Apple’s AirPods Max are innovative wireless headphones that bring the magic of AirPods to an over-ear design with high-fidelity sound. AirPods Max combine a custom acoustic design, H1 chips, and advanced software to power computational audio for a breakthrough listening experience with Adaptive EQ, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, and spatial audio. AirPods Max come in five gorgeous colors, including space gray, silver, sky blue, green, and pink.
The AirPods Max sounds downright fantastic to my ears. In fact, I’d argue they offer the best sound quality and active noise cancellation to drown out environmental sounds when compared to the rest of the lot I tested. Add in special features like Spatial Audio that makes it sound as if you’re surrounded by musical instruments and as you move your head around, the sound adjusts. It’s like listening to music in 3D, and it even works with compatible TV shows or movies.
Drawback: All of the “magic” that makes the AirPods so appealing is more or less limited to using them with an Apple device. You can still use the AirPods Max with an Android phone or Windows computer, but there are some core features you’ll lose out on, like spatial audio.
Final verdict: The AirPods Max are arguably the best ANC-capable headphones for those who love all things Apple. They sound great, battery life consistently hits close to the 20-hour mark, and they directly integrate with all things Apple with minimal effort on your part.
MacDailyNews Note: AirPods Max are currently going for as low as $478 at Amazon.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Because they only tell Apple fans what they want to hear?
Hoping next year there is a refresh as I’m looking to buy a pair around September.
I think you’ll be out of luck TowerTone though I understand the sentiment. Audio products usually step up nicely from their previous version. But it is AirPods Pro thaf leaks say will have the new version for 2022(this is my preferred listening device and will be day one Pro 2 buyer). Obviously we never know for sure, anything can happen, but I’d expect Max to be 2023.
Suggestion: if you want a Max, target and hold out for lowest price recorded sale then buy it, use them for now but get a solid trade in or resale on these to buy Max 2 whenever they come out.
Best of luck.
I’ll stick with my Beats Studio3. There are limits to what my 65 year old ears can hear anyway
Completely understand Macaholic. Suggestion (and pardon the repetition if you already know this) go into Settings>Accessibility>AirPods (I think this works for beats too), this allows audio fine tuning for those of us with hearing that isn’t quite what it used to be. It throws up a few tests of “can you hear this” and “which sounds better to you” audio samples, then adjusts the audio accordingly. Best of luck.
Still think my original (version 1) AirPods are excellent. They sound good and do NOT have rubber tips. They just sit there comfortably without trying to mute the world. I’m surprised the tiny batteries (and battery in case) are doing fine. I expected them to be near dead by now. I thought it was expensive at purchase, but (like many Apple products) now well worth the cost. Probably get version 3 soon. Or maybe I’ll just keep using my version 1 for “mobile” use and buy the Max for listening at home.