Apple fans with deep pockets will love AirPods Max
Apple AirPods Max
Apple released its first own-brand over-ear, ANC Bluetooth headphones late last year and I’ve been testing them for the last few weeks. The AirPods Max are luxury headphones and I took my time to fully test them for a long-term review to see if they’re worth the heavy price tag.
AirPods Max is available in some fun colours, use a combination of materials and a design that’s not what we have come to expect in headphones. Once again, Apple has redefined our expectations of what’s considered the norm by designing a luxury set of headphones. Just like the original AirPods, you may feel a little self-conscious wearing them out and about, or at least I did at first.
My AirPod Max arrived from Apple in the silver colour which features a white headband and cover case. During several weeks of use, I managed to keep them in pristine condition but over time I think the white colour will be difficult to keep clean. Other colours include space grey, which is a dark grey, green, sky blue and pink, all of which feature a two-tone design. Although not identical, these colour are a close match to the iPhone 12, not iPhone 12 Pro or Pro Max.
The telescoping extension arms on the headband are stiff but smooth giving you confidence it won’t change size accidentally once set. The spring-loaded action of the cups is strong but I didn’t feel like the clamping force was too much for me even during long hours of wearing them. Getting the correct extension length is key to comfort.
Personally, I found them great to use and the fabric mesh on the headband sat softly on my head, evenly distributing the weight of the headphones making them feel much lighter than their substantial weight would suggest (384.8g). However, if you turn your head and then stopping quickly you will notice/feel the weight of the earcups thanks to the physics of momentum. Ideally, these are not headphones for working out or other highly active activities.
In general, I prefer using AirPods Pros for walking, cycling because they’re small and easy to bring and nicely fit in a pocket. That being said, I often wore the AirPods Max for an entire day taking calls, listening to music or even watching a full-length movie with no discomfort.
The ear cushions are removable and replaceable (€79) and simply snap into place via magnets. They’re cushioned and feel spongy and soft to the touch. The body of the cans is aluminium which gives them a rich and premium feel.
Each cup can rotate, but not fully both ways and they can’t turn and tuck into the centre to make them more compact for storage. Using a SIM ejector tool you can easily remove the headband from the ear cups. I would assume the headband could be a replacement part in the future.
The AirPods Max come with a cover and not a standard case. It only covers and protects the ear cups for the ultimate in minimalism and portability according to Apple. I would have preferred a proper case to fully protect them and although there are lots of inexpensive third-party cases available, it would have been better if one came supplied. The colour of the case matches the headphones and is beautifully crafted but a hard case is preferable for storing in a rucksack or luggage bag.
ANC is one of the biggest selling features of the AirPod Max and for good reason. I would have said the Sony WH-1000XM4s had the best overall ANC, but Apple has managed to equal and in some areas better these.
In my home office with my computer fans cranked up to the maximal thermal performance setting, AirPods Max, with no audio playing, was able to almost completely block them out. If I listened attentively, I could barely hear the fans just the faint hiss from the active noise cancellation.
ANC doesn’t block out all sounds so vocals are muted but not silenced and higher tones are more audible. This is on par with best-in-class ANC headphones but I think the AirPod Max have a slight edge over its rivals.
In all, there are nine mics on the AirPod Max, four in each earcup with three outward-and one inward-facing. Harnessing the processing power of the built-in H1 chip which analyses sound data from the mics, the ANC adapts up to 200 times per second to reduce unwanted sounds.
They are no touch areas on the headphones with only a digital crown, which is identical to the one found on the Apple Watch, just a lot larger. There’s also a Noise control button that toggles between ANC on/off and transparent modes. In the settings on your iOS device you can change this so that it only toggles between two of these so that for example, it toggles between ANC and Transparent mode.
ANC is great but I often use Transparent mode so that I can hear what’s happening around me without having to take off the headphones or during calls where I want to be able to hear my own voice. Nearly all ANC headphones have this feature but AirPods Max are by far the best I’ve used — it’s like you’re not wearing headphones at all.
The digital crown allows for fine control over the volume and you can hear a clicking sound as you adjust it. Press once to play, pause, or answer a phone call, double-tap to skip forward, triple-tap to skip back a track and press and hold to call Siri. You can also change the direction of the volume control (forward/back) in the Bluetooth settings to what feels more natural to you.
The Noise control button has enough travel that I never hit it accidentally while removing or wearing the headphones like I often would with cans that have touch controls.
The automatic switching feature was first introduced on the AirPods Pro via a firmware update. It allows the headphones to switch between Apple devices automatically. It’s a fantastic feature but isn’t the same as Android devices which can connect to two devices simultaneously. A good and practical example of this is if you’re watching a movie on your iPad and then a call comes in on your iPhone, the headphones will switch to the iPhone to take the call. When the call is finished, it will switch back to the iPad again.
The AirPods Max are complicated when it comes to battery performance and for a few reasons. Firstly, there’s no off switch. Instead, when you’re not wearing them, they go into a low power state after a few minutes and then a deep sleep which turns off Bluetooth and Find My tracking features after 72 hours.Â
However, if you put them into the cover case, they’ll go into a lower power mode immediately but still take hours to go into the lowest power mode. The battery drain isn’t much throughout a typical day of use and I love the ability to use them straight away when you put them on rather than having to wait for them to wake up. Overnight and outside the cover, I’ve seen them lose as much as 10%.
I was easily able to achieve the claimed 20 hours of battery life with a mixture of calls, ANC and Transparent modes while using them all the time over a few days. Charging was relatively quick too using the supplied Lightning to USB-C cable. There’s no power brick supplied or 3.5mm headphone cable. The latter would be useless anyway since there’s no 3.5mm headphone jack on the AirPod Max anyway. Using Apple’s 18W charger the headphones went from 15% to 96% in 90 minutes and it took another 20 minutes to reach 100%. However, five minutes on the charger should provide up to 90 minutes of playtime.
The lack of a headphone jack on iPhones and most other flagship Android phones is an accepted norm now but it’s not typical to find one missing on headphones. The only other headphones I’ve reviewed that didn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack were the Huawei FreeBuds Studios. For the sake of a full and comprehensive review, I bought the Lightning to 3.5mm cable to test the audio performance when using the AirPods Max wired. These cost €40 but shipping was free from Apple.com and I had them the next day.
The audio latency isn’t noticeable while watching movies but is when producing music or editing video. The lag is significantly reduced while using the cable and I could also hear a noticeable difference when listening to high-res audio from the high-res streaming service Qobuz.
Some other advantages of getting the cable are being able to plug them into high-res audio players, computers and headphone amps or DACs. However, unlike headphones that do have a headphone jack, when the battery is drained, you won’t be able to use the AirPods Max again until you charge the battery. Even with the cable connected you still get the full benefits of the digital crown volume control, ANC and Transparency mode but not the playback controls or mics for voice calls.
There’s no EQ option as such for the AirPod Max but under the accessibility setting, you can change the audio tune to balanced tone, vocal range or brightness. There’s also three levels of adjustment to tweak soft sounds, slightly, moderately or strongly. Unfortunately, these settings are saved on the device and not the headphones. Of course, if you use Apple Music you can use one of over 20 preset EQ settings.
Spacial audio was first introduced on the AirPods Pro and works by simulating a virtual surround sound. This works brilliantly on movies and shows that support it. While watching on Apple TV on my iPad I was able to hear sounds coming from all around me and explosions were powerful making for a rich and immersive experience. I expected action movies like this to work well with spacial sudio but a show that really surprised me was the documentary on Apple TV+. During live concert scenes, I could feel the atmosphere and be drawn into the emotion of the story. It felt more intimate and real — an incredible feat considering the sound is coming from stereo headphones.
It’s not easy to quantify audio quality since it’s so subjective and AirPod Max has priced themselves into the premium headphone category. However, for me it’s the sum of all it’s parts and not just the audio quality that makes them one of the best headphones currently available.
The soundstage is outstanding. I could hear excellent presence in acoustic music as well as more complex tracks. I was impressed at how clearly I could hear individual instruments and how well placed they were in the soundstage.
Bass frequencies are powerful and well-controlled and I wonder if the aluminium body is a contributing factor in how effective the bass response is.
Mids are warm and a little laid back but not to the point where vocals are lost in the music. When listening to podcasts, vocals sound natural but I found using the vocal preset improved the listenability of highly compressed or sub-par audio quality podcasts.
Highs are bright and clear and don’t get irritatingly sharp.
The overall listening experience is sublime and I believe tuned for the masses. The sound signature isn’t flat and reference-quality but the AirPods Max aren’t overly biased in any particular direction which makes them good for a broad range of musical tastes.
In the world of high-end audio, €629 isn’t expensive for a set of headphones. Do they cost a lot of money? Yes, €629 isn’t pocket change for most of us. Are they expensive? No, not for what you’re getting and anyone who says differently doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
As a complete package, AirPods Max is exceptional. They produce high fidelity audio (especially, when matched with the audio cable and a high-res audio stream), feature class-leading ANC and have a premium build. They’re not perfect but I would expect them to continue to improve over time with firmware updates and perhaps even get additional features like the AirPods Pro have done.
The two biggest stumbling blocks are the price tag and the requirement to be in the Apple ecosystem to be able to use them to their fullest. Android users should look elsewhere, which is unfortunate but they’ve got so many excellent Bluetooth headphone options from Sony, Bose, Sennheiser and so many others anyway.
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