The AirPods Max were the center of controversy when they were first announced back in 2020
partly because apple products are an easy target for memes about the high cost but also partly
because these same people had a good point 550 for a pair of over headphones is a lot of money
but if anybody were to pull it off it would be Apple. And so once these headphones shipped
and people started using them the jokes slowed a little bit because people were quickly realizing
that the price tag wasn't so outrageous after all once they realized how amazing they sounded
and how comfortable they were on the head sure a good amount of people still thought
they were overpriced myself included i made that clear on my videos here on the channel
but after more than a year of using my airpods max nearly every single day my opinion has changed and
i want to talk about my experience with them so let's start with the price of the airpods max
because they have gone down a little bit here in 2022 so you can now pick them up for under $500 on
amazon with occasional sales coming in closer to $400 and to me they're worth every penny at
that price and i'll explain why starting with the design so we have the anodized aluminum ear cups
we have the stainless steel telescoping arms which are absolutely amazing we don't have the little
notches like on your traditional headphones it makes it so easy to adjust these while on the head
and they also feel extremely premium when doing so we have the knit mesh headband and of course
we don't have any logos or any text anywhere throughout the airpods max and i think these
just look so sleek so modern so mysterious and just super high quality even from the outside
looking in even if nobody knew what these were you could just look at them and tell they're high end
there are five different muted colors to choose from i went with the space gray myself but i've
seen others with the sky blue and i think those also look really great you can also mix and match
with different color combos by purchasing a set of ear cushions from apple for 70 dollars per
pair there are two buttons over the right ear cup the digital crown which controls your media
playback volume and siri and the noise control button which allows you to switch between active
noise cancellation and transparency mode and if you look at the top and bottom of the earcups
you'll see numerous cutouts for microphones so there are six external microphones and two
internal microphones these of course are used to enhance the noise cancellation and transparency
modes but i also noticed that they help a lot when taking phone calls everybody tells me that
i sound great and you know i sound really clear when talking through the airpods max and i've
taken hundreds of phone calls on these headphones over the past year because i wear them literally
all day every day since i work at home alone and most of the day consists of just scripting
videos responding to emails and doing things on my computer i need headphones on to keep focus but
not just any phones i need comfortable headphones like the airpods max and i've gone through tons
of over ear headphones but the airpods max are hands down the most comfortable sets i've ever
put on my head and it's partly due to that mesh headband but it's more so because of the way apple
figured out how to make these not feel super heavy on the head because these are heavy headphones
when you pick them up and hold them in your hands but when you put them on your head
they just don't feel heavy i can wear these for six plus hours a day and i don't feel any fatigue
and when i walk or run with these or when i go up and down the stairs it somewhat feels like they're
floating on my head because it doesn't feel like all that weight is being pushed down on top of
my head the only thing on the airpods max that's giving me any type of discomfort or fatigue after
six plus hours of wearing these straight is the ear cups so they're super comfortable don't get
me wrong but they do apply a lot of pressure to your ears they can form really well to your ears
and after a while your ear will become a little bit sore it's not anything drastic but it is one
thing i noticed after wearing these for very very long periods of time as for the durability i've
run into walls i've run into objects i've hit the ear cup on metal i've just done a lot that would
cause scratches and scuffs on these air pods max but as you can see there's nothing to show for it
any time i would bump into something there would be a little mark on the aluminum ear cup right
here but i would just be able to wipe it away with my finger sometimes i would need some water
but it would always wipe off and there would never be anything that stayed there which is
super impressive to me and then i'm also proud to say that the knits headband has not ripped on me
so this is the number one concern i had when i first got the air pods max i figured within the
first year they would definitely have some sort of wear some sort of small little rip but there
is nothing here and i've done everything to you know cause these to rip i mean i've stuffed them
into backpacks stuffed them into suitcases i've carried them by the headband on several occasions
but it's held up well and i don't have any issues with this at all it turns out to be
a lot more strong and durable than i expected now some people have also reported condensation
issues where they would see condensation when they took the ear cups off but i've
not noticed this once because i just simply have not been looking for it i mean nothing i've done
has made me feel the need to check beneath the ear cups or underneath the ear cups i've never had the
urge to just take these off and see if there was water in there so no i've not experienced that
and even when i did after reading those articles i did not see any condensation in my airpods max
now comfort and durability are nothing without solid audio quality so when i first bought the
airpods max i already had the sony xm4s but i also bought the latest bose over-ear headphones just so
i could compare you know the top-notch headphones under 550. and i made a video on that here on the
channel as well and of course audio quality is completely subjective and i'm not going to sit
here and get into a debate about what headphones are better than the others but the thing i will
say is that the airpods max have the best bass and the best overall sound of any headphones
i've personally used the sony's and the bose have better highs but i like bass and i like clarity so
the airpods max are the best mix of both worlds and they're perfect for me and i have to say
for anybody if you like bass in your music the airpods max are definitely the best you can get
for under 550 i would definitely say that but what really sets the airpods max apart
is the convenience the ability to auto connect to your devices when you put them on your head
is a huge win for convenience not to mention the auto pause when you take an ear cup off your head
and then resume playing when you put it back on is just amazing if there was a lack in audio
quality if you didn't like the audio quality the convenience factor alone would make up for it
but it does both of course very very well in my opinion the only time i've had an issue with the
auto connect feature and just the convenience in general is with my macbook pro so when i want to
switch audio between different iphones and ipads it happens seamlessly when one starts playing
audio but for the macbook the airpods macs never auto connect to them you always have to tap on the
pop-up or just go into your settings to connect them manually it's not a huge deal but i do wish
it was just as seamless and as easy as it was with ios and ipad os and it's also kind of annoying
because sometimes if you get a notification on a phone it will switch the audio source to that
phone that had the notification because it was a sound on another one of your apple devices but it
doesn't happen all the time and i keep my phone on silent most of the time anyways now we also need
to discuss the active noise cancellation because this is another key deciding factor when anybody
looks to buy a new set of headphones and i have to say that the noise cancellation on the airpods max
is top tier it is the best of any headphones i've used in this price range when i wore these on the
airplane i was blown away at how good they blocked out the babies crying and just the overall loud
noise of the plane so if you're strictly looking for the best active noise cancellation the airpods
max are the best in my opinion now transparency mode is also awesome this is where the headphones
let in ambient noise so that you can hear your surroundings if necessary so it's excellent on
the airpods but i honestly hardly ever use it it's great to use if you need to talk to somebody you
know standing right in front of you but i've only had to do that on a handful of occasions i find it
more useful on the airpods pro personally given the situations that you would be in
when you need to use transparency mode like on a bike ride or talking to a cashier in a store
i'm always wearing my airpods pro for that not my airpods max but nonetheless it is amazing on the
airpods max it just sounds awesome with these on your head and it's the same with spatial audio so
we have dynamic head tracking and it is absolutely amazing on the airpods max so if you use this
feature on the airpods pro it's cool but it's not near as immersive as it is with these i actually
prefer watching movies and tv shows on my ipad with my airpods max on just so i can experience
this instead of on my big screen with a full audio setup it just sounds amazing it's like 3d audio
and it sounds like you're hearing these things in real life from different you know directions it's
just awesome you have to experience it with the airpods max specifically i should also mention
that when wearing a hat or glasses the airpods max don't miss a beat in terms of audio escaping
out of the headphones and that's because apple uses adaptive eq to adjust the audio based on
the ear cushion's fit and the seal so it measures the sound signal and then changes the low and mid
frequencies in real time so with all of these awesome features with so much happening at once
on the h1 chip inside of the airpods max you would expect battery life to just be mediocre but it's
so much better than mediocre i never even have to worry about the charge level of these headphones
because they just seem to last forever so apple claims 20 hours of battery life while using active
noise cancellation and spatial audio with a five minute charge adding an additional hour and a half
of listening time i wish apple put a usbc port on the airpods max but thankfully since the iphone
also still uses lightning i always have a cable with me so charging has never been an annoyance
or an issue with these headphones and they also don't have an on or off state they're always
on technically which i love since it's just like my car my tesla so when you're done with
them you just put them away now there is a bit of a catch here in order for the airpods max to
not drain battery after you take them off you need to put them in the carrying case so that
they enter in ultra low power mode now recent firmware updates have helped with battery drain
a lot because it used to be bad with battery drain when you would not have them in the carrying case
they would drain battery like crazy but i've had no issues with that over the past you know two
to three firmware updates ever since then they have not drained at all even when outside of
the carrying case and let me just take a moment to say that i still hate the carrying case i thought
that it would grow on me but it just hasn't i'm not a fan of the style or the material
it shows wear very easily and it just is not ideal for throwing in a travel bag i wish it was a hard
shell case like we have with most other headphones nowadays i find myself just keeping the airpods
max around my neck 99 of the time especially when traveling they're just comfy when pressed
up against my neck and it's convenient to put them back on when i need to and once again it doesn't
drain battery anymore like it used to in the past the find my features like notify when left behind
were also added via a firmware update and i love this feature it allows you to locate
where your airpods are and of course you get a notification if you leave them behind
just like with the air tags or the airpods pro now there are false triggers sometimes
but it doesn't happen very often but the fact that apple is pushing out firmware updates consistently
for these headphones is another big reason i love them there's always going to be you know minor
changes and bug fixes throughout the entirety throughout their life so even if i have an issue
now it'll most likely get fixed in a soon to come firmware updates i also wanted to touch on the 35
lightning to 3.5 millimeter cable because i bought this thinking that it would be good
to use when editing videos or in other random circumstances but i literally have used this like
one time and that's because there is still latency so this defeats the purpose of why i bought this
cable in the first place it's fine to plug in and listen to old mp3 players or you know plug it into
something with a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack but for me personally it has latency when i go to edit
my videos when i plug it into the headphone jack on my macbook and i listen to it on my headphones
there's still latency so there's really no purpose of plugging these in if i could just get the same
you know latency and the same sound as i can wirelessly so to me this was a total waste of
money but if you're buying it for other you know circumstances like to listen to old mp3 players
it'll be fine it is overpriced it's 35 but it is what it is that's a typical apple accessory
for you but overall i love the airpods max and i cannot imagine using any other headphones now
the audio quality the convenience the battery life the comfort the build quality everything
is top tier in my opinion and i've used a lot of headphones so i've been comparing these to
every set of headphones i've ever used i'm hoping that the next generation finds a way to support
lossless audio wirelessly and the apple completely changes the carrying case but aside from that
i have zero complaints and i feel like my 550 dollars was well worth it especially
given that i use these every single day and they become essential to my work day
and when i travel i have to have my airpods max or i can't function that's a little bit dramatic but
that's how strongly i feel about these i really feel like i'm missing something when i don't have
my airpods max on so there you have it that is my experience with the airpods max after using them
pretty much every single day for the past year plus so if you guys have the airpods max yourself
let me know how your experience has been down in the comments below or if you don't have them yet
and you want to purchase them let me know what's holding you back down in the comments below as
well and i will try to answer any questions you might have but if you guys enjoyed this video
i would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up and of course make sure to subscribe for a lot
more high quality apple reviews so anyways guys thanks again for watching and i'll see you soon
you