The Apple AirPods Max are high-quality headphones. They have a novel design, and excellent audio quality. Here is our Apple AirPods Max review.
AirPods Max
Design
The new AirPod Max, unlike the regular AirPods, offer an over the ear design. Along the top, the headband is built with a soft, breathable mesh, meant to balance the weight evenly.
The band is connected to the ear cups by a metal cylinder. It allows the ear cups to rotate and pivot to adjust better to the head’s shape. The ear cushions are made with memory foam, well built to create a sound seal for better acoustics.
The AirPods Max have five amazing colors: space gray, silver, green, pink, and sky blue.
Specs
The Audio Technology includes an Apple-designed dynamic driver, Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency mode, Adaptive EQ, Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking.
The headphones sport some top of the line sensors. Each ear cup has an optical sensor, position sensor, case-detect sensor, and accelerometer sensor. Only the left ear cup has a gyroscope sensor.
The AirPods Max have a total of nine microphones. Three are for voice pickup. Eight of the microphones are for Active noise Cancellation.
There is an Apple H1 headphone chip in each ear cup. The headphones weigh 384.8 grams and the Smart Case 134.5 grams.
The Controls fall under a Digital Crown and it can be turned for volume control. If pressed once they can be used to play, pause, or answer a phone call. Press twice to skip forward. Press three times to skip back and hold for Siri.
It includes a noise control button. It can be used to alternate between Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode.
Price
The AirPods Max is being sold for $550. The model has a lot to prove to excuse such a high price.
Are they worth it?
The Apple AirPod Max comes at a hefty price. If we compare the headphones with other budget high-quality options in the market, they will stand out as an expensive luxury. However, if we make the contrast between the AirPod Max and some high-end professional headphones with prices over $1,500 then, they seem like an extremely high-quality product for cheap.
Apple prides on making the AirPods Max compatible across almost all devices. Yet, the fact the audio cable must be purchased separately, and it doesn’t come with a charging block, just a simple USB-C chagrin cable, adds to the investment when buying the novel headphones.
5 Points of the Best and Worst features of the AirPod Max
The Materials: They feel high quality. They have a stainless steel flexible frame and aluminum earcups, shiny telescoping arms, and ball head joints that allow for 90-degree movement. They are built really well, with no creaks or gaps visible to the eye. The headphones slide to expand and it’s quite satisfying, quality-wise, due to the resistance when pulling or pushing. They are comfortable, the mesh on the top designed to distribute the weight evenly does a good job at accomplishing it. The headphones are also soft and breathable, which raises concerns about long term durability. They are probably worth it, there is a lot of metal around the band, and that makes them a bit robust. Aside from the lack of sweat or water resistance, they are built very well and visually appealing. The color options are black, silver, light blue, pink, and minty green.
The Ear Cups: They are magnetic, which means they are easy to take off. They stay on really well and groove to your head when you’re wearing them. This feature is quite smart. You are able to replace the ear cups of any headphone. This feature is great especially with softer materials receiving wear and tear over time. Apple also sells new ear cups at $69 for the set. This means you can mix and match colors if you want to.
The Controls: There are no touch controls, instead they borrow the digital crown from the Apple Watch, and the Pods have an extra noise cancellation button. Overall, it is much better than many of the other controls on headphones on the market.
The Case: The case reminds us of a purse or a sleeping mask. They are very strange, and unusual, they are called the Smart Case. The headphones don’t fold or pack down, they slide in the case, close with a magnet, and the headband acts like a handle. Seemingly, there are not many redeeming qualities about the case. Since the headphones don’t fold down, the headband sticks out. This is not necessarily smart, while the most durable part of the headphones is protected inside the case, the soft parts are outside. To top it all off, they don’t even fully protect the pods leaving some exposed areas.
Another thing to note, there is no ON/OFF button in the AirPods Max. When you place the headphones in the case, they detect when the magnet closes and go into ultra-low power state. However, that means you need the case to turn them “OFF”, and if you don’t, they will just lay around spending battery power until they reach the 2-hour idling mode.
The Smart Features: The audio quality’s first impression is very good. And the noise cancellation is on par with that of AirPods Pro, and incredibly good with white noise. The dual H1 chips do a lot of computing while listening to music. There are nine microphones integrated into the ear cups. When connected to an Apple product, you get features like audio sharing, Siri, and instant pairing.
That’s our AirPods Max review. Do you plan to grab it this holiday season? Let us know in the comments below.
