The AirPods Max are Apple's premium wireless noise cancelling headphones and were released
in late 2020.
When Apple came out with the AirPods Max priced at 549 dollars, I was really skeptical if
the AirPods Max could justify that price but after using them for over the past six months,
they not only surpassed my expectations from using previous headphones in terms of sound
quality and noise cancellation, they’re hands down my favorite Apple product the company
has released within the past few years.
So, let's dive into what make the AirPods Max such a great choice for wireless noise
cancelling headphones, the best features, what are some of the downsides to using the
AirPods Max, and who do I recommend them for?
First let's talk design.
The AirPods Max have a few design traits that make them very unique in the headphone space.
First, they're much heavier than a lot of over-the-ear headphones people may be accustomed
to wearing, weighing a whopping 13.6 ounces or 384 grams versus 255 grams for the Bose
700s, for example.
Now after using them for six months, is the weight as big of a deal as it seems when you
first pick up your pair of AirPods Max and put them on?
For me, no.
I got used to the AirPods Max's weight pretty quickly and Apple does a good job distributing
the weight of the headphones with their band and ear cushion design and I've been able
to wear these headphones comfortably for hours on end.
The materials are breathable and I've never experienced any clamminess around my ears
when I've worn them for a few hours.
Now, everyone's head shape and size is different so that could impact your experience with
the AirPods Max, but for me they've been comfortable.
And the weight has not been an issue.
The only time I really noticed the weight of these headphones is when I put my head
on a pillow with them on then I'll notice their weight a bit more.
Another impression you get with these headphones is how solid and well-built they feel.
The aluminum material, telescoping mechanism to adjust the headband, the magnetic ear cushions
and internal speaker hardware design, everything just feels solid, well-built, and built to
last and should be easy to service which isn't always the case for Apple products.
Now the two predominant features that set these headphones apart from others out there
is their sound and active noise cancellation.
First let's talk about sound.
The marketing Apple uses for the AirPods Max talks high fidelity audio, low distortion,
and computational audio with the H1 chips found in the headphones.
So what does all that mean to the average user who just wants to pick up a pair of AirPods
Max and listen to music on them?
Well simply put, they sound fantastic.
Like you'll hear a lot of detail in the music that you listen to on them, you'll hear a
lot of nice separation in the audio tracks that you listen to as well and overall, they're
just the best sounding pair of headphones I have ever used and they're the most expensive
pair of headphones I have also ever owned.
In general, compared to headphones like my Bose 700s, the AirPods Max have a clearer
sound, they will give you a bit tighter base and they can also get that really nice low
frequency booming base as well, which sounds great on these and it's very tight, it's it's
not you know messy or anything like that.
And you also get more separation in your music tracks as well.
So when you listen to music tracks that you've heard a lot on previous headphones or other
sound equipment, you'll likely notice new details in those music tracks when listening
to them on the AirPods Max, like for example, the plucking of guitar strings that sound
like they're right behind your ears and I'm not talking about Dolby Atmos here, this is
just in stereo, though the AirPods Max do also support Dolby Atmos as well.
Overall the AirPods Max give you a really great listening experience.
So much so they've become my default device for listening to music.
One unique experience you get with the AirPods Max when listening to audio compared to other
headphones is spatial audio.
Spatial Audio is Apple's technology that decodes a Dolby Atmos signal and reproduces a feeling
of surround sound just with two speakers.
It makes movies and TV shows that support this feature sound incredible.
Spatial audio also combines Dolby Atmos with head tracking so say like if you were in a
theater facing a screen and then turned your head to one side away from the screen, one
of your ears facing the screen would receive more sound than the other ear facing away
from the screen.
The same feeling is achieved with spatial audio's head tracking.
Now, another part of the AirPods Max's listening experience is the noise cancellation in the
AirPods Max really shine here and have the best noise cancellation I've ever experienced.
I find that the AirPods Max block out more sound with their noise cancellation than other
headphones that I've used previously and a perfect example of this is when I'm wearing
my AirPods Max and unloading the dishwasher.
I'm typically, you know, stacking dishes in a cabinet or placing silverware and a drawer
and oftentimes they're clanks and loud noises associated with doing that task.
And the AirPods Max, they block out those noises perfectly but other headphones like
my Bose 700s, for example, they actually let some of the noise in and it can be rather
loud and annoying.
The AirPods Max’s noise cancellation isn't adjustable like other headphones but also
doesn't produce as intensive a pressure sensation that I get when turning my Bose 700s up to
their max noise cancellation level.
Like the AirPods Pro, the AirPods Max feature transparency mode which fades in the sound
around you and is so good you may forget you're wearing something over your ears for a second.
Apple uses eight microphones around the device for its noise cancellation and transparency
mode to accomplish this and I love that Apple has a dedicated button for transparency mode
on the headphones.
You can also enable the option to turn off noise cancellation in Bluetooth settings on
an Apple device.
Now another thing that the AirPods Max use its mics for is phone calls and I found that
these headphones work great for both phone and video calls.
Thanks to the iCloud device switching feature that the AirPods Max have like other Apple
products, when you stop playing music on your iPhone for example, and then go on to an iPad
to start a video your headphones will automatically start playing audio from your iPad without
you having to do anything which is awesome.
If you have and Apple TV, they're also really easy to connect to by long pressing the TV
button on your Apple TV remote and selecting AirPods Max from the AirPlay audio selector.
And coming later in 2021, the Apple TV 4K will support spatial audio through the AirPods
Max which will be an absolute killer feature if you want to watch something on your TV
without disturbing others, but not sacrifice a surround sound experience.
Controlling music and media is another thing the AirPods Max excel at Apple brought over
the digital crown they developed for the Apple Watch to the AirPods Max which allows you
to do a few things.
You can turn the knob to adjust volume and it's much more precise of an input than the
touch controls I've used on other headphones.
I've had issues with past headphones where they're not enough volume levels, so either
what you're listening to is too soft or too loud and with the AirPods Max, I don't have
that issue at all.
You can also click down on the digital crown once to play/pause media, twice to skip forward,
and then three times to skip back.
You can also press and hold to activate Siri or just say Siri’s trigger word for a hands-free
Siri experience which has worked very well for me over the past six months.
And if you have a lot of Apple devices in your home with Hey Siri activated like with
HomePod Minis, iPads, etc, when you say the trigger word with your headphones on, your
devices are smart enough to know to only answer on your headphones.
When you have your headphones on Siri will also announce things like when someone calls
you while you're wearing your AirPods Max and Siri will ask you if you'd like to answer
or decline the call and if you say answer, it'll immediately connect the call.
The range on the AirPods Max is also great.
I can stream audio from my Mac in my Bedroom and walk two rooms over to the kitchen without
the connection dropping.
Battery life on the AirPods Max has been good but I wish it was maybe just a little better
but that's more because I'm using these things for hours on end like every single day since
I got them so I ended up charging them just every couple of days and it's not that big
of a deal but I do find that you do typically get around 20 hours of battery life for listening
as well as for phone and video calls.
The only way to charge them is through the lightning port on the bottom and an LED light
will turn green when they're finished charging.
If your battery level dips below 10% your Apple device will give you a notification
to charge them which is nice the AirPods Max also have a quick charge feature which will
give you 1.5 hours of listening time with just five minutes of charging the AirPods
Max also feature ear detection, so when you take them off it'll automatically pause media
and then when you put them back on again, it'll resume right where you left off.
Another part of controlling any headphones is powering them on and off and with the AirPods
Max, there's actually no power button.
You know at first, I thought it was weird with them not having a power button considering
all the headphones I've owned before have had a power button, but now that I've used
them for over the past six months, this is actually a feature I really like about them
because you just take them out of the case and boom put them on and you don't have to
worry about hitting a button or anything they just automatically turn on and connect to
your devices, especially if you have multiple Apple devices they'll actually connect to
at least think it's two simultaneously and then when you take them off you don't have
to worry about hitting a power button to save battery, you just put them in a case and forget
about it.
It's really nice.
And yes, let's talk about that case.
Now the case is not as bad as everyone made it out to be for users like me who are mainly
going to use these headphones at home and at an office.
The case is definitely a bit more form over function.
It does stand out and is way more brand identifiable than the cases you get with a pair of both
700s, for example, which is very plain.
Now one use case where this case is probably not going to be adequate for you is when you're
traveling or any of the other scenarios where you don't have a dedicated pocket or pouch
in your bag just for these headphones, you just want to throw them in with a bunch of
other loose stuff, then I would probably want a case that actually covers the entirety of
the headphone not just what this case covers because you'll notice here it's still exposing
part of the aluminum material on the headphones which can be prone to scratching if you've
ever scratched a MacBook Pro you'll know what I'm talking about.
So yeah, I definitely want a case that would cover the entirety of the headphone in that
scenario.
And luckily you can find several options on sites like Amazon that go for around 20 US
dollars.
Another downside with the AirPods Max is the ear cushion replacement cost.
That'll set you back 69 US dollars which, I think is a little pricey.
Now after six months of use so far, I think my ear cushions have held up rather well,
why don't really have much sign of wear, so I don't expect I'll need to replace them anytime
soon.
And personally, I prefer this knit material that Apple uses with the AirPods Max over
what other headphone manufacturers use which is typically some sort of synthetic leather.
I find that that material just over time does not hold up as well as what I think the knit
material will do in the months ahead in terms of durability.
Now the last downside that I want to point your attention to it's a minor one for me,
but I do want to mention it is the lack of a lossless support over a wired connection
with these headphones as well as a lack of a proprietary high-fi wireless codec for Bluetooth-like
Sony's LDAC.
The AirPods Max can't do pure lossless from an analog 3.5 millimeter jack source because
the cord apple designed for them converts that analog signal to digital, so it'll sound
really good but won't be completely lossless.
Now this might matter to some users out there but for me it does not matter at all because
I have tried to do blind sound tests between an AAC file format and a lossless format and
I could never guess which one was actually the higher quality format, so to me the lack
of this feature doesn't matter as much.
All right, and that's the AirPods Max.
So who do I recommend these headphones for?
I'd recommend them to any Apple user who is serious about sound quality and wants their
music and media to sound fantastic, you want to listen to music, podcasts, watch TV shows,
or movies on your iPad or iPhone or even on your Apple TV and not sacrifice on sound quality
and that immersion of a surround sound experience.
The AirPods Max offer the best sound experience the company currently offers and are also
great for those who work in an office or travelers who want to block out noise and get some work
done or listen to something.
They sound fantastic, are comfortable to wear for hours on end, effortlessly pair with Apple
devices and automatically switch between them, give you spatial audio, and have a durable
design that should last a long time.
And while yes, they don't come without some quirks like with the case.
Overall, when people ask me what headphones I recommend, the AirPods Max are at the top
of my list.
Now while the AirPods Max do cost more than other offers from mainstream consumer headphone
brands like Bose, Beats, and Sony, to me, they offer enough extra functionality to Apple
users and superior controls and sound reproduction to justify that higher price.
The AirPods Max retail for $549 US dollars and come in silver, space gray, sky blue,
pink and green, and can be purchased at a variety of retailers.
If you're interested in purchasing them or want to learn more about them, check out the
links in the video description below.
Well, I hope you found this video helpful and useful and if you did and liked it, make
sure you hit that thumbs up button below and subscribe to the channel for more six months
later reviews like this one on Apple and other tech products.
For 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.