Review
Admittedly, I was skeptical at first. The price of the AirPods Max is no small matter, and after numerous disappointments with other wireless headphones, my expectations were low. Especially in combination with VoiceOver, which I use intensively every day, all the devices I had tried so far suffered from noticeable latency. That’s a real obstacle – not so much when listening to music, where latency is hardly noticeable, but when working with the display and relying on precise VoiceOver feedback, every millisecond counts.
And then came the AirPods Max.
Honestly, I was blown away – these headphones exceeded my expectations in every way. The latency with VoiceOver is virtually imperceptible. Finally, a wireless system that allows me to work efficiently and barrier-free, without getting thrown off by lag. It feels like they’re directly wired – no delay, no dragging of the voice.
And then there's the sound – without exaggeration, it's a standout feature. Clear, balanced, powerful – whether it's voice or music. I can honestly say I’ve rarely been this surprised and impressed by a product.
Comments
Nice review
Tbh thinking of getting myself a pair in December. However, can you use them for listening to devices with the 3.5 headphone jack if you buy the USBC version and the cable?
Nice review
Tbh thinking of getting myself a pair in December. However, can you use them for listening to devices with the 3.5 headphone jack if you buy the USBC version and the cable?
How old are they now
Apple has not updated them for how many years? The chip is old, and the AirPod pro 2 and soon the AirPod pro 3 will be much better. I think they are about 7 years old or 5.
Five years this December and still kicking it
Re USB-C and 3.5 jack, yes, but you need to get the one specifically from Apple as it has a chip in it for the encoding.
they are old but headphones, especially over ear, don't really need to evolve that quickly. Good sound is good sound and they are still, by far, the best over ear to use with voiceover. They still have the best transparency too.
I wouldn't compare them to the AirPods 2, or even 3 when they come out. They are a different purpose. The Max will still sound better just because of the difference between over ear and in ear. They have a huge advantage of a massive driver.
Oliver
They do not have sound reduction or language translation. Also they could be like pro 2 with hearing aid but not. Apple need to bring the second generation with so many updates. Even the airPod 4 more likely are better.
Define "better"
I'd love nothing more than an update but, they are still, even after five years, some of the best over ears you can get.
Yes, the AirPods Pro are better at translation, the 3s will be better for biometric monitoring, heart rate and temperature. They are also better at being smaller.
But they are not better sounding and, if you want a really good sounding headphone, not ear bud, that works seamlessly with Apple, there is nothing better. But I repeat myself.
I'm assuming you don't have a pair or haven't tried them?
In the end "better" is a subjective concept. For me, they are the best. If you want translation, then they utterly suck.
Language translation
For AirPods, that feature Makes sense. Meaning for AirPods Pro, AirPods third gen etc makes sense but, for the max... Considering people don’t really use overear headphones when on calls usually... Doesn't make sence to add that to the max, tbh.
Igna Triay
If the features was aded people would use it. If someone is uses them and they get a call, they are not going to remove them and use something else.
Agree that these are great for what they are...
I bought my pair back when they were still using lightning cables. I did have a bit of FOMO USB-C envy when that new version came out, but I got over it. True, they haven't had any hardware update since release in 2020 or something like that, but do they need an update? I was using the same surround speakers on my home entertainment system that I bought back in 2001 (Yes, two thousand and one) until recently, because they sounded, and still sound great for waht they are.
The important thing here is, "...for what they are." These are over ear headphones that have phenomenal sound quality. Some people love them, some lpeople don't. It comes down to a matter of personal taste.
When the Airpods Pro 2 were in the design phase, they said, "We want them to sound like the AirPods Max, but in an earbud." Well, they succeeded in my opinion. And my AirPods Pro 2 fit in my pocket just a little bit easier. At least I don't walk around funny.
Still, I keep my Max at my desk, and throw them on for phone calls and video meetings all the time. They connect to my mac quickly, sound awesome, and yes, have noice canceling/reduction, however you want to put it. Sure, they don't have an adaptive mode, but they have transparency and noice canceling that both work as well as the AirPods Pro 2.
And yes, I have the overpriced lightning to 3.5mm cable sold by Apple, so I can hard wire into things. That works equally great, even though it's not true lossless audio.
If they need to update anything it's the BT chip to a wider bandwidth version that allows for a true lossless connection to devices that also support the higher bandwidth, or some sort of wifi connection that isn't as limited as BT for lossless support.
Since live translation will be available on the AirPods Pro 2 also, it wouldn't surprise me to have it on the Max a well. Sounds like the bulk of the translation will be done by AI on the connected iphone/iPad/Mac anyway, so the connected audio device shouldn't be as much of an issue in the long run. It might just take them time to roll out support to the Max.
Short version, I agree completely with the review. Great over ear headphones that do the job for which they were designed exceptionally well. I prefer them over my Bose 700 for most uses.
@Bo, a few questions
I don't want to hijack the topic too much but, since you mentioned the bose 700, i'm debating between the bose quiet comfort ultra which to my understanding is a upgrade from the qc45 or 700, not too clear on that but, what has been your experience with the qc700 or qc ultra if you've tried them compared to the max?
My thoughts on Airpods Max
I had my Airpods Max just over a week, and I love them to bits! The review speaks for itself; negligible latency and best ever sound quality in a pair of headphones I ever owned. I do however wish to point out that those who wear BTE, behind the ear hearing aids have little choice when it comes to earbuds or headphones. In my experience earbuds just would not suit me, so the Airpods or Airpods Pro are out for me and most likely others too. The only option therefore are over-ear headphones such as the Airpods Max. Judging by this review it is the only choice unless you're prepared to deal with higher latency on other over-ear, wireless headphones. Just putting this out there; not criticizing those who love or prefer Airpods/Airpods Pro over Airpods Max.
Does it even matter if they're old?
I mean, audio technology hasn't had any breakthrough since 2020.
My personal experience
I have the USB-c variant of the AirPods Max introduced last year, and while I disapproved of their bass-heavy audio signature in the beginning, I have actually grown to appreciate it now, plus I have always also praised the build quality so honestly at this point the only negative aspects that I can point out are related to issues with the half-baked USB-c audio driver and also firmware implementation.
While the AirPods Max are powered by the H1 chip and thus are missing a lot of functionality found in headphones powered by the H2 chip like the AirPods Pro 2, none of that functionality is actually useful to me so that did not influence my decision to buy this product. On the other hand being able to take advantage of USB-c audio for zero latency and even connect to analog devices using a cable that Apple sells specifically for that purpose were major selling points for me, plus the performance of its Active Noise Cancellation feature actually surprised me so that's definitely another positive aspect that I wasn't even factoring into my initial purchasing decision.
As for the AirPods 4, which I also own myself for use away from home, while Apple tried to make the audio signature pretty much the same, their firmware is designed to filter out most of the bass and treble beyond a certain statically defined volume level, because physical limitations would likely result in distortion if they tried to keep the same audio signature all the way up to maximum volume. Beyond that they can't really do wired audio so there's always that little bit of latency associated with wireless audio that I prefer to not experience. As for the AirPods Pro 2, I personally don't like in-ear headphones, as I use them all day long and they tend to get clogged with ear wax after a couple of months of intense use, plus their battery life doesn't last that long which tends to limit how long I can use the computer, and they too have the aforementioned unavoidable latency characteristic of wireless audio so I'm definitely not interested in them.
As for the AirPods Max requiring specific cables or adapters made by Apple, I just tested them by plugging them to one of my Raspberry Pis, which run Linux and only have USB-a ports so I had to use a third-party cable, and got pretty standard USB audio just using the ALSA interface, which also makes it quite easy to control positional audio since these AirPods register as a bunch of multi-channel USB audio devices ranging from just 2.0 stereo all the way to 7.1 surround with low frequency effects. Beyond that the AirPods Max also register a raw HID input that I suspect might contain extended user actions like playing and stopping music or controlling the volume using the headphone's controls;.
The following is the internal kernel messages that I get after plugging the AirPods Max to the Raspberry Pi running Linux (the serial number is redacted but the rest is genuine):
The following are the output USB audio devices that the AirPods Max register and are made available to the ALSA infrastructure on Linux:
In addition to the AirPods Max, I also connected the male-male USB-c to 3.5mm headphone jack cable sold by Apple to the same Raspberry Pi, which required using a very versatile USB hub that I have here because the cable has a USB-c male plug and the Raspberry Pi only has USB-a ports, and the following are the internal Linux kernel messages reporting that setup:
The following are all the standard USB audio output devices made available by the cable:
To wrap up my tests, I also tried Apple's USB-c male to female headphone jack adapter on the aforementioned hub, and that makes Linux generate the following internal kernel messages:
Connecting this adapter alone does not make any USB audio adapters available, but after plugging some 3.5mm headphone jack EarPods into it, the following USB audio output devices become available to the ALSA infrastructure:
This adapter also includes the following USB audio inputs:
The simple fact that all this hardware can mix all standard surround audio configurations by itself is a very interesting surprise, since that means that I will never need to buy any kind of audio equipment to test any software targeting any configuration that I decide to build in the future, which makes these three pieces of audio gear very interesting. The cable only registered as an output device so there might be some proprietary stuff going on there because that cable becomes an input device when connected to AirPods Max, but everything else is as standard as it gets.
Another thing that surprises me is how capable all these Digital Audio Converters actually are, especially the 10€ USB-c headphone jack adapter, which is actually the best of them all despite being a tiny dirt cheap female headphone jack connected to a seemingly pretty mundane USB-c plug through a very short and thin cable, as the only functionality directly available to users or developers on Apple's operating systems are the analog stereo output and mono input. This is quite amusing considering that a Linux user has less restrictions than an Apple user when it comes to interacting with Apple peripherals, and this includes Apple's most expensive headphones. Sometimes the best things really come in small packages...
Editing to fix some stuff resulting from posting this while in a barely awake state.
Great review, and my thoughts
It's been almost a week since I got my Max. I haven't found anything to criticize in that time. Mind you, the only over-ear headphones I have to compare them to are the Beats Studio series, and in my opinion they sound much better, have indisputably better build quality, and the noise cancelling actually cancels noise. On the Beats I always got the impression that the noise cancelling was mostly passive, and the button that was supposed to cancel noise actually just added more bass. Plus, the passive effect of the noise cancelling on the Max is good enough that I could turn of ANC and still block out a good deal of background. I also have to agree with the comment above. for those of us with Behind the ear or in-ear hearing aids, earbuds are a non-starter unless you can reliably take advantage of the hearing assist feature, and from what I understand they could never stand in for dedicated hearing devices.