New AirPods Max (USB-C) Review: Should You Buy?

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62%

62%

• Sound Quality

  8
• Design

  8
• Comfort

  7
• Size and weight

  5
• Connectivity

  5
• Value For Money

  4
• User Ratings (1 Votes)
  7

I wasn’t going to write this blog post, but with my two YouTube videos on the new AirPods Max bringing in over 140,000 views to date, I thought it would probably be a good idea to put a few words down, too.

More importantly, those two videos have attracted a combined total of over one thousand comments, mainly from people who are utterly cheesed off by what they view as a beyond-tepid update to Apple’s expensive over-ear headphones.

However, among the pitchfork-wielding mass, there are a few people who are delighted with their new AirPods Max and others who have some pre-purchasing questions.

I bought the new AirPods Max, and I’m keeping them (yes, really) and I think I can cover everything you need to know on this web page.

AirPods Max 2: the big wait

The first edition of AirPods Max (we can call them that now) was launched in December 2020. Mark Ellis Reviews was in its infancy back then, but Apple’s first foray into the over-ear headphone market – beyond its acquisition of Beats – helped propel my YouTube channel into mini stardom.

I reviewed AirPods Max several times, compared them against a multitude of competitors, and spent a good two years throwing that stupid case around my studio.

Like so many Apple fans, I’ve endured a complicated relationship with AirPods Max. They’re beautifully designed, slot brilliantly into the Apple ecosystem, and are the only pair of headphones that don’t look slightly silly on my bald head.

The problem is that they are massively flawed.

They’re way too expensive, there’s no power button, the sound is good but not up to scratch with the competition, and the case has made them a laughing stock – for good reason; it isn’t a case and it’s made from an awful material that immediately weathers (badly). They’re also heavy and the canopy eventually loosens, making them rather uncomfortable to wear for long stretches.

Despite this, I can’t help but feel a bit attached to this silly pair of headphones. They still have the best transparency mode out there which makes them brilliant for calls, and they do have a whiff of that Apple Magic about them.

We just needed an updated version. And now we have them. And the internet has set its trousers on fire about them.

What’s different with the new AirPods Max?

The new AirPods Max were announced during the iPhone 16 event, and the time devoted by Apple to the new cans was as short as the new feature list.

There are new colours available – blue, Midnight, purple, Starlight, and orange. They’re muted (aren’t all tech colours these days?) but still rather lovely and befitting of the AirPods Max design.

Lightning has been switched for USB-C. Whether this was solely in response to the EU’s enforcement of USB-C as a standard for all electronic devices by the end of 2024, or something that was always planned, is anyone’s guess.

That was it. The design appears, externally, to be identical to the previous version. The sonic performance is unchanged (to my ears) and despite a few reports of the noise cancelling and transparency mode receiving a tweak, it sounds identical to me.

There are a couple of differences worth noting. Firstly, I’m not the only one to discover that the telescopic arms on the new AirPods Max aren’t quite as tight as the first version – and I preferred the feel of the latter. Secondly, you can no longer – at the time of writing – connect AirPods Max to your playback device via cable. Which has annoyed a few people.

For context, there is a (horrible) Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack cable, made by Apple, which enables you to connect the first version of AirPods Max to, say, your laptop, and listen to the audio that way. I never noticed much of a difference in quality, but some people apparently did.

You can’t connect the new version of AirPods Max to your laptop or iPhone via USB-C to USB-C and listen to audio that way, because there’s no DAC built into the cable (like there is in the aforementioned Apple Lightning cable). Does this make sense? Probably not, but, basically, until Apple offers a USB-C to 3.5mm headphone jack cable, Bluetooth is the only way for the new AirPods Max.

What should Apple have done with AirPods Max?

Apple should, at the very least, have added the H2 chip to the new AirPods Max. Without it, these £499 headphones are less capable than the significantly cheaper AirPods 4 when it comes to features such as conversation awareness and Siri interactions.

The case should have been improved – or turned into a proper case. The audio could have been refined. A power switch could have been introduced, and an effort to make them lighter and more durable (remember the canopy issue I mentioned earlier?) wouldn’t have gone amiss, either.

I’d have liked a lower price point to at least to bring them a little more in line with other headphones under $500.

But Apple didn’t do any of that. This isn’t even a mid-cyle upgrade; they’ve just added new colours and changed the charging port.

This begs one big question.

Wrapping up: will we ever see AirPods Max 2?

I can’t honestly recommend buying these new AirPods Max for one simple reason; we don’t know if a properly updated second-generation AirPods Max is around the corner.

There are murmurings within the comments sections of my AirPods Max videos that Apple is working on a much bigger update to their over-ear headphones for 2025 or 2026.

Assuming that the main reason for this barely-an-update-update to AirPods Max was purely to satisfy those pesky new EU regulations, the above rumours have some merit. Although it’s hard to believe Apple needs longer than four years to come up with a significant update, perhaps the proper new AirPods Max just weren’t ready yet.

Maybe we’ll see those big changes mentioned above next year. If we do, you can guarantee anyone who bought this USB-C-equipped pair of AirPods Max will be the first to complain. Apple can’t win, in that regard.

I hope they do, though. I hope this isn’t the end of AirPods Max; there is still so much promise there.

If you desperately want a pair of very premium Apple headphones then these still sound great in 2024, but on your head be it if a new version drops in 2025!

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