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AirPods Max 2 are the surprise update to Apple’s premium over-the-ear headphones. Now offering feature parity with the regular #AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 3 — thanks to the H2 chip inside — the headphones’ $549 price tag makes some kind of sense.
You don’t need to be a big audiophile to love the #AirPodsMax 2. But considering how Apple has mistreated the product line so far, you have to be a little bold to buy them yourself.
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:24 Design
3:34 Comfort and weight
4:35 Sound quality
5:52 Controls
7:53 Smart features
9:30 Smart “Case”
11:01 Conclusion
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0:00
AirPods Max 2 are the surprise update to
0:02
Apple's premium over-the-ear headphones.
0:05
Now offering feature parody with the
0:07
AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods 4, thanks to
0:10
the H2 chip inside, the $549 price tag
0:14
makes some kind of sense. You don't have
0:17
to be a big audio file to love the
0:19
AirPods Max 2, but considering how Apple
0:22
has mistreated the product in the past,
0:24
you have to be a little bold to buy them
0:26
yourself.
0:29
AirPods set the format for modern
0:31
wireless earbuds in 2016. They pair
0:34
instantly to your iPhone, then sync and
0:36
seamlessly switch between all your
0:38
devices. AirPods Pro later introduced
0:41
active noise cancellation and AirPods
0:44
Max brought the same awesome technology
0:46
to full-size headphones. But in the
0:48
years since, Apple barely touched
0:50
AirPods Max. [music] While updates to
0:53
Apple's Earbuds added smart features
0:54
like conversation awareness, adaptive
0:56
audio, voice isolation, and personalized
0:59
volume, the AirPods Max stayed stuck on
1:02
the H1 chip, which couldn't power any of
1:05
that. A very minor revision in September
1:08
2024 switched up the colors and the port
1:10
on the bottom, but with none of the new
1:13
guts. Now we know that this is the real
1:16
AirPods Max 2 with the H2 chip and all.
1:19
These are properly new headphones. But
1:22
was it worth the wait? The design
1:24
remains absolutely exquisite. [music]
1:27
Just like with the signature white
1:28
corded earbuds, there's no mistaking
1:30
them for anything else when you spot
1:32
somebody wearing a pair. The cans
1:34
themselves are big, clean, unadorned,
1:37
rounded rectangles.
1:39
The clean design draws your attention to
1:42
all the other details. The ear pads flex
1:45
Apple's incredible fabric knitting
1:46
technology, an underrated piece of their
1:49
manufacturing prowess. The L and R,
1:52
designating left and right, aren't
1:54
printed in white. Instead, Apple knitted
1:57
the letters into the ear cups with a
1:59
denser texture. The bottom of the
2:01
headphones look a little busy. You have
2:03
the USBC port, the light, a few
2:05
microphones, and a thin plastic line
2:08
that's probably some sort of antenna
2:10
opening. The cans themselves are a bit
2:12
thicker than the product photo suggests.
2:15
Those rounded corners are slimming. A
2:17
polished hinged stainless steel arm
2:20
connects each ear cup to the center
2:22
headband. The ear cups swivel and rotate
2:24
like a joystick. When you stretch them
2:26
out to take the headphones on or off,
2:28
they make a nice click as they bottom
2:30
out. The steel arms slide out to adjust
2:33
the length. There's no awkward plastic
2:36
clicking. It's all perfectly smooth. The
2:39
headband is made of the softest,
2:41
smoothest rubber you will ever feel. Its
2:44
mesh netting on the inside has just the
2:46
right amount of give, but concerns that
2:49
it'll stretch over time are probably
2:51
valid. [music] Time will tell if it's
2:53
any better on this revision. AirPods Max
2:55
2 come in the same five colors as the
2:57
prior USBC version.
2:59
>> [music]
2:59
>> midnight, starlight, blue, purple, and
3:02
orange. On a scale of color vibrancy,
3:05
the MacBook Air being on one side with
3:08
barely any color at all, and the iPad 11
3:11
being the opposite side, undeniably
3:13
bright and vibrant, these are somewhere
3:16
in the middle, but a little closer to
3:17
the colorful side. They have enough
3:19
color to where you can obviously tell
3:21
what they are in most lighting
3:22
conditions, but they're not quite as
3:25
punchy. The orange, for example, is a
3:27
little more peach than it is cosmic
3:30
orange. I'd lump it in the same category
3:32
as I would the MacBook Neo. The AirPods
3:34
Max ear pads are the most comfortable I
3:38
have ever felt, bar none. I have big
3:41
ears and thick glasses, [music]
3:43
so headphones that don't squeeze me into
3:45
a headache after a full workday are hard
3:48
to find. Each side rotates all around
3:51
and swivels up and down, so they snugly
3:53
fit your noggin. The pads are very
3:55
pillowy, thick, and plush around your
3:58
ears. They cushion around my glasses
4:00
without pinching them into my head. The
4:02
weight isn't as big of a problem as I've
4:04
been led to believe, having heard people
4:06
complain about it incessantly since
4:08
2020. The headband distributes the
4:10
weight over a rather large surface area
4:12
on the top of your head. Yeah, aluminum
4:15
is heavier than plastic, [music] but it
4:17
doesn't make my neck hurt. It's no
4:19
vision pro. If there's any downside, the
4:21
weight means they jostle around on my
4:24
head. If I'm anything more than
4:26
stationary, if I'm walking around,
4:28
running up and down the stairs, I can
4:31
feel them sliding back and I need to
4:33
readjust them constantly. So many people
4:36
have wondered what it would be like if
4:37
Apple made a full-size camera. It's
4:40
remarkable what the iPhone can do with
4:42
such a tiny sensor. Imagine if Apple had
4:44
a full-frame camera to play with.
4:47
AirPods Max are the audio equivalent of
4:50
that. In my AirPods Pro 3 review, I
4:52
wrote that the audio quality is beyond
4:55
excellent for tiny earbuds. It's
4:57
excellent, period. AirPods Max are to
5:00
the AirPods Pro what a hypothetical
5:03
full-size Apple camera is to the iPhone.
5:07
Put on the AirPods Pro 3 and you'll
5:08
experience an impressive range and sound
5:10
stage. And then you put on the AirPods
5:13
Max and you're blown away. It doesn't
5:16
matter what kind of music you listen to.
5:18
I rocked out to Drifless Pony Club and
5:20
the Beatles. Headbanged my way through
5:23
Lady Gaga and Lizo. Contemplated the
5:26
classical music of Gustav Hol and Winton
5:28
Marcelis. Cried softly in a corner to
5:31
Ethel Kain. The sheer clarity across the
5:34
entire [music] sound spectrum is
5:36
unparalleled. You will notice so many
5:38
extra layers to tracks you've listened
5:40
to hundreds of times before. And that's
5:43
before you plug in the included USBC
5:46
cable for true lossless quality. The
5:49
sound is simply stunning. AirPods Max 2,
5:53
just like their predecessor, come with a
5:55
digital crown and a second button. The
5:57
crown, which controls volume, also
6:00
clicks to play, pause, and skip media.
6:02
Just as with the Apple Watch, you hold
6:04
the crown to activate Siri if you really
6:08
want to. Click and hold the other button
6:10
to enter Bluetooth pairing mode to
6:12
connect it to a PC, Android device, or
6:15
Nintendo Switch. To change your
6:17
listening mode, you just click the
6:19
button. It's super fast, and the button
6:21
is really easy to find without looking.
6:23
The equivalent click and hold gesture on
6:25
the AirPods Pro is a little too slow,
6:29
especially if you have to do it multiple
6:31
times to get to the mode you want.
6:32
However, the digital crown is extremely
6:36
annoying. It's not obvious which way
6:38
you're supposed to spin it to adjust the
6:40
volume. It's really obvious on the Apple
6:43
Watch that you turn it up to turn the
6:45
volume up, but the digital crown of the
6:47
AirPods Max is mounted sideways. There's
6:50
a setting where you can [music] change
6:51
whether you increase volume by turning
6:53
it back to front or front to back,
6:56
whatever that means. It's about as
6:59
useful as a setting to choose whether a
7:01
coin should be heads or tails before you
7:04
flip it. When you turn the digital
7:06
crown, you hear a little clicking sound
7:07
as feedback, but the clicking doesn't
7:10
get any louder or quieter, so you don't
7:12
actually know if the next sounds you
7:13
hear are going to be either barely
7:15
audible or deafeningly loud. Unlike the
7:19
AirPods Pro, the Mac doesn't show the
7:22
system volume indicator when you're
7:24
adjusting the volume. It's also way too
7:26
sensitive. On the Apple Watch, it takes
7:28
a [music] good few spins to make a
7:30
meaningful difference to the volume, and
7:32
that's a safety feature. You don't want
7:33
to butterfinger away into something
7:35
that's [music] way too loud. On the
7:38
AirPods Max, a single rotation takes you
7:40
from mute to maximum volume. If you
7:44
really quickly click the button, you
7:46
might accidentally spin it a little bit.
7:48
So, all that is to say, I just stuck
7:50
with the volume buttons on my keyboard
7:52
and phone. Thanks to finally receiving
7:54
the H2 chip inside, AirPods Max 2
7:57
finally have the same smart features as
8:00
AirPods [music] Pro 2 and Pro 3 as well
8:02
as AirPods 4. Adaptive audio has [music]
8:05
easily become my favorite listening
8:07
mode, and the smart head gestures to
8:09
respond [music] to Siri are a real gem
8:12
as well. Taking the AirPods Max off to
8:14
pause media doesn't react as fast as
8:17
taking an AirPod out of your ear.
8:19
[music]
8:20
And that's understandable since it
8:21
doesn't have a sensor directly touching
8:23
your skin. But what's annoying is that
8:26
when I put them back on, I hear that
8:29
sound effect every time, even if it's
8:32
just a few seconds later. Apple only
8:34
gives vague relative comparisons on
8:37
[music] the strength of active noise
8:38
cancellation across models and between
8:41
generations.
8:43
AirPods Pro 2 offer [music] twice the
8:46
ANC power of the original AirPods Pro
8:49
and the AirPods 4. AirPods [music] Pro 3
8:52
offer twice the ANC of that. So, I guess
8:56
we can conclude they're four times as
8:58
powerful. AirPods Max 2 offer 1.5 times
9:03
the prolevel active noise cancellation
9:06
of the original AirPods Max, but we
9:09
don't have any way to compare that to
9:12
the Airbuds.
9:14
Anecdotally speaking, the AirPods Max 2
9:17
feel a little stronger than the Pro 3.
9:19
And for maximum active noise
9:21
cancellation, you can wear both at once
9:23
connected to two separate devices after
9:26
a lot of fighting with the automatic
9:28
pairing and switching. Everyone
9:30
complains about the weight of the
9:31
AirPods Max, which I actually don't have
9:33
a problem with at all. So, what about
9:35
the smart case? Is that as bad as
9:38
everyone says?
9:40
Yes. For starters, it's barely a case at
9:43
all. It's a floppy and flaccid layer of
9:46
faux leather. You open the magnetic
9:48
flap, slide in your AirPods Max, and
9:51
snap it shut. It's [music] faster than
9:53
unzipping a case. But at what cost? Does
9:56
it actually protect the headphones? It
9:58
covers the already sturdy aluminum cans
10:00
with a thin layer of felt, while the
10:03
most delicate [music] looking part, the
10:05
mesh headband, is completely exposed to
10:08
be punctured by anything [music] sharp
10:10
in your backpack. And the part that it
10:12
does cover, it doesn't even cover
10:14
entirely. It leaves the corners
10:16
completely exposed. The smart case is
10:18
made of a single piece that's cut and
10:21
folded up into its shape like origami.
10:24
It's only impressive if you work in the
10:26
fields of manufacturing or topology.
10:30
Otherwise, it's just strange that it has
10:32
a big crack in the front and an ugly
10:35
crease in the back. The felt inside and
10:37
the faux leather outside feel nice to
10:40
the touch, but the edges where they meet
10:42
look like they're fraying, like a
10:44
manufacturing defect. The edges actually
10:47
feel sharp. It would be a clever piece
10:49
of design for a piece of cardboard or
10:52
wax paper packaging, but it just doesn't
10:55
work as a real product. You can buy a
10:57
real case for like $40 on Amazon.
11:01
AirPods Max 2 sound [music]
11:03
absolutely exquisite. They deliver all
11:05
the smart, convenient features you're
11:07
used to on AirPods in a form factor that
11:09
can really let the audio quality shine
11:12
and speak for itself. But [music] as
11:14
good as they are, Apple's prior
11:16
treatment of this product line does not
11:18
instill confidence. This big update with
11:21
the H2 chip comes 3 and 1/2 years after
11:25
it debuted in the AirPods Pro 2. Late
11:28
enough for there to be credible rumors
11:30
of an H3 chip coming later this year.
11:33
So, will these be outdated in seven
11:36
months and then wither away on the
11:38
shelves for another five years? If
11:41
you're interested in AirPods Max 2, get
11:44
them now while the getting's good. I'm
11:47
D. Griffin Jones with Cult of Mac.