Relative to the headphone space, the Airpods Max are a comedy routine from a different planet. For nearly 5 years now, you could buy noise cancelling headphones for ~$300, and get a relatively nice package. Certain manufacturers like Sennheiser cut corners, and they released subpar ANC headsets in the $150 range, but $300 was the standard for Good Headphones. Then Apple enters the arena at the $600 price point. Feature-wise, it's a bit on the lacking side: it basically has ANC, Bluetooth, Transparency and... that's it. Not even a power button or an AUX jack, both of which are pretty big pressure points from what I've ascertained from other owners. The aluminum enclosure was a catastrophic mistake from an aesthetic standpoint, and I can only assume it will look like a used Macbook (if not worse) after a few months of casual use. So what's the value proposition here? They don't sound any better than my wired cans, and they certainly don't look or feel any better either. Maybe it's the half-second less it takes to auto-switch to my nearby devices? I may never know what cost so damn much...
So yeah, I think you do have a right to feel a little bit embarrassed if you spend $600 on headphones that is literally incompatible with analogue mediums.
Having just tried them: I'd put the noise canceling at "a solid contender for second-tier". Not great, but substantially above the comparative-trash that is "everything but Sony and Bose".
Like, if I had to put it on a graph, from the dozen-odd sets I've tried (most ~$300+):
silent notice conversations reduces low frequencies noticeably no effect
------1--2-------------3-----------------------4------------------------------------------5---------
Sony is 1, Bose is 2, Airpod Max is 3, all decent alternatives are somewhere in 3..4, and a million others are around 5. The Max is immediately obviously nowhere near as good as Sony/Bose, but it's pretty good. Spending a premium elsewhere will usually get you 4 instead of 5, but that's about it. And a 4 is a noticeable improvement for mechanical sounds during a commute / flight / etc, but it's FAR from "silent".
Airpod Max's "hear your surroundings" mode is stellar though, I'll definitely give them that. It sounds much more natural / "real".
Unfortunately Sony ANC depends heavily on the firmware lottery - if you get it with 4.x it's garbage. It just doesn't work. There are ways to downgrade it though.
Plus the WH-1000XM is just outright uncomfortable. I couldn't wear it for more than 30 minutes whereas I can wear my Sennheiser HD580 all day. It was the first product I returned in my life.
Odd that the ANC would get worse... but yea, I do totally believe it. Especially situationally, I imagine it goes up and down.
Comfort-wise I found them fine, but the ear-cups are definitely small compared to giant audiophile over-ear ones :) I love the giant ones, I have no idea why companies make these tiny things (e.g. M&D MW65 is absurdly narrow, V-Moda is absurdly shallow). I can only guess it's some weird sense of fashion.
If you don't mind noticeably worse microphone and ANC, the Shure Aonic 50 pads are quite a bit larger and very comfy.
Not after you own them for a few months. You really ought to look at some of the scuffs these things are picking up.
2. They sound great (compared to similar wireless options).
At it's price point? It honestly sounds "competitive", and that's putting it nicely. It stands toe-to-toe with the other headphones in it's category, but I feel like it should be demolishing them for costing twice as much. I honestly have no preference between the QuietComforts and the Airpods Max in terms of sound quality. That's really disappointing for $600.
3. They're fully integrated with all my other Apple devices, switching devices is super easy (I have a mac, iphone, and ipad).
I haven't had Bluetooth switching issues in ages. I've owned a few pairs of wireless audio headsets (Galaxy Buds, Surface Headphones) over the years, and I haven't had to manually switch devices in months.
4. The noise canceling is great.
The noise cancelling is good. Remember our friend the Quietcomforts? They cost half as much as the Max, sound just as good, and the noise cancelling on the QCs makes the Max sound like a pair of aluminum open-backs.
5. They have features like spatial audio and possibly other updates coming down the line.
Not lossless audio, apparently. I wouldn't be too confident in how much Apple cares about these headphones.
6. A power button isn't needed because of how it's designed.
Several early reviews said they would have preferred a power button to it's strange case, and some even reported that the case wouldn't properly put the unit into sleep mode when stowed. As far as I know, this is still an issue, and could have been fixed by engineering a $0.30 button on your six-hundred dollar headphones.
7. The microphones are great - which make this a great device for taking calls.
The microphones sound pretty standard for the Airpods range, which is to say middle-of-the-road. I've only heard the mic in action a few times, but it's lack of a conductive/internal microphone means that the audio comes off as distant and compressed. Even worse is that you can notice the software raising the noise floor (!!!) on the mic so you can hear the other person better. Besides that though, I don't have much to say on the topic. They're microphones. Apple's been doing this for decades, am I supposed to act surprised?
