AirPods Max
Seemingly max sound for max price. Here’s what we know and my advice for people thinking about preordering them.
Apple isn’t done with releasing new hardware to the public in 2020. On December 8th, the Cupertino company announced yet another new product the AirPods Max. However, this time it was without a cinematic keynote. While the announcement wasn’t as stunning as previous, the price of the AirPods Max is, at $549 they aren’t cheap to say the least.
Design
The over-ear design is typical Apple, the AirPods Max come in a sleek, yet extremely recognisable shape. The stainless-steel frame is padded with a soft-to-the-touch material and provides space for the telescopic arms. The frame is best described as to Y’s that connect to each other at the crown of your head. Right there, in-between the stainless-steel frame is a canopy made of breathable mesh which is lightweight so there is reduced on-head pressure. Furthermore, the right ear cup is home to the Digital Crown and a button to activate noise-cancelation or transparency mode. The Digital Crown is the same one as seen on the Apple Watch, which makes sense as it provides exceptional haptic feedback and is extreme precise. While the breathable mesh sits atop your head, your ears are surrounded by ear cushions made from memory some and wrapped with another mesh inside the ear cushions.
Overall, comfort seems to be the name of the game with Apple’s over-ear headphone. The design of the AirPods Max fits perfectly in the already existing lineup of Apple’s AirPods, which all have an iconic, recognisable form and design. However, unlike the other AirPods, AirPods Max come in five different colours: Red, Green, Blue, Black and Silver.
Features
While their design is quite minimal, the features of AirPods Max aren’t. An Apple-designed 40 mm dynamic driver provides high fidelity sound which is constantly tweaked by adaptive eww so you have the best sound. Also, ensuring that you can focus solely on your sound, the AirPods Max feature Active Noise Cancelation (ANC) achieved with a total of eight microphones. If the AirPods Pro serve as a reference for the performance of the ANC, most of the background noises should be gone in no time. The headphones have nine microphones in total, and use three for voice pick up, one dedicated one and two shared with ANC, and as previously mentioned eight for ANC.
The AirPods Max further feature spatial audio, a feature first introduced with IOS 14 for the AirPods Pro. Spatial audio places sounds anywhere in a space, which is awesome for watching movies and TV-shows that are recorded in Dolby 5.1, 7.1 or Dolby Atmos. Spatial audio has been a joy to experience on the AirPods Pro and it really adds to the immersion of a show.
The AirPods Max are feature-packed
Of course, as usual for the AirPod line, the AirPods Max will be as easy to use as the other AirPods. Fast and unproblematic pairing and device switching are all supported. Enabled by the two H1 chips (one in each ear cup), AirPod’s Max will be extremely convenient to use, especially if you are in the Apple ecosystem. Furthermore, the AirPods Pro follow in the footsteps of the previous AirPods with on head detection, which pauses audio when you take the headphones off and resumes playback when they are back on.
Another feature that we can expect from Apple’s over-ear headphones is extraordinary haptic feedback and precision while using. While the Digital Crown and the button from the Apple Watch atop a pair of headphones might seem a bit weird at first, the ease of use makes it perfectly fitting. The Digital Crown on the Apple Watch is amazing, it provides outstanding haptic feedback and allows for very precise inputs. Using this already existing, amazing technology to control volume, playback and Siri is a great move. The button as the noise control button and enables switching between ANC and Transparency mode.
The AirPods Max have a claimed battery life of twenty hours with ANC and spatial audio enabled. If they run out of juice, they are quick-charging enabled which brings 90 minutes of listening time in just five minutes of charging. However, they are charged through a lightning port, which brings me to the notably absent features.
Notably absent features
The first notably absent feature of the AirPods Max is USB-C charging. While this is also the case for all the other AirPods, it is a petty, as USB-C is much more common than lightning charges. While it isn’t a big deal, it is a bit more of a hassle and just an annoying detail that the AirPods Max charge via a lighting port.
Another absent feature, which is sort of a big deal is that there seems to be no wired connectivity. This is not quite certain yet, as there are lightning to 3.5 mm cables but it is not clear if the AirPods Max will support that input. Anyway, the lack of a headphone jack is an enormous disadvantage. Not only would a headphone jack allow passive listening, without the use of any battery power, but it would provide a lot more flexibility. Active Noise-Cancelling headphones have become more popular and widely available over the years, yet a main use case for them is still traveling with them. In Airplanes, having the option to plug in your ANC headphones to the onboard infotainment system is crucial and as of now, the AirPods Pro do not seem to support that.
Missing out on wired connection is a huge bummer
Also, for a pair of headphones that claims to have high-fidelity not to have a wired input is not great, as wired headphones deliver better sound quality. Also, it is unclear from Apple’s announcement which Bluetooth Codecs will be supported, another aspect that influences sound quality. All in all, not having a headphone jack is a big deal for such a pair of headphones and is a major disadvantage.
Lastly, a feature that isn’t absent but also isn’t great is battery life. While 20 hours are decent, there are competitors with way better battery life out there and when using these headphones to travel, battery life is a key factor.
The competition
While the AirPods Max are the first over-ear AirPods, they certainly aren’t the first pair of over-ear ANC headphones. Rather the opposite, they are entering an almost oversaturated market segment with tough competition. What further complicates the AirPods Max affair is their price point. It is not apparent if these headphones are direct competitors to the popular ANC headphones from Bose, Sony, and Sennheiser or if they are attacking the market segment of headphones designed for audiophiles. It seems like a similar situation to the ProDisplay XDR. When compared to regular displays it seemed horrendously overpriced, however, when looking at purpose-built colour-grading displays, it is a lot cheaper with almost the same features.
While this will become apparent as time goes by, either way there are compromises.
Two of the most popular over-ear Active Noise Canceling headphones are the Sony WH-1000XM4 and the Bose ANC 700. While they feature different designs, with the Bose looking more futuristic and the Sony featuring the tried and tested sleek silhouette of their predecessors the WH-1000XM3, both provide exceptional noise-cancelling and both have a headphone jack, however, only the Sony include the Airplane adapter in the box. Also, Sony dwarfs the competitions’ battery life, with the WH-1000XM4’s providing 30 hours of use in one charge with ANC. Here, the AirPods Max are on par with the Bose headphones, which also have an advertised 20 hours of playback in a single charge. Yet, both headphones are about $200 cheaper than the AirPods Max and the Sony WH-1000XM3, which are still great, can be found for about $300 less than the AirPods Max. Hence, it seems pretty strange that Apple’s headphones are about $200 more expensive than the standard of the segment.
When looking into truly high-fidelity the price range opens up. While there are great options for under $300, there are also headphones for over $1’500. Yet, apart from the advertised high-fidelity sound, the feature set of the AirPods Max is not one commonly found in this segment. Premium audiophile headphones often feature an open-backed design and no noice-cancelling, let alone wireless connectivity. While there are of course exceptions to this standard, this is the norm. Furthermore, the audiophile headphones feature even more premium materials and have a wired-connection. As wired headphones deliver the better sound, it is obvious that audiophile headphones have a wired connection. One of www.whathifi.com best-rated headphone, comes in at $438.97, which is still $100 less than the AirPods Max. Which is just to show that even in this segment, they aren’t cheap, and yet they miss key features.
Should you preorder them?
Feature rich yet expensive, this is the overarching theme of the AirPods Max. Of course, the noise-canceling and the convenience are appealing, but there are other headphones that also provide ease of use and exceptional noise-canceling. Furthermore, the high-fidelity audio depends on the supported bluetooth codec and even $200 less expensive headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM4 support LDAC, a very high-quality codec. It remains to be seen if the AirPods Max have a greatly increased audio quality compared to their competition, yet it is doubtful as their price puts them up against true audiophile options.
So, my advice is no, don’t preorder the AirPods Max. I’d suggest waiting for reviews and watching these before ordering your pair. There are many great options in the over-ear ANC headphone segment and most of them are significantly cheaper than Apple’s offer.
Even if the AirPods Max fulfil all their promises, and they are an incredible sounding pair of headphones, there are still problems, as bluetooth sound quality can only get so good, and they don’t seem to support wired listening. Hence, it is hard to justify the $549 price tag.
However, if you have the money and are immersed into the Apple ecosystem, AirPods Max aren’t a bad choice, yet, I also don’t think they are the best one.
Stay safe and happy holidays
Raffael
