Wild. I have been eagerly awaiting this refresh, but this doesn't address either of the main issues with the original AirPods Max:
1. Still just as heavy. The AirPods Max sound quite good, but they are very heavy, to the point of being fairly uncomfortable after listening for any longer amount of time. This release as the exact same weight as the originals (13.6 oz).
2. Still no off button/position. They stay partially on unless you put them in the awkward and useless "case", which means they're constantly out of power when you want to use them. There's even an obvious fix: the ear cups swivel flat, they could just make this the "power off" position. Solved. But they didn't, so presumably these still have the same problem. There's also no mention of magnetic charging via stand, which would be another way to help alleviate this problem.
If these were even a few ounces lighter and powered off properly, I would buy them for sure. Given this announcement, I guess I will look for something else to replace the old AirPods Max.
As someone who has never seen these or paid attention to them I was thinking "how heavy could they possibly be?" Then I saw 13.6 oz and I was blown away. That's actually really heavy for headphones!
Are you sure your AirPods Max have the latest firmware? This issue was addressed in an update right after the first version came out and people reported the issue you're describing:
If you set your AirPods Max down and leave them stationary for 5 minutes, they go into a low power mode to preserve battery charge. After 72 stationary hours out of the Smart Case, your AirPods Max go into a lower power mode that turns off Bluetooth and Find My to preserve battery charge further
[Archive link, as the latest Support doc doesn't have this wording any longer]
I got excited there for a second — free fix for the most annoying problem with my headphones! But no, my AirPods Max have the latest firmware and still have this issue. Any time I leave them for more than a day, the battery is drained.
I know I have had this issue and did not have it after reset. Though I do have another annoying, and seemingly unique issue: sometimes, when adjusting the position of the headphone, they do a “click” (and a loud one), and just shut down.
The farthest from the last reset, the more often it happens. I have no idea why.
What does “down” and “stationary” mean? I put my Sony to random paces, mainly just throwing it into my backpack. Would that be considered as down and stationary? Would it be turned off if I’m on the move? In a car? On a bus?
I mean, I regularly leave them on a shelf in my apartment and they apparently do not consider that "down" or "stationary" enough to not just drain the battery completely. Truly a bafflingly bad design from the company that is (was) known for great hardware design.
Absolutely! I have both the AirPods Max and the Bose QC Ultra and even though my whole ecosystem is Apple, the QC Ultra is a lot more comfortable reliable on day to day usage. Comfort is due to weight, and reliability is the batter is predictably on the QC Ultra, but on the Max I never know if the battery went all down because I can't turn it off.
I’ve been using my AirPod Max for hours for the past 2 years and never noticed they were “heavy”. I’m wondering now as I’ve never researched on headphones (I just buy simplicity from Apple, I’m not an audio sophisticated costumer) that was never brought out to me, so I haven’t even noticed.
I’ve been using AirPods Max since they first launched, and over the years I’ve tried several times to switch to Bose.
However, the Bose headphones just haven’t worked as smoothly for me from a software and integration standpoint. I tend to run into more glitches and small issues compared to the AirPods Max. I’m not sure whether that’s primarily a Bose issue or something related to Apple’s ecosystem, but my guess is that other high-end headphones probably face similar integration challenges when paired with an iPhone.
I leave my AirPods Max sitting on my desk for weeks at a time outside of the case and the battery never drains. I just put mine on today after sitting on my desk for a week and they still had 99% charge.
Strange. Are they first gen or later? I did get the absolute first gen of these, so maybe it's a problem they couldn't fix in firmware? Or I just have a defective pair?
Peripheral tech must have absurdly lucrative margins. I see it in my niche interests too. Cycling or golf gps are like hundreds of dollars. They are the same products they were 15 years ago: cheap lcd screen with a cheap gps radio and some severely underpowered cpu with noticable input lag. Designed to fall apart in a few years. Still same prices they always were, maybe they get away adding another $50 a year to the price on occasion. It is like they hit their price point and margin number and are perfectly happy making probably >60% markup on us who have no option otherwise. Yes we could potentially order prototypes trivially for cents a unit from same places in china the first party manufacturers go to, but minimum order is probably 1000 units.
That is literally the sole moat of these companies: minimum orders from china and the fact we can't spend the ad money they can to move that volume quickly. Not tech or offering a good deal. Just being there already with money and doing the inevitable. Being the more productive drug dealer quicker to move the kilo to the captured audience and bankrolled to get the next several and scale.
Or Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks and sound at least as good if not better, have absolutely huge battery compared to tiny apple one, more comfortable and generally work much better with non-apple ecosystem (also apparently they support multi-device pairing but I haven't used that one).
Don't pay the novelty price shortly after release, these go down quite a bit after introduction, ie last year Sony are basically the same device.
As said, different markets. If you look from the same perspective, the last iPhone I ordered is 3x the price of a last generation MacBook Air.
$549 is pretty reasonable if the headphone has the sound detail it's advertising. Given how AirPods Gen 3 sounds, I'm sure that thing sounds pretty amazing.
Sennheiser HD 800 S is $1700 and has been around for years. Or the Meze Elite Tungsten at $4,000 - if Apple can get 80/90% of the way there at $549, they'd be a steal for the right customer.
The quality x price curve is not linear. Expensive materials and engineering often produce only incremental quality improvements, if any. Sometimes the improvements are only cosmetic. So Apple's headphones would need to be a lot closer to the best of the best than 80-90% in order to justify their price.
The feature that applies a hearing test as an equalizer setting make the APM sound pretty damn good, so much so it ended my 20 year long headphone-collecting hobby.
Before hearing-tuned EQ became a thing, trying headphones was like trying food. No matter what someone else said it was no guarantee you'd like the sound. Conversely, you might find a cheap pair that sounded spectacular to you. The APM will sound very good to just about anyone, with the hearing test EQ applied.
I think every headphone maker (or better yet, DAC maker) should have this feature. Audiophiles are often old, a hearing test EQ can make them hear music like they're 20 again, and they'll pay for it.
Well, in the market segment of Bluetooth ANC headphones, there's not that much. Bowers & Wilkins and Focal come to mind, both audiophile luxury brands and similarily overpriced.
On the other hand, the flagship Sony is quite a bit less than AirPods Max.
Doesn’t Sony have the best codec on Bluetooth? It definitely has worse noise cancellation than my AirPod, but afaik it should have better audio quality on paper.
My AirPods Max 1 left a headband dent in my skull from how poor the quality of the headband was after more than a year of daily use. They also are super heavy and don't travel well at all.
Apple deciding that, on their 2nd refresh of these (after usb-c), they still aren't going to fix those fundamental issues is very frustrating for what feels like a very disproportionately expensive product (even by Apple standards).
I'm now a very happy QC Ultra 2 user. Can't recommend enough.
I thought that any headphones would leave a dent in your head? At least that's been my experience, and I don't think my headphones are nearly as heavy as these things.
I've traveled extensively with my AirPods Max. I just toss them in my backpack with whatever else is there and move on. They travel a lot better than my Bose ones did with the bulky case. I much prefer Apple's approach here.
It literally gives me a headache after more than an hour of wearing it. This never happens with may AKG that has a very utilitarian and simple headband—a flat piece of plastic. It’s not pretty but I can wear AKG for a whole day and enjoy every minute of it while I’m phisically sick after an hour of AirPods Pro.
You're joking, right? There are many high quality competitors in that price range. I'm holding a pair (Sennheiser HDB 630). They are significantly lighter weight, better comfort and sound quality.
Another poster here - I can confirm, have the same thing. I don’t worry too much about it though, I assume it will fade if I ever switch to other headphones.
Not the skull, but probably the scalp. Our scalp is made up of skin, fat, and muscle. When you press a rigid object against it for hours every day, that soft tissue temporarily compresses. It happens to my kid who wears headphones for gaming. It's the same mechanism that leaves red marks on your nose after wearing glasses, or grooves on your ankles after wearing tight socks. Wash your hair, give up on the headphones, and it'll return to normal.
The QC2 are about half the weight of the AirPods Max, and apparently the mesh in the AirPods Max band sags, and allows the metal bars to "dig in" to your scalp. Enough to cause irritation, but 400 or 500 grams resting on your head can't mess with an adult, developed skull.
I'll briefly join the chorus: AirPods Max were the worst value for money I've ever spent on a tech product.
But more interestingly: what happens at a company like Apple that leads them to not cancel this product and come up with something totally new? Is it that the success of their other products pulls this along so well that they are numb to this product being a dog? AirPods Pro (the earbuds) are a great product, so perhaps the headphones org just doesn't have to face the music?
> so perhaps the headphones org just doesn't have to face the music?
Some people don't like anything in their ears. Some people have ear canals that don't work/aren't comfortable with "standard" tips. This is why headphones will always exist.
I'm not buying another expensive AirPods from Apple until they have their story straight w.r.t battery health and battery repair that is cost-effective. I'm done wasting money on these only to have battery issues, clicking noises etc in less than 2 years of continuous use.
Irritating thing is how Apple hides bluetooth headphones pairing 2-3 clicks deeper than AirPods pairing – on iPhones and Apple TV.
Replacing the batteries on the Maxes is actually a fairly straightforward process (no adhesive melting required, just a screwdriver and a pry bar), and spare batteries can be purchased on Amazon or Ebay for around 50 USD. It's one of the better Apple products in that regard, very unlike the in-ear models.
> Irritating thing is how Apple hides bluetooth headphones pairing 2-3 clicks deeper than AirPods pairing – on iPhones and Apple TV.
Can't you just create a Shortcut on the iPhone to pair with whatever you want via bluetooth in a single tap? Or just edit the control center menu itself and add the Bluetooth button directly to the control center?
4 clicks from control centre on stock settings.
Two if you add the Bluetooth widget into control centre.
Swipe down control centre > Bluetooth > hey presto
I owned a pair of the first gen AirPods Max. After a couple of months of usage, I began noticing a rattling inside the right earcup. I had never dropped them or exposed them to any sort of physical damage that could knock something loose. The rattling would happen every time I tilted my head in any direction. I had taken them to Apple Genius support in store 3 different times and 2 of those times the onsite tech agreed that there was a rattling sound. All 3 times they were sent to an Apple repair facility and they always came back with "cannot reproduce". I sold them on FB Marketplace for a deep discount, having alerted the potential buyer to the issue before I sold them to him. Never again will I purchase a set of AirPods.
Funny that something similar swore me off another brand’s headphones. The noise cancelling would amplify mechanical vibrations of the headphones, so much so that even eating with them on would cause a deafening bass. Walking with them on was also incredibly loud.
I sent them to support with a very good description of the problem, came back the same, “cannot reproduce”.
It seems support workers for both companies just connect them to an audio source and check if sound comes out relatively alright.
Prior to the third time going to Genius Bar, I was able to reach a senior manager for Apple repairs in a phone call to Apple Support. And even after asking him to take down a note on my incident to have the repair tech physically open the right ear can, they still came back with "cannot reproduce". There was either a screw loose in my brain or the headphones. Guess we'll never know which.
A tangential question: What are the best bang per buck headphones these days (preferably wireless)? Not earbuds, but over-the-head headphones. Tell me your favorites.
(The internet is so polluted that I cannot find any reliable recommendation today so I'm doing a mini "ask HN" here.)
I found this forum last year https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php which opens the door up to a high number of lower cost manufacturers making very high quality products. although the forum audience (audiophiles) generally eschew wireless products and prefer open backed (loud for everyone else and no noise cancelling) headphones, there are all kinds of products discussed.
Best bang for the buck in terms of sound quality is probably the Hifiman HE400SE, which is less than $100, the AKG K701 and Sennheiser HD6XX, which are about $200. The catch is that you need a proper setup to drive them. But to be honest, getting the tuning you like that suits the music is more important.
Bose Quietcomfort (i have the 2nd gen ultra now but I've owned other models too) live up to their name for comfort. Very lightweight and the earcups are large enough that they don't pinch. They may not have the best ANC or featureset, but I enjoy mine immensely
I don't know exactly how to measure bang for buck, but my Sony XM4s have been holding up well, sound good, are decently comfortable for a day's work, the battery life is good, etc.
They do have some annoyances like not always sleeping correctly when left connected to my laptop, but overall they are easy to recommend
any ANC soundcore (anker) headphones or TEMU if you fancy rolling the dice.
A colleague got a clone of the Sony 1000xm4, they sounded and look very similar.
For all day online calls, Jabra evolve2 65 are hard to beat for the price.
Those are definitely not what you want for anything other than actual music production - they're designed for a flat frequency response which is really useful when mixing music, but awful for anything else.
If you want to go cheap and don't want ANC (eg. open back headphones) then there's a lot of good reference/studio headphones around. I have a wired Audio Technica M40X for home use and a wireless pair of M20X for travel; both are great in a quieter environment.
The two sibling comments were good suggestions. I have Sony XM3s that have been going strong for 6 years, sound superb, and have IMHO better noise cancellation than Bose.
For my kids I got Anker Soundcores, and for the price they are astonishingly good.
Ignore the thing about open-backs though, I have some extremely high end Grado open-backs and barely use them. My primary hobby outside of work is making music and I have a dedicated studio at home with expensive sound damping / proofing - the only reason to ever wear the Grados is if I'm going to be wearing them for hours on end. Even then, the Sonys are comfortable enough that I've never reached a fatigue point in them.
Apple headphones have better audio fidelity than you are giving them credit for. I have several different pairs of high-end studio headphones and expensive amps to drive them. The Apple Max, which I also own, frankly provides a cleaner reference than some of the classics. They are perfectly usable as reference headphones.
The built-in Apple audio DSP, amps, etc have surprisingly good fidelity. Much higher quality than you would expect from consumer hardware. They even provide high-impedance headphone jacks on their recent computers.
These earphones are not for people who appreciate good audio. They are for people who want more products in the Apple ecosystem and have lots of money to spend.
The problem I have with these headphones (at least V1) is that the ear cups don't tilt horizontally. Maybe my ears are more angled backwards that most people's ears, but with theses headphones, the headband part sits really far back on my head. This creates a lot of pressure on only the back edge of headband.
Until they make the ear cups tilt horizontally, these will be a no-go for me. My ancient 10+ year old Bose QCs 35s can pivot and are a million times more comfortable.
I maintain a fork of this app, which allows you to quickly set and lock your audio input device, so that they don't switch your audio input device to bluetooth as soon as you turn them on. Mostly because of the first gen of these headphones. They LOVED to keep the mic on at all times with no way to disable that behavior.
Oh I wish I knew about this before buying SoundSource. SoundSource is a decent app when it works but it causes my mic audio goes in an out with it and people complain.
I can't believe they finally refreshed this after I just churned (after owning the v1 since launch), always happens! The old Airpods Max had an issue of these giant booms when it was going low power that just wrecked my eardrums - I feel like the apple ecosystem pull is pretty compelling, but I think torturing your users for enough time will get even the most loyal customers churn.
I've been enjoying the nothing headphones, I enjoy having an off button and ability to connect via wire to the device.
I bought the AirPods Max 1 but had to return them because they felt like a vice and were too heavy. I ended up going with the Sony wh-1000xm5, which are much lighter. My only complaint on the Sony is the earcups are not deep enough for my big ears.
It's amusing to me how personal all this stuff is.
The XM5s were super uncomfortable to me (to the point I was relieved when they got stolen) and I ended up going back to Bose even though I liked the sound quality on the Sonys better.
Same experience. Everyone raved about the Sonys and so when my Bose died, I tried them out. I can't stand them! They're way less comfortable and have worse noise cancellation. The lack of buttons drives me crazy. And worst of all - when on flights, the noise cancellation will randomly stop working. Despite flights being one of the main reasons I purchase noise cancelling headphones.
I really don't understand how these are $549. As others have pointed out, some people say the head band is not great. Others say the sound is solid but not exceptional. What makes these worth that much when there are so many options?
There are two kinds of Apple products - those they make for the mass market and those that are for Apple "enthusiasts".
Mass market Apple products may be expensive but they are still great value. Look at the $499/$599 Macbook Neo for a recent example, but this generally covers iPhones and other Macs, as well as Airpods, Apple Watch etc.
Then there are the $550 Airpods Max, $3500 Vision Pro, $600 storage upgrades, $700 CPU wheels, $230 "iPhone Pocket", $20 polishing cloth...
In the latter category there is no effort to actually compete on price or value, because it is made for people who will blindly buy anything with an Apple logo on it.
If your gen 1 are already excellent for you, there’s no reason to upgrade, same as there’s no reason to get a new phone or laptop every year. My wired headphones are ten plus years old and will be fine for a couple more decades; my gen1 Max, at a fifth the price, are also fine and will be fine until their Bluetooth becomes too old (which may be ten or twenty years these days). Both benefit from earcup swaps occasionally (but gen1 lightning needs them more often than usb-c.)
If you’re unsatisfied with Transparency mode on your gen1 then the gen2 will give you Adaptive which is a big improvement (especially so if you wear them outdoors or around other people). Same improvement that the AirPods had, if you’re familiar with that.
If you use them for videoconferencing, the lower latency and higher quality headset codec may be worth upgrading. They retain value on the used market so long as you unpair them from Find My an hour before you sell them and have a purchase receipt.
I suspect there might be some slight power savings for your transmitting devices if both sides support Bluetooth 5.3, but I would not expect that to be significant or advertised.
They are a luxury item, you are paying for the privilege of signaling you can afford $550 headphones. Generic black over-ear headphones could be $800, could be $80, useless for signaling. Doubly true in the context of a gift.
>They are a luxury item, you are paying for the privilege of signaling you can afford $550 headphones.
Plus they give juuuust enough features to cover for the true purpose and give you plausible deniability. Same as most luxury items. None truly give the value of the cost (Is a Ferrari 10x as fast as a GR86? Carry 10x as much stuff? Go 10x as far on the same gas load? Etc etc etc)
"Oh but there's nothing like the experience of driving a Ferrari!"
I don't think this is the right analysis, pretty much all products follow an ever steepening curve of price to get to the highest quality. The general sentiment on HN, of which I count myself among, is that you stop before the curve gets too steep. You can stop at Oreos you don't have to pay Stella Parks to make you hers. You get the highest quality thing that isn't commanding crazy premium prices.
But the market for that last 10% 1% 0.1% does exist. Like yes it's funny to make fun of middle aged guys who buy extremely expensive cars and who if actually tested couldn't tell the difference between a $60k sports car and a $160k sports car and there are plenty of businesses that prey on that lack of discerning taste to take advantage but it doesn't mean the difference isn't there at all.
Maybe for some people. For me, they work perfectly and integrate with all my other Apple stuff (MBP, iphone, TV, iPad), everything just works. My stress levels demand it.
I assume Apple ecosystem integration and also they give off that "I bought an expensive Apple product" vibe that an iPhone or Macbook no longer do IMO.
As someone with an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and a Macbook, I never got into Apple's headphones. My Sony WH-something-4 that I bought refurbished 4 years ago are more than enough for me.
The AirPods Pro are the best earpods I've ever had for everyday use, and I've had a lot. I like some of the old beats headphones, but I also haven't had to replace the ones I bought ~5 or 10 years ago. The Sony WH-whatever I have are probably my favorite and most comfortable.
I think people are mainly confused because the AirPod Pros are quite competitively priced compared to other higher end offerings. The Max are so far off the market that it doesn't seem to make any sense and it seems unlikely that apple couldn't make up for lost margins with higher volume. Maybe they just literally can't/don't want to produce many of the Max and price them accordingly.
I say this as someone who uses many Apple products, but still can't justify buying this. (I do have AirPods but have wanted headphones so I don't have to stick something into my ears)
If you try to understand this stuff outside the context of fashion, you'll go around in circles (as I did).
If you see this through the lens of "people will pay anything to signal various things to others" and "you can charge whatever the market will bear" then it all adds up.
Well, if you buy only one pair it does work really nicely with all Apple kit. So you get really nice cinematic sound from Apple TV (for my non-prosumer ears), and effortlessly can switch between phone, laptop etc. The sound is really good for video calls.
They just work.
I mean there are other pieces of kit that probably just work as well but with these you don't need to do market research.
It's surprising how non-trivial even _adequate_ sound is still in 2026 and that's what these are guaranteed to give in any situation IMHO.
If you have only one Apple device probably no selling point as such.
The Apple Beats Studio Pro should meet this reasoning for $170 (on Amazon, $350 on apple.com - guess that explains the AirPods Max pricing) & the battery lasts twice as long. I have 2 near my Apple TV just so everything plays nice together.
Yeah I basically don’t trust anyone but Apple for wireless audio because every time I’ve tried allegedly-good non-Apple Bluetooth audio devices, they’ve been a ton worse, so bad I ended up barely using them.
In this case these are more expensive than I’d pay for headphones, but that just means I won’t have any Bluetooth headphones in this form factor. Been down that road before, non-Apple was a frustrating waste of money.
I mean FFS my AirPods are worse on Windows and Linux than in the Apple ecosystem, but are still better than the non-Apple ones I’ve tried, even there. It’s not even just the home-field advantage.
Do they brick less? I bought a pair for my husband and after a year they were bricked, apple support basically told him to buy a new one. I will never waste my money on the max line ever again.
"...the thin wires carrying power can crack over time, specifically after hundreds or thousands of swivels of the earcups (since they turn 90 degrees to fit flat into their case). That microscopic crack can cause issues with the connection.
By freezing the AirPods, the cold can cause the lining around the wires to contract, temporarily bringing the cracked sections together."
New AirPods Max finally have lossless wired audio, which is pretty nice and makes them finally catch up with the Pros.
Does anyone have experience with obtaining a flatter frequency response from any AirPods, though? While maintaining the full power of noise cancellation.
My experience with Pros has always been that they exaggerate the bass. EQ settings available in Music are coarse, and I don’t know of any other way to control frequency response independently of the app that plays the sound.
I know they are not really best for critical audio work, but they are damn convenient.
> My experience with Pros has always been that they exaggerate the bass
Based on my experience, almost all consumer-grade headphones (in ear and headphones) seem to suffer from this, I'm guessing people tend to prefer bass-heavy over "not enough bass". Not until you start looking at headphones meant for studio-use does it seem to get closer to expected when it comes to the bass.
I see, I remember checking that they didn’t support high definition wireless codec but missed the part where they could do lossless over the wire last year.
Why can’t they squeeze in that codec, considering Pros have it for years and are a lot smaller?
Edit: apparently I was confusing AirPods Pros with Sony WH models, which have LDAC. I guess there is no chance Apple adopts LDAC, even in their large heavy cans.
I have a pair (gen 1). Sound good with my MBP, but with my phone (16 Pro Max), I've had intermittent skipping of the audio signal, which just shouldn't happen at that premium level.
The Bluetooth chip & version in these won’t be the same one you have today, so there’s no guarantee that present experience will inform future experience (better or worse).
It just sits there, with no one touching it. Suddenly, music randomly starts and stops playing. Take it into the Apple Store, they acknowledge it’s a known hardware defect to start registering non-existent touches, and they refuse to fix it. Offer to replace it with a refurb unit for like ~$20 less than a brand new unit.
Passive noise cancellation beats active hands down. (no weird air pressure, reliable, no need for batteries, less expensive)
Analog and wired beats bluetooth if you care for sound quality, portable DACs are very good in 2026.
Professionals are using BeyerDynamics and Sony headphones made for studios and almost unchanged since the 90s for good reasons.
The only good reason to opt for wireless is for practical reasons when you are running, and you want smaller models.
The screech is produced by feedback in the noise canceling I think, happens if you lay on a pillow at the wrong angle also, never had it due to moisture myself.
I've been wearing the Soundcore Space Q45 for 6 months. Good noise cancelling, comfortable headband, not too heavy and they cost...$99. I can't imagine these being worth 5x as much, even with the Apple tax.
My AirPods Max headphones are incredible. They sound amazing. They also squeeze my head so much that they hurt so I don't use them. Kinda sad, really. I'd use them at my desk every day if they were comfortable to wear.
I've had some headphones in the past where I stuck them over a slightly-bigger-than-my-head object when not wearing them to stretch them out over some time to alleviate this problem.
XM6 does not support audio over USB-C (The USB-C port on the XM6 is only for for charging)
QC Ultra 2 does, but the headphones turn off when plugged in and have to be turned back on while charging
AirPods Max with USB-C and AirPods Max 2 appear to be the only headphones among this group (XM6, QCUltra2, AirPods Max with USB-C, AirPods Max 2) that support both Audio over USB-C and automatic charging while in use.
i'm sort of done with apple products for awhile. aside from apple silicon, the quality of hardware and software decisions seems to have been consistently dropping for quite some time. i regret buying the new iphone. i regret buying the new air pods. i don't regret buying a mac mini recently, but only because it's got an apple silicon processor.
Depends on your use case, I need exceptional noise cancellation. These and Sony XM6's are top tier in that department. I would wait until they're $100 or more off on Amazon.
No wireless lossless audio means these are a hard pass for me. I really expected Apple of all folks to figure that out since they engineer their entire stack, hardware to software, but they’re still just pushing the same bluetooth audio that my Airpods Pro 2’s consume (which are half the price and incredibly excellent). Sony’s LDAC is niche, but sounds objectively better to my ears than the AAC used on Apple’s kit when I opt to use my Walkman+XM4s.
As for wired listening? My XM4s sound okay wired in, and at home I’ve got critical-listening kit already. Adding a USB-C cable to the Max is not appealing given that 3.5mm already exists, USB-C cables are heavier than analog audio wires, and more corps block USB ports in general or mess with them in ways that corrupts the audio stack.
Give me wireless CD-quality audio and I’ll be a happy dinosaur. Until then, I have zero reason to upgrade what I currently have.
The H2 enables lossless audio over wireless. So this reads like a temporary limitation that software might solve down the road. But knowing Apple's track record for enabling features in partially dormant hardware ... I wouldn't buy these expecting that.
Given Apple's very recent track record on promising things and then watching them vanish into the ether - not to mention a lifetime being burned buying into future promises that never materialize ("MCE is the future of the entertainment experience!" (RIP in Win7), "CableCARD will free you from the tyranny of locked down hardware!" (RIP from the get-go), "Unfolded Circle 3 will finally support serial from the dock!") - means I don't buy on what it could do tomorrow, but what's on offer out of the box from day one.
Tired of accumulating scar tissue and burn marks in the name of shareholder value.
Does anyone ever actually pay that for them, tho? I've got the QC Ultras; looks like they cost me 331 euro _with VAT_. Apple's RRP is usually the actual sale price, but IME the RRP for Bose stuff at least is generally pure fantasy, with actual prices being significantly lower.
EDIT: Currently they seem to be 350EUR inc VAT on Irish Amazon; Amazon is making it difficult for me to see the US price and I'm not interested enough to fight with it, but I'm guessing that there's a similar level of discount.
More than, considering Apple is willing to openly advertise Neo at $499 for education. The minimum-advertised-price on these won't ever drop below ~$529 for a hot minute.
Crazy to think Apple is now pricing their consumer headphones in the same segment as serious professional gear, they seems to cost more or less the same I paid for my "studio-grade" DT 1770 Pro.
Typical studio grade cans need studio grade equipment to drive them. No surprise if decently sounding headphones that already ship with tailored DAC, amplifier, ANC cost more than decent headphones for which you need to buy all that (and lug around if you travel).
Yet, with that taken into account, today the latest
DT 1770 Pro still cost over 20% more than the latest AirPods Max.
Considering Apple markets Max for audio work, they compete on the same turf. This makes Apple’s offer unusually cost effective, not the other way around. I think this can be attributed to their fragility and inferior sound quality relative to DT 1770 Pro (at the end of a decent signal chain).
> Yet, with that taken into account, today the latest DT 1770 Pro still cost over 20% more than the latest AirPods Max.
Not sure where you're looking, but seems I paid 535 EUR for my beyerdynamics (and that's what Amazon sells them for right now too), meanwhile these Apple headphones cost 579 EUR, so seems it's opposite really, studio-grade headphones being cheaper than the consumer-grade hardware Apple sells.
> Considering Apple markets Max for audio work
They might be marketed like that, because it influences what wealthy consumers chose to buy, but AFAIK, no one is sitting with AirPods Max in their studios for work, at least from what I've been able to tell.
Both products in US on the site of respective manufacturer. Maybe you bought the older model (which by the way has higher impedance, so dedicated amplifier is a must, take it into account when you calculate the price).
> no one is sitting with AirPods Max in their studios for work
People absolutely use them for serious work. They are much more of a personal product though, and there are other factors that would make an average studio disinclined to invest in them, like fragility and cost of repair and a whole bunch of unnecessary for a studio features.
Of course, when the studio already has all the rest of the hardware, soundproofed room, etc., it could actually be cheaper to buy cans that do not in fact include ANC, DAC, Dolby, amplifier, etc., and maybe even enjoy a bump in audio quality while at that. For someone who does not have that, it is often simply not a practical choice.
I have used Soundcore q20i for more than a year, and I'm sure the AirPods have a better sound and have a better noise cancelling, but the difference in price $549 and 30€ (as I bought them) is pretty insane, also my Soundcore q20i last much longer than 20h and the noise cancelling is already quite good.
Guess I'll be the contrarian on this one - I've got a pair of the Max's and love them. I use them primarily for watching movies and TV (I live in an apartment and am not a sociopath), and the "spatial audio" is incredibly good. Apple's got a "Sound" to their products that isn't neutral, but is very detailed and tends to disappear pretty quickly. Both the noise cancellation and the "transparent" mode are phenomenal. They're a bit buggy, yes, but not tangibly worse than any other bluetooth headphones I've owned. They're heavy, but I don't wear them outside - they're solely for home use. I'm personally excited to see these get a refresh.
... and a $25 pair of junk earbuds will do better in terms of "pairing and staying paired" if you are using iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Steam Deck, whatever.
There’s been a lot of grumbling about RTO at my work, and if it happens, these will be a day one purchase. I used to have some Bowers and Wilkins PX headphones that I liked, and my wife really loves her Bose QuietComfort, but the weird thing I detested about both of those is how seemingly every headphone manufacturer except Apple feels the needs to add voice feedback to your device? “Headphones connected” and whatnot. It just really messes with my vibes, man.
Also quite frankly I’d rather just not have to buy them and keep working from home. Listening to music using good speakers is an objectively superior experience.
That surprised me... I buy every in-ear AirPods Pro without much deliberation, even the Pro 3 which measurably regressed on sound. The heart rate sensor and ANC bump were enough.
I say that to clarify: I wanted to want these.
But it's death by a thousand cuts. The weight alone I'd live with. The case I'd accept. No IP rating on something I'd like to wear outside.. fuck.. fine, annoying, moving on. But all of it together, at that price, with that much time to fix any of it? Hard pass.
I've gone for the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 instead. More expensive, noticeably worse ANC. But you can hear where the money went. The drivers, the feel, the fact that four hours in you've stopped thinking about them. It sounds like it was made by people who find audio interesting.
Apple used to feel like that.
Embarrassingly, it also has no IP rating: somewhat hilarious from a company in West Sussex, where "unexpected sunshine" makes the local news. And the ANC versus Sony is less a gap than a... uh "chasm".
The question I'd put to anyone in this thread still weighing it up: are you buying the best headphone, or the most convenient one? For in-ears those are the same answer. For over-ears, I'm not sure they are.
I feel like a salesman now, but yeah you can... they come with a straight through USB-C:USB-C cable (though it's super thick and seems rated to carry 60w and USB2.0 speeds according to my Treedix.. weird choice) and a USB-C to 3.5MM jack cable.
Wild. I have been eagerly awaiting this refresh, but this doesn't address either of the main issues with the original AirPods Max:
1. Still just as heavy. The AirPods Max sound quite good, but they are very heavy, to the point of being fairly uncomfortable after listening for any longer amount of time. This release as the exact same weight as the originals (13.6 oz).
2. Still no off button/position. They stay partially on unless you put them in the awkward and useless "case", which means they're constantly out of power when you want to use them. There's even an obvious fix: the ear cups swivel flat, they could just make this the "power off" position. Solved. But they didn't, so presumably these still have the same problem. There's also no mention of magnetic charging via stand, which would be another way to help alleviate this problem.
If these were even a few ounces lighter and powered off properly, I would buy them for sure. Given this announcement, I guess I will look for something else to replace the old AirPods Max.
As someone who has never seen these or paid attention to them I was thinking "how heavy could they possibly be?" Then I saw 13.6 oz and I was blown away. That's actually really heavy for headphones!
Are you sure your AirPods Max have the latest firmware? This issue was addressed in an update right after the first version came out and people reported the issue you're describing:
If you set your AirPods Max down and leave them stationary for 5 minutes, they go into a low power mode to preserve battery charge. After 72 stationary hours out of the Smart Case, your AirPods Max go into a lower power mode that turns off Bluetooth and Find My to preserve battery charge further
[Archive link, as the latest Support doc doesn't have this wording any longer]
[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20210315052229/https://support.a...
I got excited there for a second — free fix for the most annoying problem with my headphones! But no, my AirPods Max have the latest firmware and still have this issue. Any time I leave them for more than a day, the battery is drained.
Try hard reset (long press (~15s) both buttons).
I know I have had this issue and did not have it after reset. Though I do have another annoying, and seemingly unique issue: sometimes, when adjusting the position of the headphone, they do a “click” (and a loud one), and just shut down.
The farthest from the last reset, the more often it happens. I have no idea why.
What does “down” and “stationary” mean? I put my Sony to random paces, mainly just throwing it into my backpack. Would that be considered as down and stationary? Would it be turned off if I’m on the move? In a car? On a bus?
I mean, I regularly leave them on a shelf in my apartment and they apparently do not consider that "down" or "stationary" enough to not just drain the battery completely. Truly a bafflingly bad design from the company that is (was) known for great hardware design.
It's still extremely odd that they don't just... turn off.. ever? Even the case marketing copy notes this:
> When stored in the soft, slim Smart Case, AirPods Max enter an ultra‑low‑power state.
Perhaps for Find My/UWB support?
Funny enough, the original and the new AirPods Max don't have UWB. That won't help me find my headphones in my house.
If for Find My, why stay in "low power" mode for days before moving to "ultralow power" mode? Is silly.
Absolutely! I have both the AirPods Max and the Bose QC Ultra and even though my whole ecosystem is Apple, the QC Ultra is a lot more comfortable reliable on day to day usage. Comfort is due to weight, and reliability is the batter is predictably on the QC Ultra, but on the Max I never know if the battery went all down because I can't turn it off.
Thats 386,2 gram for the rest of the world.
I’ve been using my AirPod Max for hours for the past 2 years and never noticed they were “heavy”. I’m wondering now as I’ve never researched on headphones (I just buy simplicity from Apple, I’m not an audio sophisticated costumer) that was never brought out to me, so I haven’t even noticed.
I’ve been using AirPods Max since they first launched, and over the years I’ve tried several times to switch to Bose.
However, the Bose headphones just haven’t worked as smoothly for me from a software and integration standpoint. I tend to run into more glitches and small issues compared to the AirPods Max. I’m not sure whether that’s primarily a Bose issue or something related to Apple’s ecosystem, but my guess is that other high-end headphones probably face similar integration challenges when paired with an iPhone.
On the bright side, Max is very reliable.
I leave my AirPods Max sitting on my desk for weeks at a time outside of the case and the battery never drains. I just put mine on today after sitting on my desk for a week and they still had 99% charge.
Strange. Are they first gen or later? I did get the absolute first gen of these, so maybe it's a problem they couldn't fix in firmware? Or I just have a defective pair?
I feel that fit and comfort is an incredibly personal thing, but the weight was always fine for me - their design spreads it out pretty well.
The killer feature for me is the deep ear cups. All the Sony headphones touch my Dumbo-sized ears and get crazy warm, the APMs don’t.
Apple clearly optimized for the "always ready" experience, but it does feel awkward that the intended workflow involves putting them in the case
I held off buying the first version for exactly these two reasons. Will also "hold off" on buying these.
I don't understand how a pair of headphones can be $549 meanwhile the Macbook Neo is $599
The pricing on these always seemed a bit crazy to me, like the value is way off compared to other Apple products
Peripheral tech must have absurdly lucrative margins. I see it in my niche interests too. Cycling or golf gps are like hundreds of dollars. They are the same products they were 15 years ago: cheap lcd screen with a cheap gps radio and some severely underpowered cpu with noticable input lag. Designed to fall apart in a few years. Still same prices they always were, maybe they get away adding another $50 a year to the price on occasion. It is like they hit their price point and margin number and are perfectly happy making probably >60% markup on us who have no option otherwise. Yes we could potentially order prototypes trivially for cents a unit from same places in china the first party manufacturers go to, but minimum order is probably 1000 units.
That is literally the sole moat of these companies: minimum orders from china and the fact we can't spend the ad money they can to move that volume quickly. Not tech or offering a good deal. Just being there already with money and doing the inevitable. Being the more productive drug dealer quicker to move the kilo to the captured audience and bankrolled to get the next several and scale.
Isn't this pricing pretty in line with other high end ANC headphones?
e.g. Bowers & Wilkins PX8 ($699), Focal Bathys ($849), Sony WH-1000XM6 ($399), Kef Mu7 ($399), Bose QC Ultra ($449)
Or Sennheiser momentum 4, 150 bucks and sound at least as good if not better, have absolutely huge battery compared to tiny apple one, more comfortable and generally work much better with non-apple ecosystem (also apparently they support multi-device pairing but I haven't used that one).
Don't pay the novelty price shortly after release, these go down quite a bit after introduction, ie last year Sony are basically the same device.
Different target markets. Audiophiles and wealth exhibitionists are much more willing to pay the large amount
Doubt audiophiles are really the target for the AirPods Max.
As said, different markets. If you look from the same perspective, the last iPhone I ordered is 3x the price of a last generation MacBook Air.
$549 is pretty reasonable if the headphone has the sound detail it's advertising. Given how AirPods Gen 3 sounds, I'm sure that thing sounds pretty amazing.
Sennheiser HD 800 S is $1700 and has been around for years. Or the Meze Elite Tungsten at $4,000 - if Apple can get 80/90% of the way there at $549, they'd be a steal for the right customer.
The quality x price curve is not linear. Expensive materials and engineering often produce only incremental quality improvements, if any. Sometimes the improvements are only cosmetic. So Apple's headphones would need to be a lot closer to the best of the best than 80-90% in order to justify their price.
The feature that applies a hearing test as an equalizer setting make the APM sound pretty damn good, so much so it ended my 20 year long headphone-collecting hobby.
Before hearing-tuned EQ became a thing, trying headphones was like trying food. No matter what someone else said it was no guarantee you'd like the sound. Conversely, you might find a cheap pair that sounded spectacular to you. The APM will sound very good to just about anyone, with the hearing test EQ applied.
I think every headphone maker (or better yet, DAC maker) should have this feature. Audiophiles are often old, a hearing test EQ can make them hear music like they're 20 again, and they'll pay for it.
Price and quantity go in pairs.
As long as a pair exists on the demand curve, Apple can charge that price.
And _STILL_ the Sony MDR's are still ~$100.
It does look strange when you compare it directly to a MacBook, but headphones are a weird category
a lot of non apple headphones cost more... and many don't even sound better...
Well, in the market segment of Bluetooth ANC headphones, there's not that much. Bowers & Wilkins and Focal come to mind, both audiophile luxury brands and similarily overpriced.
On the other hand, the flagship Sony is quite a bit less than AirPods Max.
Doesn’t Sony have the best codec on Bluetooth? It definitely has worse noise cancellation than my AirPod, but afaik it should have better audio quality on paper.
Same could be said about the Vision Pro, much pricier than their mass market alternatives, while being in-line with high end professional gear.
My AirPods Max 1 left a headband dent in my skull from how poor the quality of the headband was after more than a year of daily use. They also are super heavy and don't travel well at all.
Apple deciding that, on their 2nd refresh of these (after usb-c), they still aren't going to fix those fundamental issues is very frustrating for what feels like a very disproportionately expensive product (even by Apple standards).
I'm now a very happy QC Ultra 2 user. Can't recommend enough.
I thought that any headphones would leave a dent in your head? At least that's been my experience, and I don't think my headphones are nearly as heavy as these things.
Yea I ran into the exact same issue. My workaround was buying a silicone band that wrapped around the top of the set to help as a sort of "2nd layer."
It isn't perfect, but it makes them wearable.
Pretty incredible oversight by a company that focuses so much on "design."
The bands sell pretty well on Amazon from what I can see so this isn't an isolated issue.
Interesting. Echoes the failure of the original Vision Pro knit headband, Version 2 of which is much better — but it took 2 years to appear!
I've traveled extensively with my AirPods Max. I just toss them in my backpack with whatever else is there and move on. They travel a lot better than my Bose ones did with the bulky case. I much prefer Apple's approach here.
A literal dent in your skull?
It’s not in the skull, it’s in the soft tissue on top of it. I’ve had the same dent after wearing them for a while, it comes out after a while.
Phew, that's a relief. Guess that's a reasonable compromise for a $550 product for which there are no other quality competitors.
It literally gives me a headache after more than an hour of wearing it. This never happens with may AKG that has a very utilitarian and simple headband—a flat piece of plastic. It’s not pretty but I can wear AKG for a whole day and enjoy every minute of it while I’m phisically sick after an hour of AirPods Pro.
You're joking, right? There are many high quality competitors in that price range. I'm holding a pair (Sennheiser HDB 630). They are significantly lighter weight, better comfort and sound quality.
They are indeed being sarcastic/joking.
My hd660s2 leave an indent in my skull. I don’t find them uncomfortable though.
You sure that's not from something else?
Another poster here - I can confirm, have the same thing. I don’t worry too much about it though, I assume it will fade if I ever switch to other headphones.
I thought this was parody at first- are you guys seriously ok with this?
We want evidence.
Yeah. My bone grew around the two plastic pieces of the band because the mesh in the middle lost all of its springiness.
One day I felt my head and decided that I was switching as soon as a competitor refreshed.
That... doesn't happen. More likely it's an indentation in your scalp.
Not the skull, but probably the scalp. Our scalp is made up of skin, fat, and muscle. When you press a rigid object against it for hours every day, that soft tissue temporarily compresses. It happens to my kid who wears headphones for gaming. It's the same mechanism that leaves red marks on your nose after wearing glasses, or grooves on your ankles after wearing tight socks. Wash your hair, give up on the headphones, and it'll return to normal.
The QC2 are about half the weight of the AirPods Max, and apparently the mesh in the AirPods Max band sags, and allows the metal bars to "dig in" to your scalp. Enough to cause irritation, but 400 or 500 grams resting on your head can't mess with an adult, developed skull.
"I found a GAMER DENT in my head..." https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rp7emJhjk5g
You are wearing it wrong?
$549 for consumer grade headphones, really?
I'll briefly join the chorus: AirPods Max were the worst value for money I've ever spent on a tech product.
But more interestingly: what happens at a company like Apple that leads them to not cancel this product and come up with something totally new? Is it that the success of their other products pulls this along so well that they are numb to this product being a dog? AirPods Pro (the earbuds) are a great product, so perhaps the headphones org just doesn't have to face the music?
> so perhaps the headphones org just doesn't have to face the music?
Some people don't like anything in their ears. Some people have ear canals that don't work/aren't comfortable with "standard" tips. This is why headphones will always exist.
I'm not buying another expensive AirPods from Apple until they have their story straight w.r.t battery health and battery repair that is cost-effective. I'm done wasting money on these only to have battery issues, clicking noises etc in less than 2 years of continuous use.
Irritating thing is how Apple hides bluetooth headphones pairing 2-3 clicks deeper than AirPods pairing – on iPhones and Apple TV.
Replacing the batteries on the Maxes is actually a fairly straightforward process (no adhesive melting required, just a screwdriver and a pry bar), and spare batteries can be purchased on Amazon or Ebay for around 50 USD. It's one of the better Apple products in that regard, very unlike the in-ear models.
> Irritating thing is how Apple hides bluetooth headphones pairing 2-3 clicks deeper than AirPods pairing – on iPhones and Apple TV.
Can't you just create a Shortcut on the iPhone to pair with whatever you want via bluetooth in a single tap? Or just edit the control center menu itself and add the Bluetooth button directly to the control center?
4 clicks from control centre on stock settings. Two if you add the Bluetooth widget into control centre. Swipe down control centre > Bluetooth > hey presto
As for ATV, yeah that thing is deep
I owned a pair of the first gen AirPods Max. After a couple of months of usage, I began noticing a rattling inside the right earcup. I had never dropped them or exposed them to any sort of physical damage that could knock something loose. The rattling would happen every time I tilted my head in any direction. I had taken them to Apple Genius support in store 3 different times and 2 of those times the onsite tech agreed that there was a rattling sound. All 3 times they were sent to an Apple repair facility and they always came back with "cannot reproduce". I sold them on FB Marketplace for a deep discount, having alerted the potential buyer to the issue before I sold them to him. Never again will I purchase a set of AirPods.
Funny that something similar swore me off another brand’s headphones. The noise cancelling would amplify mechanical vibrations of the headphones, so much so that even eating with them on would cause a deafening bass. Walking with them on was also incredibly loud.
I sent them to support with a very good description of the problem, came back the same, “cannot reproduce”.
It seems support workers for both companies just connect them to an audio source and check if sound comes out relatively alright.
Prior to the third time going to Genius Bar, I was able to reach a senior manager for Apple repairs in a phone call to Apple Support. And even after asking him to take down a note on my incident to have the repair tech physically open the right ear can, they still came back with "cannot reproduce". There was either a screw loose in my brain or the headphones. Guess we'll never know which.
All three pairs of AirPod Pros I've owned have had rattling issues that would reproduce when I physically moved/tilted my head. It's really annoying.
Same here. Three pairs and all had this issue after some time. One of the pairs was a used one with the same problem.
This is exactly why I will never buy them at all again.
For the price that is insane.
A tangential question: What are the best bang per buck headphones these days (preferably wireless)? Not earbuds, but over-the-head headphones. Tell me your favorites.
(The internet is so polluted that I cannot find any reliable recommendation today so I'm doing a mini "ask HN" here.)
Wireless:
- Top tier general: sennheiser Hbd 630
- good enough: sennheiser momentum 4 (affordable)
- good ANC and “bassy”: Sony xm5/xm6 (‘muddy’ for some)
- I like the Bose ANC profile: Bose QC2
All of them have bad microphones (worse than wired ear pods)
All of them have good to great ANC
All of them are wireless
If you need a good mic then get dedicated headset for calls. Otherwise settle for “ok”
I didn’t include bathys/marklevin cause the new senn 630 outplay them on all fronts.
I found this forum last year https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php which opens the door up to a high number of lower cost manufacturers making very high quality products. although the forum audience (audiophiles) generally eschew wireless products and prefer open backed (loud for everyone else and no noise cancelling) headphones, there are all kinds of products discussed.
Best bang for the buck in terms of sound quality is probably the Hifiman HE400SE, which is less than $100, the AKG K701 and Sennheiser HD6XX, which are about $200. The catch is that you need a proper setup to drive them. But to be honest, getting the tuning you like that suits the music is more important.
Bose Quietcomfort (i have the 2nd gen ultra now but I've owned other models too) live up to their name for comfort. Very lightweight and the earcups are large enough that they don't pinch. They may not have the best ANC or featureset, but I enjoy mine immensely
I don't know exactly how to measure bang for buck, but my Sony XM4s have been holding up well, sound good, are decently comfortable for a day's work, the battery life is good, etc.
They do have some annoyances like not always sleeping correctly when left connected to my laptop, but overall they are easy to recommend
any ANC soundcore (anker) headphones or TEMU if you fancy rolling the dice. A colleague got a clone of the Sony 1000xm4, they sounded and look very similar.
For all day online calls, Jabra evolve2 65 are hard to beat for the price.
What is your main use case?
Conference calls? Get soundcores.
Actual music? Buy proper open backs and a DAC.
Any thoughts on the Ploopy?
https://ploopy.co/headphones/
Those are definitely not what you want for anything other than actual music production - they're designed for a flat frequency response which is really useful when mixing music, but awful for anything else.
If you want to go cheap and don't want ANC (eg. open back headphones) then there's a lot of good reference/studio headphones around. I have a wired Audio Technica M40X for home use and a wireless pair of M20X for travel; both are great in a quieter environment.
The two sibling comments were good suggestions. I have Sony XM3s that have been going strong for 6 years, sound superb, and have IMHO better noise cancellation than Bose.
For my kids I got Anker Soundcores, and for the price they are astonishingly good.
Ignore the thing about open-backs though, I have some extremely high end Grado open-backs and barely use them. My primary hobby outside of work is making music and I have a dedicated studio at home with expensive sound damping / proofing - the only reason to ever wear the Grados is if I'm going to be wearing them for hours on end. Even then, the Sonys are comfortable enough that I've never reached a fatigue point in them.
Truly the Beats of our generation. Buy headphones from audio specialists, not Apple.
Apple knows its cookies when it comes to sound. I can say that as someone who uses proper HiFi systems and has played in orchestras.
Apple headphones have better audio fidelity than you are giving them credit for. I have several different pairs of high-end studio headphones and expensive amps to drive them. The Apple Max, which I also own, frankly provides a cleaner reference than some of the classics. They are perfectly usable as reference headphones.
The built-in Apple audio DSP, amps, etc have surprisingly good fidelity. Much higher quality than you would expect from consumer hardware. They even provide high-impedance headphone jacks on their recent computers.
Apple hardware sound is the best on the market (macbooks, ipad, etc.).
It is unwise to dismiss their prowess
These earphones are not for people who appreciate good audio. They are for people who want more products in the Apple ecosystem and have lots of money to spend.
Still pretty happy with my Homepods in Stereo
Honestly Apple's Airpods Pro and Airpods Max sound pretty great though, and I own several pairs of "audiophile" IEMs and headphones.
Will agree about Airpods Pro, but Max are a notch below the competition (Bose, Sony, Sennheiser).
The problem I have with these headphones (at least V1) is that the ear cups don't tilt horizontally. Maybe my ears are more angled backwards that most people's ears, but with theses headphones, the headband part sits really far back on my head. This creates a lot of pressure on only the back edge of headband.
Until they make the ear cups tilt horizontally, these will be a no-go for me. My ancient 10+ year old Bose QCs 35s can pivot and are a million times more comfortable.
https://github.com/jstilwell/MacAudioInputLocker
I maintain a fork of this app, which allows you to quickly set and lock your audio input device, so that they don't switch your audio input device to bluetooth as soon as you turn them on. Mostly because of the first gen of these headphones. They LOVED to keep the mic on at all times with no way to disable that behavior.
I assume it's the same with the second gen.
Oh my god, where has this been. Is there any way you can make it work for 14.4? I desperately need this.
Oh I wish I knew about this before buying SoundSource. SoundSource is a decent app when it works but it causes my mic audio goes in an out with it and people complain.
So is this like https://apps.kopiro.me/soundanchor/ ?
I can't believe they finally refreshed this after I just churned (after owning the v1 since launch), always happens! The old Airpods Max had an issue of these giant booms when it was going low power that just wrecked my eardrums - I feel like the apple ecosystem pull is pretty compelling, but I think torturing your users for enough time will get even the most loyal customers churn.
I've been enjoying the nothing headphones, I enjoy having an off button and ability to connect via wire to the device.
I bought the AirPods Max 1 but had to return them because they felt like a vice and were too heavy. I ended up going with the Sony wh-1000xm5, which are much lighter. My only complaint on the Sony is the earcups are not deep enough for my big ears.
I had the xm6 but the combination of worse sound (for me at least) and shallow earcups which hurt my ears drove me back to airpods max
It's amusing to me how personal all this stuff is.
The XM5s were super uncomfortable to me (to the point I was relieved when they got stolen) and I ended up going back to Bose even though I liked the sound quality on the Sonys better.
Same experience. Everyone raved about the Sonys and so when my Bose died, I tried them out. I can't stand them! They're way less comfortable and have worse noise cancellation. The lack of buttons drives me crazy. And worst of all - when on flights, the noise cancellation will randomly stop working. Despite flights being one of the main reasons I purchase noise cancelling headphones.
I really don't understand how these are $549. As others have pointed out, some people say the head band is not great. Others say the sound is solid but not exceptional. What makes these worth that much when there are so many options?
There are two kinds of Apple products - those they make for the mass market and those that are for Apple "enthusiasts".
Mass market Apple products may be expensive but they are still great value. Look at the $499/$599 Macbook Neo for a recent example, but this generally covers iPhones and other Macs, as well as Airpods, Apple Watch etc.
Then there are the $550 Airpods Max, $3500 Vision Pro, $600 storage upgrades, $700 CPU wheels, $230 "iPhone Pocket", $20 polishing cloth...
In the latter category there is no effort to actually compete on price or value, because it is made for people who will blindly buy anything with an Apple logo on it.
>I really don't understand how these are $549.
H2 chip enables smart audio switching when paired with Apple account + other Apple products. This is a feature that many people find valuable.
But not 549 valuable. You get that on their much cheaper airpods. Also doesn't need h2 for that, even their older ones did it.
What's new about this with the H2 chip?
My H1-chipped USB-C Airpods Max (OG) seem to switch seamlessly between my iphone, ipad, and macbook pro already.
If your gen 1 are already excellent for you, there’s no reason to upgrade, same as there’s no reason to get a new phone or laptop every year. My wired headphones are ten plus years old and will be fine for a couple more decades; my gen1 Max, at a fifth the price, are also fine and will be fine until their Bluetooth becomes too old (which may be ten or twenty years these days). Both benefit from earcup swaps occasionally (but gen1 lightning needs them more often than usb-c.)
If you’re unsatisfied with Transparency mode on your gen1 then the gen2 will give you Adaptive which is a big improvement (especially so if you wear them outdoors or around other people). Same improvement that the AirPods had, if you’re familiar with that.
If you use them for videoconferencing, the lower latency and higher quality headset codec may be worth upgrading. They retain value on the used market so long as you unpair them from Find My an hour before you sell them and have a purchase receipt.
I suspect there might be some slight power savings for your transmitting devices if both sides support Bluetooth 5.3, but I would not expect that to be significant or advertised.
They are a luxury item, you are paying for the privilege of signaling you can afford $550 headphones. Generic black over-ear headphones could be $800, could be $80, useless for signaling. Doubly true in the context of a gift.
>They are a luxury item, you are paying for the privilege of signaling you can afford $550 headphones.
Plus they give juuuust enough features to cover for the true purpose and give you plausible deniability. Same as most luxury items. None truly give the value of the cost (Is a Ferrari 10x as fast as a GR86? Carry 10x as much stuff? Go 10x as far on the same gas load? Etc etc etc)
"Oh but there's nothing like the experience of driving a Ferrari!"
I don't think this is the right analysis, pretty much all products follow an ever steepening curve of price to get to the highest quality. The general sentiment on HN, of which I count myself among, is that you stop before the curve gets too steep. You can stop at Oreos you don't have to pay Stella Parks to make you hers. You get the highest quality thing that isn't commanding crazy premium prices.
But the market for that last 10% 1% 0.1% does exist. Like yes it's funny to make fun of middle aged guys who buy extremely expensive cars and who if actually tested couldn't tell the difference between a $60k sports car and a $160k sports car and there are plenty of businesses that prey on that lack of discerning taste to take advantage but it doesn't mean the difference isn't there at all.
Is the GR86 hand made?
Maybe for some people. For me, they work perfectly and integrate with all my other Apple stuff (MBP, iphone, TV, iPad), everything just works. My stress levels demand it.
I assume Apple ecosystem integration and also they give off that "I bought an expensive Apple product" vibe that an iPhone or Macbook no longer do IMO.
As someone with an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and a Macbook, I never got into Apple's headphones. My Sony WH-something-4 that I bought refurbished 4 years ago are more than enough for me.
The AirPods Pro are the best earpods I've ever had for everyday use, and I've had a lot. I like some of the old beats headphones, but I also haven't had to replace the ones I bought ~5 or 10 years ago. The Sony WH-whatever I have are probably my favorite and most comfortable.
This is Apple, my dude - the company that sells a glorified sock to carry your phone in for US $230.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/introducing-iphone-po...
That’s all you have to understand.
I think people are mainly confused because the AirPod Pros are quite competitively priced compared to other higher end offerings. The Max are so far off the market that it doesn't seem to make any sense and it seems unlikely that apple couldn't make up for lost margins with higher volume. Maybe they just literally can't/don't want to produce many of the Max and price them accordingly.
I say this as someone who uses many Apple products, but still can't justify buying this. (I do have AirPods but have wanted headphones so I don't have to stick something into my ears)
If you try to understand this stuff outside the context of fashion, you'll go around in circles (as I did).
If you see this through the lens of "people will pay anything to signal various things to others" and "you can charge whatever the market will bear" then it all adds up.
You can buy three socks for the price of one set of casters.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mx572zm/a/apple-mac-pro-w...
Reminds me of the casters on the PDP-8 that my high school had back when I was in elementary school.
> What makes these worth that much when there are so many options?
You want to be seen in public wearing this object
Well, if you buy only one pair it does work really nicely with all Apple kit. So you get really nice cinematic sound from Apple TV (for my non-prosumer ears), and effortlessly can switch between phone, laptop etc. The sound is really good for video calls.
They just work.
I mean there are other pieces of kit that probably just work as well but with these you don't need to do market research.
It's surprising how non-trivial even _adequate_ sound is still in 2026 and that's what these are guaranteed to give in any situation IMHO.
If you have only one Apple device probably no selling point as such.
The Apple Beats Studio Pro should meet this reasoning for $170 (on Amazon, $350 on apple.com - guess that explains the AirPods Max pricing) & the battery lasts twice as long. I have 2 near my Apple TV just so everything plays nice together.
Yeah I basically don’t trust anyone but Apple for wireless audio because every time I’ve tried allegedly-good non-Apple Bluetooth audio devices, they’ve been a ton worse, so bad I ended up barely using them.
In this case these are more expensive than I’d pay for headphones, but that just means I won’t have any Bluetooth headphones in this form factor. Been down that road before, non-Apple was a frustrating waste of money.
I mean FFS my AirPods are worse on Windows and Linux than in the Apple ecosystem, but are still better than the non-Apple ones I’ve tried, even there. It’s not even just the home-field advantage.
[delayed]
Because Apple
What's the latency on these like for music production?
Do they brick less? I bought a pair for my husband and after a year they were bricked, apple support basically told him to buy a new one. I will never waste my money on the max line ever again.
Did you try putting them in the freezer for 20 minutes?
curious: why would this help?
"...the thin wires carrying power can crack over time, specifically after hundreds or thousands of swivels of the earcups (since they turn 90 degrees to fit flat into their case). That microscopic crack can cause issues with the connection.
By freezing the AirPods, the cold can cause the lining around the wires to contract, temporarily bringing the cracked sections together."
https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/airpods-max-freezer-fix/
The platters come unstuck and can spin again.
New AirPods Max finally have lossless wired audio, which is pretty nice and makes them finally catch up with the Pros.
Does anyone have experience with obtaining a flatter frequency response from any AirPods, though? While maintaining the full power of noise cancellation.
My experience with Pros has always been that they exaggerate the bass. EQ settings available in Music are coarse, and I don’t know of any other way to control frequency response independently of the app that plays the sound.
I know they are not really best for critical audio work, but they are damn convenient.
> My experience with Pros has always been that they exaggerate the bass
Based on my experience, almost all consumer-grade headphones (in ear and headphones) seem to suffer from this, I'm guessing people tend to prefer bass-heavy over "not enough bass". Not until you start looking at headphones meant for studio-use does it seem to get closer to expected when it comes to the bass.
Apple added wired lossless audio last year when they moved to USB-C iirc
I see, I remember checking that they didn’t support high definition wireless codec but missed the part where they could do lossless over the wire last year.
Why can’t they squeeze in that codec, considering Pros have it for years and are a lot smaller?
Edit: apparently I was confusing AirPods Pros with Sony WH models, which have LDAC. I guess there is no chance Apple adopts LDAC, even in their large heavy cans.
LDAC is also not lossless btw.
I have a pair (gen 1). Sound good with my MBP, but with my phone (16 Pro Max), I've had intermittent skipping of the audio signal, which just shouldn't happen at that premium level.
What did Support say when you opened a case?
The Bluetooth chip & version in these won’t be the same one you have today, so there’s no guarantee that present experience will inform future experience (better or worse).
I haven't contacted support about it. It's a minor annoyance, and my Airpods Pro (both gen 2 and 3) have worked perfect with my phone.
The mesh in version one lasted just over 12 months.
Repair bill at Apple was 90% of the cost of a new pair.
Truly the worst built product I’ve bought from Apple.
Never again.
The worst built apple product is the HomePod.
It just sits there, with no one touching it. Suddenly, music randomly starts and stops playing. Take it into the Apple Store, they acknowledge it’s a known hardware defect to start registering non-existent touches, and they refuse to fix it. Offer to replace it with a refurb unit for like ~$20 less than a brand new unit.
Edit to add: the unit is less than 2 years old.
I got sick of it, unplugged it, and left it for a few months, and ... apparently it fixed itself? Now it's working fine, as fine as any HomePod does.
My experience with headphones:
Passive noise cancellation beats active hands down. (no weird air pressure, reliable, no need for batteries, less expensive) Analog and wired beats bluetooth if you care for sound quality, portable DACs are very good in 2026. Professionals are using BeyerDynamics and Sony headphones made for studios and almost unchanged since the 90s for good reasons.
The only good reason to opt for wireless is for practical reasons when you are running, and you want smaller models.
Also, this design is kind of ugly and dated.
Issues with my AirPods Max 1:
* occasional deafening screatch when there's too much moisture. I'm surprised they didn't need to recall them over that
* occasional reboots when you move it a bit on your head.
Unfortunately in apple-manner they don't mention if such issues were resolved with this v2
The screech is produced by feedback in the noise canceling I think, happens if you lay on a pillow at the wrong angle also, never had it due to moisture myself.
I've been wearing the Soundcore Space Q45 for 6 months. Good noise cancelling, comfortable headband, not too heavy and they cost...$99. I can't imagine these being worth 5x as much, even with the Apple tax.
My AirPods Max headphones are incredible. They sound amazing. They also squeeze my head so much that they hurt so I don't use them. Kinda sad, really. I'd use them at my desk every day if they were comfortable to wear.
I've had some headphones in the past where I stuck them over a slightly-bigger-than-my-head object when not wearing them to stretch them out over some time to alleviate this problem.
20 hours of listening is surprisingly low --
sony xm6 -- 30h
bose qc ultra -- 24h
would recommend the sony anc headphones, they're quite good.
XM6 does not support audio over USB-C (The USB-C port on the XM6 is only for for charging) QC Ultra 2 does, but the headphones turn off when plugged in and have to be turned back on while charging
AirPods Max with USB-C and AirPods Max 2 appear to be the only headphones among this group (XM6, QCUltra2, AirPods Max with USB-C, AirPods Max 2) that support both Audio over USB-C and automatic charging while in use.
i'm sort of done with apple products for awhile. aside from apple silicon, the quality of hardware and software decisions seems to have been consistently dropping for quite some time. i regret buying the new iphone. i regret buying the new air pods. i don't regret buying a mac mini recently, but only because it's got an apple silicon processor.
I was about to buy the first one. Is it really worth the price? (I have AirPods Pro 2)
Depends on your use case, I need exceptional noise cancellation. These and Sony XM6's are top tier in that department. I would wait until they're $100 or more off on Amazon.
I had the Sony's but returned them after 3 days. I had this issue: https://corychu.medium.com/sony-wh-1000xm6-sound-terrible-wi... I went back to Apple.
No
try them out , there should be display models in your nearest tech store / apple store
From the wording it sounds like there will still be the annoyance of not having a mic if you're using lossless wired audio.
I see they didn't fix the annoying design flaw where the ear cups click together and deface one another when you take them out of the case.
Never buying these again. Bought the 1st generation and they died just after the warranty expired.
Still the weird case??
No wireless lossless audio means these are a hard pass for me. I really expected Apple of all folks to figure that out since they engineer their entire stack, hardware to software, but they’re still just pushing the same bluetooth audio that my Airpods Pro 2’s consume (which are half the price and incredibly excellent). Sony’s LDAC is niche, but sounds objectively better to my ears than the AAC used on Apple’s kit when I opt to use my Walkman+XM4s.
As for wired listening? My XM4s sound okay wired in, and at home I’ve got critical-listening kit already. Adding a USB-C cable to the Max is not appealing given that 3.5mm already exists, USB-C cables are heavier than analog audio wires, and more corps block USB ports in general or mess with them in ways that corrupts the audio stack.
Give me wireless CD-quality audio and I’ll be a happy dinosaur. Until then, I have zero reason to upgrade what I currently have.
So you're one of the few people who actually can consistently tell MP3 and lossless apart?
https://abx.digitalfeed.net/
The H2 enables lossless audio over wireless. So this reads like a temporary limitation that software might solve down the road. But knowing Apple's track record for enabling features in partially dormant hardware ... I wouldn't buy these expecting that.
Given Apple's very recent track record on promising things and then watching them vanish into the ether - not to mention a lifetime being burned buying into future promises that never materialize ("MCE is the future of the entertainment experience!" (RIP in Win7), "CableCARD will free you from the tyranny of locked down hardware!" (RIP from the get-go), "Unfolded Circle 3 will finally support serial from the dock!") - means I don't buy on what it could do tomorrow, but what's on offer out of the box from day one.
Tired of accumulating scar tissue and burn marks in the name of shareholder value.
> The H2 enables lossless audio over wireless
But that's only with the Vision Pro, no?
I.e. very short and more or less consistent distance between transmitter and receiver.
The headphones cost nearly as much as the MacBook (Neo).
Sony HH-1000XM6 are $500
Bose QC Ultra are $450
That is the market for premium BT headphones. There are way more expensive headphones out there.
But yeah it is notable that the Neo is cutting the legs out of the lower end laptop market to that degree.
Does anyone ever actually pay that for them, tho? I've got the QC Ultras; looks like they cost me 331 euro _with VAT_. Apple's RRP is usually the actual sale price, but IME the RRP for Bose stuff at least is generally pure fantasy, with actual prices being significantly lower.
EDIT: Currently they seem to be 350EUR inc VAT on Irish Amazon; Amazon is making it difficult for me to see the US price and I'm not interested enough to fight with it, but I'm guessing that there's a similar level of discount.
Here in Switzerland, Wh-1000XM6 are 349 CHF vs 499 CHF for the APM.
Nope, right now the price for both of them is around €389.
More than, considering Apple is willing to openly advertise Neo at $499 for education. The minimum-advertised-price on these won't ever drop below ~$529 for a hot minute.
Some more on announcement post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47398462
Crazy to think that they are now selling an entire Macbook for the price of these headphones.
Crazy to think Apple is now pricing their consumer headphones in the same segment as serious professional gear, they seems to cost more or less the same I paid for my "studio-grade" DT 1770 Pro.
Typical studio grade cans need studio grade equipment to drive them. No surprise if decently sounding headphones that already ship with tailored DAC, amplifier, ANC cost more than decent headphones for which you need to buy all that (and lug around if you travel).
Yet, with that taken into account, today the latest DT 1770 Pro still cost over 20% more than the latest AirPods Max.
Considering Apple markets Max for audio work, they compete on the same turf. This makes Apple’s offer unusually cost effective, not the other way around. I think this can be attributed to their fragility and inferior sound quality relative to DT 1770 Pro (at the end of a decent signal chain).
> Yet, with that taken into account, today the latest DT 1770 Pro still cost over 20% more than the latest AirPods Max.
Not sure where you're looking, but seems I paid 535 EUR for my beyerdynamics (and that's what Amazon sells them for right now too), meanwhile these Apple headphones cost 579 EUR, so seems it's opposite really, studio-grade headphones being cheaper than the consumer-grade hardware Apple sells.
> Considering Apple markets Max for audio work
They might be marketed like that, because it influences what wealthy consumers chose to buy, but AFAIK, no one is sitting with AirPods Max in their studios for work, at least from what I've been able to tell.
> Not sure where you're looking
Both products in US on the site of respective manufacturer. Maybe you bought the older model (which by the way has higher impedance, so dedicated amplifier is a must, take it into account when you calculate the price).
> no one is sitting with AirPods Max in their studios for work
People absolutely use them for serious work. They are much more of a personal product though, and there are other factors that would make an average studio disinclined to invest in them, like fragility and cost of repair and a whole bunch of unnecessary for a studio features.
Of course, when the studio already has all the rest of the hardware, soundproofed room, etc., it could actually be cheaper to buy cans that do not in fact include ANC, DAC, Dolby, amplifier, etc., and maybe even enjoy a bump in audio quality while at that. For someone who does not have that, it is often simply not a practical choice.
It would be interesting to see the cost breakdown of the BOM for the two headphones.
I wouldn't be surprised if Beyerdynamic has similar, if not more, margin.
I have used Soundcore q20i for more than a year, and I'm sure the AirPods have a better sound and have a better noise cancelling, but the difference in price $549 and 30€ (as I bought them) is pretty insane, also my Soundcore q20i last much longer than 20h and the noise cancelling is already quite good.
Edit: also has a proper cushion on the headband.
Guess I'll be the contrarian on this one - I've got a pair of the Max's and love them. I use them primarily for watching movies and TV (I live in an apartment and am not a sociopath), and the "spatial audio" is incredibly good. Apple's got a "Sound" to their products that isn't neutral, but is very detailed and tends to disappear pretty quickly. Both the noise cancellation and the "transparent" mode are phenomenal. They're a bit buggy, yes, but not tangibly worse than any other bluetooth headphones I've owned. They're heavy, but I don't wear them outside - they're solely for home use. I'm personally excited to see these get a refresh.
... and a $25 pair of junk earbuds will do better in terms of "pairing and staying paired" if you are using iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Steam Deck, whatever.
I like my wired headphones. Just like tube amps, they will never be outdated.
They're one year old at this point, why is this news?
What was released last year was the same AirPods Max just with a USB-C port. This is a new generation.
ah, indeed, thank you.
There’s been a lot of grumbling about RTO at my work, and if it happens, these will be a day one purchase. I used to have some Bowers and Wilkins PX headphones that I liked, and my wife really loves her Bose QuietComfort, but the weird thing I detested about both of those is how seemingly every headphone manufacturer except Apple feels the needs to add voice feedback to your device? “Headphones connected” and whatnot. It just really messes with my vibes, man.
Also quite frankly I’d rather just not have to buy them and keep working from home. Listening to music using good speakers is an objectively superior experience.
To me they look like shit. I'm sure gen Z and Alpha will love it.
I'll be interested in seeing a review on specialized sites. The 20 hours of battery life is impressive.
I don’t know that it should be a generation specific thing. I’m a millennial, and I like their look.
The Max 2 finally arrived and I felt nothing.
That surprised me... I buy every in-ear AirPods Pro without much deliberation, even the Pro 3 which measurably regressed on sound. The heart rate sensor and ANC bump were enough.
I say that to clarify: I wanted to want these.
But it's death by a thousand cuts. The weight alone I'd live with. The case I'd accept. No IP rating on something I'd like to wear outside.. fuck.. fine, annoying, moving on. But all of it together, at that price, with that much time to fix any of it? Hard pass.
I've gone for the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 instead. More expensive, noticeably worse ANC. But you can hear where the money went. The drivers, the feel, the fact that four hours in you've stopped thinking about them. It sounds like it was made by people who find audio interesting.
Apple used to feel like that.
Embarrassingly, it also has no IP rating: somewhat hilarious from a company in West Sussex, where "unexpected sunshine" makes the local news. And the ANC versus Sony is less a gap than a... uh "chasm".
The question I'd put to anyone in this thread still weighing it up: are you buying the best headphone, or the most convenient one? For in-ears those are the same answer. For over-ears, I'm not sure they are.
> even with the Pro 3's having inferior sound quality
Then
> I decided to buy the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2
Have you seen its frequency response?
Yeah, but isn't that a deliberate tuning thing?
Much further away from Apples marketing as "best airpods yet" for an all-rounder product.
can you use them in wired mode?
I feel like a salesman now, but yeah you can... they come with a straight through USB-C:USB-C cable (though it's super thick and seems rated to carry 60w and USB2.0 speeds according to my Treedix.. weird choice) and a USB-C to 3.5MM jack cable.