While many had expected the pricing to be a sticking point, it hasn’t stopped Apple fans from pressing the order button. Current stocks sold out in a flash and at last check, customers are now looking at a mid-March earliest delivery date for the next arrivals. So I’m going to assume that if you’re still checking out the AirPods Max, that US$549 price tag is not scaring you off.

Enough about what it costs. The burning question is: do the AirPods Max deliver on all the technical wonders Apple has promised?

Form and function

In the history of Apple products, people have always either loved them or hated them – or rather, you didn’t know you loved them until you did. Having said that, it is proving very hard to love the weird bra-like case that comes with the Max. While I personally don’t hate it, it’s easy to see that men might find it a little embarrassing to be seen carrying it around like a tiny handbag.

Initial notes from Apple led us to believe that using the case was the only way to power down the headphones or make them go into ultra low battery mode, but it turns out that as long as you’re not wearing the headphones, they go into low mode after five minutes anyway. The headphones never really turn off, which makes sense because your Find My … function would be useless if they were completely turned off every time you put them in the case.

Since the headphones don’t fold, I find the case actually helps them lie flat and, for me, makes them easier to store in a tote bag than a hard case would. My only problem with them is that they don’t fully protect the aluminium casing and the rubbery silicone material gathers dirt easily and is hard to clean, meaning I have to put the headphones – case and all – into a canvas bag to protect them, which defeats the purpose of having a case in the first place. For non-fans, hard case options are already being rolled out by savvy accessories companies.

Case aside, the Airpods Max look every bit a premium product. The aluminium and metallic finish of the ear cups are sleek and chic. At 385g, the headphones are a lot heavier than the Bose 700 (254g) and the Sony WH-1000XM4 (251g), but the excellent fit of the ear cups and the top knit mesh canopy balances the weight well.

In two weeks of using the AirPods Max every day, I have not noticed the extra weight at all. The breathable material of the ear cushions also helps keep the ears cooler for longer. I sailed through watching Wonder Woman 1984 barely noticing the headphones despite its 2.5-hour running time. With my Bose 700, the smaller cups and the leather cushions tend to make the ears sweaty and slightly painful after an hour or so.

The headphones stayed in place even through rapid and jerky head movements, but the Max are probably not going to be your first choice for the gym or for a run, especially since they are not water resistant.

The ear cushions are affixed with magnets, making them easy to remove and clean, or replace. Apple will start selling the new cushions this year and users will be able to personalise their headsets with different colours – as long as you’re willing to fork out around US$65 for a set.

Apple fans have been complaining about the lightning connector and asking the company to switch to the more popular USB-C one forever. Apple hasn’t listened, and continues not to: the Airpods Max still use the lightning connector, and the USB-C to lightning cable is the only other thing that comes in the box. If you want to use a wired connection, you will have to cough up another US$35.

Connectivity and controls

Bucking the trend of touch controls, Apple has opted for physical buttons, which I much prefer. Like most of Apple’s products, controls are simple and mostly quite intuitive. There is no power off button; instead, one button allows you to switch from normal to active noise cancelling to transparency mode. In a nod to the Apple Watch, the second button is actually a Digital Crown that allows for volume control, and to pause, rewind, forward, take calls and talk to Siri.

The Digital Crown works a lot better than touch controls when it comes to more accurate adjustment of the volume. With touch controls, I often either go too loud or on soft and end up actually using the controls on the phone anyway. Both the noise cancellation button and the Digital Crown sit at the top of the right ear cup, which probably isn’t as convenient for left handed people.

The Airpods Max house one of Apple’s proprietary H1 chips on each side, allowing for stable connectivity over a wider area and also superfast switching between your iOS devices. I found that my connection sustained and remained clear even after I moved to a different room. The practicality of being able to move your connection from iPhone to iPad, for instance, by just bringing the headset near the desired device is amazing; there is no noticeable lag when the headphones switch from one device to the other.

Bringing the headphones close to your device should also open a pop up window telling you how much charge you have left, although this hasn’t worked every time for me. A short cut in the control centre also allows you to choose the noise cancellation levels and the spatial audio, which we will go into in greater detail below.

Sound and power

If you’re a serious audiophile used to US$2,000 to US$5,000 headphones, the Airpods Max probably won’t satisfy you. But if you’re looking for an above average set of headphones for music, films and perhaps a little bit of video editing, the Max fits the bill and more. High tones are crisp, mid tones are warm and lush, and there’s a strong bass to keep headbangers happy. While I loved my Bose 700s before, after using the Airpods Max, the Bose sounds were suddenly hard and harsh on the ears.

The soundstage effect allows more head space, so to speak, allowing the sounds to filter through in a more spacious 3D expanse. Adaptive EQ also automatically adjusts low and mid frequencies according to how the headphones fit.

An important part of Apple’s communication for the Airpods Max is the headphones’ spatial sound with dynamic head tracking, which offers an immersive, theatre-like experience for films and shows, in conditions akin to the Dolby surround sound that you experience in cinemas. Accelerometers and the gyroscopes tracking your head movement allow the sounds to stay fixed to your device and coming from the actual directions of your screen. This function is also featured on the Airpods Pro.

AirPods Max render a virtual surround experience for content encoded in 5.1, 7.1 and Dolby Atmos, as well as supported apps played on iPhone or iPad. The spatial sound only works with iOS, which means only iPhones and iPads at the moment, so, tough luck, Android or even MacBook users.

Although Dolby Atmos content is not that plentiful yet, you can still find a growing selection on Netflix and the limited Apple TV+ and HBO Max, which is streaming Wonder Woman 1984. It’s really cool to be able to watch shows in “surround sound” on the move even when you’re sitting in a coffee shop. However, with the small screen limitations, you can’t really feel the full effects of the spatial audio as you would with a home studio setting of course.

Apple touts a 20-hour battery life for the Airpods Max – in reality, my single charge lasted close to 24 hours – which is more than enough to get you through the day or a long flight. Even if you run out of juice, a quick five-minute charge will power it up for another 1.5 hours and, best of all, you can still use the headphones while it is being charged.

So, is it worth my money?

For the range of qualities it offers, I’d say yes, if you like your Apple gadgets and own an iPhone and an iPad. The seamless interconnectivity of the headset and Apple devices is amazing and so convenient, especially when you can connect another set of earphones to share what you are listening to.

The sound quality is miles better than what I have experienced with Apple, especially with its Beats by Dr Dre collaborations. For the price, it’s not on the higher end of the audiophile spectrum in sound quality but the headphones offer a good balance all round and the spatial sound holds good potential if you watch a lot of shows on your iPad.

The price may go down a little when a new version is released, but why wait?

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