluminum parts sculpted around 40mm titanium-clad drivers to eliminate distortion at any volume. These earcups are machined from a single block of architectural-grade aluminum, the kind that would have Jony Ive say “Oh Crikey” as marmalade falls from his toast.
They have a frequency response range of 20Hz to 22kHz and, as noted, lossless audio is delivered through Wi-Fi streaming, which HED calls Full-Fidelity.
The headphones are so powerful that they come with their own built-in dual-core processor, memory and storage, as well as a gyroscope and other trackers to provide head-tracking motion detection.
Of course, they also feature active noise cancellation powered by 12 microphones.
They also offer Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity and up to 8 hours of battery life when streaming over that network or high-res Wi-Fi.
The price for all these luxuries is $2,1999, and they can be picked up in
the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Austria, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, l Spain, Australia, Switzerland, Norway and Portugal from getunity.com. (opens in a new tab)