The well-known repair site has discovered interesting details inside the AirPods Max.
In December, iFixit shared a preview of the AirPods Max teardown and today the company released the entire process.
First interesting point is that, to date, all models of AirPods and AirPods Pro have achieved a repairability score of 0, while the AirPods Max have achieved a score of 6 out of 10 .
The headphones achieved this score thanks to the presence of magnetic earpads, which can be easily replaced by users. There are also many internal components held together with screws rather than glue, which should make it easy for would-be repairers to replace them.
iFixit was particularly impressed with the hinged mechanism of the headband that sits between the strap and the ear cups, which allows you to quickly remove the band with a SIM card removal tool or paper clip. The repair site defines this as “the fanciest part of the AirPods Max”.
As expected, the headphones are not perfectly repairable in any way. Opening the AirPods Max involves removing a lot of glue inserted in a messy way.
In addition, Apple uses a flexible cable that wraps around the rotating part of the joint, with a smart routing and an integrated strain relief, then switching to spring contacts for connection to the headband.
Hopefully this will result in fewer failures due to cable wear. Durability is difficult to predict at times, but it’s clear that this setup has long been thought of by Apple.
Finally, iFixit compared Apple headphones to those offered by other competitors, such as the Sony WH-1000XM4 and Bose NC 700, and noted that “Apple’s obsessive art makes the other headphones we compared look like toys.”
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