Since getting into the best budget audiophile headphones this year, I’ve slept on the AirPods Max a bit. But with a price drop to $479 over at Best Buy, for the new USB-C port model, I think it’s time to give them a little love.
The thing is you can’t alter the Max’s sound, as you can with amazing, far cheaper wired headphones like the $165 Fiio FT1s – or indeed with all the other Bluetooth cans that have an app. And that might have been a deal breaker, if the Apple AirPods Max didn’t sound so good out the box, and come with near industry-leading ANC, and industry-leading transparency mode.
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The best ANC headphones?
But we’re specifically talking about Bluetooth, wireless headphones here, so how do the AirPods Max stack up? If you want the absolute best active noise cancellation in your Bluetooth headphone, the Sony WH-1000XM6s are the ones($428). If you want the lightest, the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultras are for you ($449). If you want a mixture of these, and the best sound, I think there’s no beating the Sennheiser Momentum 4s ($250).
And, again, unlike all of the above, there is no app that you can go into and make a sound profile to suit your pastes with the Max. Of course, most people don’t care about that, and all that matters is the stock sound that the cans come with.
In this respect, Apple AirPods Max do a really good job. The sound frequency that you get has enough mid detail to compete with its punchy bass and clear treble. You won’t get the imaging and detail that you’ll get with, say, the new industry-leading $800 audiophile headphones, the HEDDphone D1, but then no one would expect that!
This is a cool-looking Apple headphone that sounds really good, and sells at a notoriously stubborn price point. Seeing it drop under $500 is good. Seeing it fall to $480 is better.
