AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

After five years, Apple finally slapped a “2” next to the AirPods Max name, and given that very long wait, the expectations were high. Five years might not be a lot in the scheme of life, but in tech years, that’s a lifetime. Surely—you’d think—a wait that long means lots of new, pivotal updates, right?… Not exactly.

If, like many people, you were expecting the AirPods Max 2 to be a major departure of some kind, you were probably disappointed to find what most would consider an incremental upgrade. Same look; mostly the same features; even the same $550 price as the original.

The thing is, having used the AirPods Max 2 myself, I can’t really consider this generation incremental, regardless of how it looks on paper, because even if they’re old tricks that we’ve seen and heard before, the fact is, they’ve never felt or sounded this good.

ANC-maxxing

There are a few things that AirPods Max are known for, but one of the biggest strengths is active noise cancellation (ANC). Given that strong reputation for superb ANC, Apple clearly took it upon itself to up the ante even further. According to Apple, the AirPods Max 2 have 1.5x the noise-canceling ability as the original, thanks to the inclusion of a new H2 chip and better noise-cancellation algorithms. In my opinion, the ANC on AirPods Max 2 is as good as my personal selection for ANC GOAT, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen), and at times, they even feel a little bit better.

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On the subway, the AirPods Max 2 were an absolute tank. With ANC activated and music on, I could barely hear the train around me, even the obnoxiously loud screeching. Conversations next to me were completely drowned out, and if you wanted to hear your stop when it’s announced over the garbled PA, you should not have the headphones over your ears. In an office setting, they were almost too good. I couldn’t hear my coworkers, keyboard clacking, or any movements around me. Likewise, in my apartment, I might as well have been on another planet in the vacuum of space—if you want silence, the AirPods Max 2 deliver.

New this time around is Adaptive Audio, which adjusts between ANC and transparency modes depending on the loudness of your environment. While it’s a little ridiculous that Apple is now just getting around to adaptive ANC on its pricey wireless headphones, the feature works great. I tested out Adaptive Audio on the subway, and it was able to adapt smoothly when the train stopped and started, ratcheting up noise cancellation when I needed it and then smoothly bringing it back down when I didn’t. At home, Adaptive Audio also did a good job, adjusting to the quiet work environment and giving me a dose of transparency so I could hear myself typing or when my partner talked to me. Despite Apple dragging its feet on adding an adaptive ANC feature to the AirPods Max (adaptive ANC has been around in other wireless headphones and wireless earbuds for quite some time), it still did a great job of executing.

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Transparency is also a major highlight of the AirPods Max 2, just like it was with previous generations. When Transparency mode is on, I felt fully comfortable having conversations with the AirPods Max 2 on my head, even though the passive seal around my ears should make that process annoying or stilted. AirPods Max are still the king of transparency, and the AirPods Max 2 prove it.

What does $550 sound like?

Excellent ANC means nothing without the sound to back it up, and I regret to inform any AirPods Max haters out there that the second-gen over-ear cans also run away with the crown. The AirPods Max 2 are some of the best wireless headphones I’ve used in a long time, and while they may not blow the original AirPods Max out of the water, they sound as excellent as you’d expect a pair of $550 headphones to sound.

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I tested the AirPods Max 2 across lots of different genres, including on one of my favorite all-time Tom Waits albums, “Heartattack and Vine,” and loved every second. In “‘Til The Money Runs Out,” Waits’ growl sounded as good as I’ve ever heard it. Snare hits, with their subtle reverb, were atmospheric and snappy, while bass and guitars were nested together in harmony. Midrange frequencies like lead guitar were right in the middle of the mix where you’d expect them to be, and not a single grunt or organ riff felt distorted or out of place.

One of my favorite parts of the AirPods Max tuning is that it handles bass and low end tastefully. While some wireless headphones will over-accentuate bass for dramatic effect, AirPods Max, including the AirPods Max 2, give you low end without overpowering the mix. In songs like Daft Punk’s “Da Funk,” the song’s driving bass feels forceful and present without drowning out gritty synths and sampled accents meant to carry rhythm at the high end of the frequency spectrum.

While the AirPods Max 2 might be in a relative tie with the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) when it comes to ANC, they pull away on sound quality. Apple’s second-gen wireless headphones have a bigger soundstage that makes them feel notably more dynamic than Bose. Same with another favorite pair of headphones of mine, Nothing’s Headphone 1, which sound as great as they look, but still can’t quite achieve the same level of nuance as Apple’s ultra-expensive competitor.

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I can’t say that the AirPods Max 2 destroy the original AirPods Max on audio quality since the first-generation also sound fantastic, but they’re an improvement nonetheless, and I can tell Apple took its time to get the tuning right out of the box. Part of the appeal of any Apple product is that it’s meant to just work, and the AirPods Max 2 nail that metric.

But if you did want to spice things up a little bit, though, you could also go into your iPhone’s settings and activate personalized spatial audio, which uses your its TrueDepth camera to create a 3D sound experience—tilting your head side-to-side will orient the audio to play in that ear.

Not all platforms support spatial audio, so just keep that in mind. To get the most out of Apple’s spatial audio experience, Apple Music is the way to go. I listened to Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” on Apple Music with Dolby Atmos activated and also played Genshin Impact with Game Mode on my iPhone. It was… fine! I like spatial audio more in a game setting than I do music, where I find the experience a little distracting.

For the record, the two previous AirPods Max (Lightning and USB-C models) also supported personalized spatial audio, so this isn’t a new feature. Personally, I don’t find personalized spatial audio to be a must-have experience—the stereo sound out of the box is excellent—but there’s a time and a place. Spatial audio may not send AirPods Max 2 shooting past the moon in the sound department for me, but that’s just a testament to how great these wireless headphones sound without any help.

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And if you want to make the AirPods Max 2 sound even better, you can also hook them up to a separate device for wired/lossless audio via USB-C. I tested the feature out on my iPhone 17 using Spotify, and it worked well—it recognized that the AirPods Max 2 were plugged in and switched audio over to wired. This isn’t new to the AirPods Max 2—it was introduced on the USB-C version of AirPods Max—but it should be a welcome addition to anyone who wants to cut down latency or have the highest audio quality.

If there’s one area that AirPods Max 2 don’t reach A+ marks in the audio department, it’s calling. I had a several-minute call with my partner, who said that while my voice sounded good, there was a little bit of “static” or “fuzz” here and there. I suspect it was Apple’s ANC kicking off and on to mitigate background noise. The good news is that Apple’s ANC does work well—I blew my nose during our call, and my partner said she barely heard it. Still, even with the slight fuzz, she rated the call an 8/10. Good, but not the super high marks that you get from actually listening to audio.

A similar sequel

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AirPods Max 2 aren’t exactly pushing any boundaries. While the AirPods Pro 3 added features like Live Translation, which can convert languages in real time, the AirPods Max 2 mostly… borrow from the AirPods Pro 3. New in this generation are a few things, including the aforementioned Live Translation.

I tested Live Translation by talking with my partner, who’s bilingual and speaks both English and Spanish. Apple’s translation feature only supports Spain Spanish, which is not what my partner speaks (she’s part Mexican), but it didn’t matter much in our test. Live Translation might not be instantaneous, but it’s pretty fast, and we were able to bounce back and forth, conversing fairly naturally. I showed her the results in Apple’s corresponding Translate app and also spoke the responses out loud, and she agreed—live translate is adept.

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I can’t say how well Live Translation works for other languages, but if it’s Spanish you’re interested in, I can say with confidence that this is a tool you’ll want to travel with. One interesting thing is that though I was only able to download Spain Spanish, Live Translation seamlessly translated words like “pool,” which is “alberca” in Mexican Spanish, but is “piscina” in Spain Spanish. I’m not sure if it’ll get the full lexicon, but from my testing, you’d be able to use Live Translation in Mexico or another Spanish-speaking country in South America just fine.

Another new addition to the feature set in AirPods Max 2 is Conversation Awareness, which is something Apple initially rolled out in the second generation of AirPods Pro. There’s not much to remark on here, which is to say that Conversation Awareness works just fine. It quiets down the sound when you start to speak, then brings the volume back when you’re done. I think Apple strikes a pretty happy balance of wait time in between lowering and raising the volume that feels natural to me. I don’t feel like I’m waiting around too long for the sound to come back, and I didn’t feel like it interrupted my conversations.

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Other new but old additions include Camera Remote, which uses the Digital Crown to take pictures on your iPhone, and head gestures for responding to Siri. Both features worked just fine—I was able to take pictures while my iPhone 17’s camera app was open and nod my head to have Siri send off messages I dictated. Neither of these things is moving the needle much if I’m being honest, but they’re nice to have.

As long as we’re talking about nice-to-haves, I should mention that Apple also says the wireless latency on AirPods Max 2 is lower than previous generations. To test that, I played Genshin Impact on my phone, and while it wasn’t lightning fast like it would be wired or through a 2.4GHz dongle, it was fairly solid. I wouldn’t game competitively with AirPods Max 2 over wireless, but for casual usage, it worked well.

Still annoyingly incredible

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There’s a lot that’s the same in the AirPods Max 2. The design, weight, and even the battery, which get up to 20 hours with ANC on, are the same as before. I tested the battery anyway; after an hour of listening to music at 60% volume with ANC on, the AirPods Max 2 dropped from 100% battery to 94% battery, which roughly tracks with Apple’s battery claims. An additional hour-long test with ANC off saw a 2% drop at the same volume. There are also nice design touches, like removable earcups can be washed when they get dirty.

As is the case with previous generations, these wireless headphones still have some heft to them, so if you’re not a big headphone kind of person, you may want to think twice. As someone who doesn’t have a particularly big head, the AirPods Max 2 aren’t what I call ideal. The weight—386g, which is more than two iPhone 17s on your head—is mitigated by the lightweight headband a bit, but you’re going to feel their presence after a day’s worth of use.

Oh, and they still come with the weird iBra—sorry, I mean “Smart Case”—which you’ll need to use because it helps keep the battery from fully draining while idle.

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The biggest complaint about the AirPods Max 2 is likely that they’re fairly similar to the AirPods Max of yore. But the fact of the matter is that the AirPods Max (including the 2024 USB-C refresh) are great wireless headphones, and the AirPods Max 2 take what people like about the original and make it just a little bit better. That might not have people who already own previous-gen AirPods Max rushing out to get a new pair, but it’s something.

Are the AirPods Max 2 expensive and somewhat redundant? Yes. But, if sound, ANC, and—yes—even trendiness are top priorities for you, and you’re fine dropping nearly as much money as you would spend on a MacBook Neo, they’re one of the best wireless headphones you can buy.