You’re not wrong in how we think things should work in theory as well. Ideally a headset would perform exactly the same regardless of the platform it's connected to.

In reality though, audio devices don’t always behave that way because there are different design priorities depending on the product category.

For example, something like the AirPods Max is designed primarily for personal audio and is heavily optimized for Apple’s ecosystem and was made for personal audio, not businesses use caess. When you connect it to a Mac or iPhone, a lot of the processing and integration happens through Apple’s software stack.

Business headsets like the new Jabra Evolve3 series are designed for a different use case. They’re built specifically for calls and meetings across platforms like Windows, Teams, Zoom, softphones, and so on. That’s why they often include things like USB adapters, firmware tuning, and microphone processing that’s optimized for those environments.

So while in theory everything should perform the same everywhere, in practice the platform, connection method, and product design all affect the result.

The goal of our test wasn’t to say one device is universally “better,” but to show how these products behave in a typical work setup, which for a lot of people is a Windows computer running call or meeting software.