Check out These Custom 18K Gold AirPods Being Made

18k Airpods Credit: YouTube
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Apple may no longer be chasing the fashion industry with 18-karat gold Apple Watches, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t at least some users out there who want to bling up their Apple devices and accessories into the stratosphere of luxury materials.

We’ve already seen luxury brands releasing gold-encased iPhones for those who don’t think the iPhone XS is expensive enough already, and now it seems that a skilled jeweler has decided to try and give Apple’s AirPods the 18-karat gold treatment.

In a YouTube video shared by 9to5Mac, highly skilled jeweler Pablo Cimadevila, actually takes us through the process of making solid gold AirPods — or, as he calls them, “AirGolds.”

Cimadevila isn’t going halfway here, either — this isn’t just a gold finish on top of the standard AirPods, but rather he actually created his own AirPods cast, melted 18-karat gold into it, and then disassembled a pair of existing AirPods — no small feat by itself — and placed them into his new gold casing to create a product that actually works.

The eleven-minute video shows the entire process, including taking apart an existing pair of AirPods without damaging them, making the custom cast, and then melting the gold itself. It’s a really fascinating video that’s worth watching all the way through.

What’s particularly amusing — and perhaps ironic, considering what his new “AirGolds” must now be worth — is that at the end of the video, Cimadevila is shown pairing them up with an Android phone rather than an iPhone.

After all is said and done, the new “AirGolds” are inserted into a standard AirPods charging case that hasn’t gotten the gold treatment. While there’s no indication of whether they’re charging in that case or not, there’s no reason to believe that normal charging wouldn’t continue to work fine, as AirPods actually charge in the case through physical contact, not wirelessly. The case itself, since it’s been unmodified, would also likely continue to support Qi-enabled wireless charging without any problems, even with the gold AirPods inserted.

One other question that isn’t addressed by the video is what the ultimate sound quality of the resulting AirPods would be like. We have to assume that an 18-karat gold casing would change the sound signature quite a bit, especially considering the drivers have been optimized for a much lighter-weight plastic construction.

Think Different

Cimadevila says that this was a one-time project inspired by Apple’s “Think Different” advertising campaign from the 1997–2002 era. He doesn’t intend to sell his new “AirGolds” nor produce any more, but considering how many other companies have been producing gold-encased and jewel-encrusted iPhones for years, we suspect it’s only a matter of time before somebody else picks up on the idea.

Since Cimadevila doesn’t offer any more details, it’s less certain what the actual cost of 18-karat gold AirPods would be, even in terms of raw materials, but with 18-karat gold currently priced at well over $1,000 per ounce, they definitely wouldn’t come cheap.

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