Apple AirPods Max 2 review

Six years is more than a lifetime in the fast-paced, ruthless wireless headphones market. Ever since the original AirPods Max over-ear headphones opened the floodgates to a new realm of very premium wireless headphones, we’ve had similarly (and often more) pricey models from hi-fi brands Bowers & Wilkins, Dali, Focal and T+A, while Bose, Sony and Sennheiser have upped their prices and raised standards with every generation.

Six years on, and we finally have the AirPods Max 2. This second-generation model features Apple’s latest H2 chip, promising improvements to sound quality, ANC and plenty of new features. But many elements – the design, the case, the battery life, even the price – remain the same. Is it enough for Apple’s luxury wireless headphones to keep up with the competition?

Price

There’s some good news: the Apple AirPods Max 2 are yours for £499 / $549 / AU$999 – the very same price the originals have been for the past few years.

In the UK, the original Lightning connector-equipped model from 2020 cost £549, but that price dropped to £499 when the AirPods Max with USB-C connector was launched in 2024, along with a new suite of colours that are also repeated for the Max 2. Conversely, the price has gone up in Australia (originally it launched at AU$899) where there has been no change in price for US customers.

That’s quite a nice place for the AirPods Max 2 to be, although it’s still a fair bit pricier than the trio of ‘mainstream’ class leaders in this market. Sony’s excellent all-rounder WH-1000XM6 launched at £400 / $450 / AU$699, the superb-sounding Sennheiser HDB 630 are yours for £400 / $500 / AU$1000, while you can get the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 for around £450 / $449 / AU$700.

There are pricier models than the Max 2 from the more niche hi-fi crowd that prioritise sound quality, including the Focal Bathys (£699 / $799 / AU$1199), the Dali iO-8 (£499 / $900 / AU$999), and the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 (£629 / $799 / AU$1299). Apple isn’t short of competition in this field it helped create, essentially.

Build, design & comfort

If you’ll be shelling out £500 / $500 for these Apple headphones, you certainly won’t be disappointed in the slightest in terms of build quality.

The AirPods Max 2 look and feel as premium as they did in 2020. The anodised aluminium earcups, the stainless steel headband and memory foam earcups all exude a high level of luxury. The hinges, telescopic arms and buttons are all beautifully made and finished to precision.

The knitted mesh “canopy” for the headband helps to distribute weight evenly across the head. The clamping pressure is nicely judged, too, with the earcups pivoting just enough to fit snugly around our ears. Although, we wish we could adjust the headband to go even smaller to accommodate a greater variety of head shapes.

That ‘digital crown’ dial on the right earcup for controlling music playback and volume remains a delight to use, with volume adjustments made with subtlety. Another button handles the noise-cancelling modes, while a USB-C port takes care of charging and wired lossless playback.

The memory foam ear cushions are roomy and comfortable, with a mesh textile cover that keeps things breathable and prevents overheating over long listening sessions. You can snap off the ear cushions and replace them (for £75 / $69 / AU$99) if they get worn or dirty over time.

Those large earcups do lend the AirPods Max 2 their recognisable silhouette, and we can understand why Apple didn’t want to change the design formula. Yes, it’s the exact same design as before, with the exact same dimensions and weight. And at 386g, these headphones are quite heavy.

The weight of those large metal earcups can press on your ears before long, and while they’re never uncomfortable on the head, taking them off feels like a relief to your ears. Those with smaller heads on our review team also kept having to nudge the headphones up so the earcups were centred on their ears, too.

The use of metal in the construction adds to their luxurious, premium feel, but it also means they can be a little cumbersome and less portable. While Sony and Sennheiser rivals may look less impressive due to their use of lighter plastic material, they are demonstrably more comfortable to wear over time, and are more portable too. The Sony and Bose headphones fold up like a ball, which is useful when carrying them around in your bag.

The Max 2 don’t fold at all, and yes, that silly case is back. Considering it received near-unanimous derision for its design and doesn’t even cover the headphones fully (which don’t have an official IP rating, so be careful of exposing them to dust, sweat and water), it’s surprising that Apple hasn’t tried to address this design in any way.

You can get third-party cases that cover the headphones fully, but note that those don’t have the one useful feature of the official Apple case: placing the Max 2 in the case puts them in an ultra-low standby mode that preserves the battery.

This is required as you can’t actually turn the AirPods Max 2 off anywhere on the headphones themselves (yes, another silly oversight), so you can’t chuck the case into a cupboard and ignore it forever.

Features

The big news with the AirPods Max 2 is that they are upgraded with Apple’s H2 chip, which brings with it a whole bunch of features and improvements. This H2 chip was first introduced in the AirPods Pro 2 wireless earbuds in 2022, and has evolved since to provide many advanced, useful features we’ve encountered in the Pro 2 and latest five-star Pro 3 buds.

New features include Conversation Awareness (which automatically detects when you’re speaking to lower the volume of your music for a brief chat), Adaptive Audio (which adjusts noise-cancelling levels depending on your surroundings), next-gen Adaptive EQ (which optimises the sound to your head/ear shape and fit), personalised volume, and new Siri gesture controls (shake or nod your head to reject or accept a call). You also get the new live translation feature, which requires an iPhone 16 or newer with Apple Intelligence running on the latest iOS software.

All these features are iOS-only – no surprises there. Pairing the Max 2 with our iPhone and MacBook is smooth and seamless, as is using all the controls, features and switching between devices. Your feature set is limited to the basics when using an Android smartphone, but the pairing and responsiveness are still swift and easy.

Spatial audio with dynamic headtracking support returns and the effect, provided you’re listening to tracks that are mixed with care for spatial audio, is pretty convincing. As before, it also delivers an immersive sound when listening to 5.1/7.1 Dolby Atmos soundtracks via the Apple TV 4K streamer.

There is one major disappointment: battery life. At 20 hours, it’s not terrible, but it is lagging behind the competition now. Sony and Bose offer 30 hours with their current flagships, while Sennheiser HDB 630 doubles that at 60 hours (with ANC on). Just 20 hours in today’s demanding headphones landscape feels paltry, especially if you forget to shove the AirPods Max 2 into the case to stop it from depleting, as we often do.

Granted, all the new features do draw on more power, although Apple says the H2 chip is very efficient to make the most of the existing battery capacity. However, we wish that Apple had found a way to add a larger capacity battery in the sequel. A fast charge of five minutes does give you 1.5 hours of playtime, though, which is useful.

Bluetooth 5.3 is on board here, and as with all AirPods and iPhones, there is no hi-res codec support, with Apple opting to stick with the standard AAC and SBC codecs. It’s a bit of a shame as rivals now offer LDAC (Sony) or include a USB dongle (Sennheiser) to grant 24-bit aptX streams, even from an iPhone.

To get higher quality sound on AirPods Max 2, you’ll have to go wired. A USB-C to USB-C cable is included in the box, which you can plug into your MacBook or iPhone (or other compatible device) to play media in lossless quality up to 24-bit/48kHz. The sonic character remains the same when using USB-C, but you get a much cleaner, less noisy background, giving music more depth and stability compared with listening via Bluetooth.

Also, you’ll have to make sure the headphones have enough juice and are powered up, as wired mode won’t work if the battery is dead. For plugging in other audio devices, you’ll have to buy a 3.5mm to USB-C audio cable separately (Apple sells one officially for £39 / $39 / AU$65).

ANC & call quality

The original AirPods Max’s active noise cancelling abilities were pretty stellar, so have they improved any further with the sequel? Apple says the Max 2’s ANC is 1.5 times more effective than their predecessors, thanks to a combination of new computational audio algorithms and the more powerful H2 chip, while the eight-mic arrangement remains the same.

They’re certainly better than the first-gen Max at reducing noise across the frequency range, with noises such as the kitchen exhaust fan, running water and people talking around you reduced to a soft murmur.

We took a trip on the noisy London Underground and the AirPods Max 2, on full ANC mode, does a fine job of damping down the loud rumbles and screeches so they don’t intrude upon the music. The noise-cancelling effect is also quite natural and airy, and you’re never much aware of the processing going on each second.

They do occasionally let some midrange sounds through, such as the rush of air and the top end of screeching rails in the tunnels. Rivals such as Sony XM6 deliver an even more powerful effect throughout the frequency range, smoothing down those lower rumbles and midrange noises in particular until they are silky silent.

Overall, the Max 2 do a decent job at keeping environmental noise dimmed down, although if greater silence is a priority, we’d still point you towards the Bose or Sony flagships.

The Adaptive Audio and Transparency modes work well, too, offering a natural effect in both cases. We like that loud noise reduction is employed in these modes to keep sudden noisy spikes in check, while the subtle and dynamic way Adaptive Audio adapts to our surroundings, so we can remain aware of traffic while still fully enjoying the music, is excellent.

Sound

The AirPods Max 2 feature the same custom 40mm drivers in each cup as before, but are powered by a new high dynamic range amplifier – the very same one used in the AirPods Pro 3, in fact. Apple has also revised the DSP and updated the Adaptive EQ thanks to the greater bandwidth of the H2 chip.

Altogether, the new pair delivers that same, familiar sonic signature of the original Max headphones, while pushing things forward in terms of detail, precision, dynamics and weight – although in small increments. The Max 2 headphones have an admirably smooth balance, one that is very easy to listen to. There’s a dash more punch to the sound and the edges of notes are etched out with a little more precision, and they sound a bit more open compared with the first-gen models.

Voices are a strong point, with Laura Marling’s lilting vocals on Hope In The Air sounding immediate and nuanced, and there is a good amount of brooding menace to Ice T’s Addicted To Danger. Voices shine through when listening to podcasts as well, with ample detail to flesh out different personalities.

Apple does a fine job of balancing agile rhythms, sweeping dynamics and refined detail in a way that no element sticks out unduly. We do find that the top end is rolled off a touch here.

On the positive side, this lends itself well to the AirPods Max 2’s full-bodied and easy-to-listen-to presentation; on the other hand, it means that some of the crispness and bite to songs are softened, and lose a bit of impact overall. The brash, exciting dynamic upheavals in Fontaines D.C.’s Starburster sound a little restrained when we’d have liked to hear more attitude and attack.

That full-bodied tone does have its advantages when listening to the muscular, heavy riffs of Slipknot’s Duality, while that slam of deep, sudden bass that hits in The Dark Knight soundtrack’s Why So Serious after a tense build sounds very satisfying.

The sound isn’t a million miles away from the original Max’s character; we find that the gains in sound quality aren’t night and day. We wish Apple had pushed the boat out even further to make the differences between the two generations more substantial. We would also advise that the Max 2 need a fair few hours of running in to loosen up the dynamics, as they sound just a little constricted when fresh out of the box.

In comparison, the latest efforts from Sony and Sennheiser have made far greater strides in delivering more accurate, precise and more engaging sound quality in the intervening years. Sony’s WH-1000XM6 are able to knit music together in a more rhythmically cohesive way, with clearer, crisper detail and greater subtlety to dynamics.

The five-star Sennheiser HDB 630 may sound a little more analytical, but they are more adept at unveiling greater textures to instruments, with voices and rhythms sounding that bit more natural and authentic.

Considering these rivals are less costly than the AirPods Max 2 as well, we wish Apple had made a bigger step forward in the second-generation model’s sound improvements.

Verdict

The AirPods Max 2 are as luxuriously designed as they were the first time around, and we imagine that smooth, balanced sound and intuitive experience will appeal to many, especially Apple die-hards with deep pockets.

The addition of those H2-enabled features is undoubtedly useful, but we wish Apple had addressed some of the more practical design concerns to make the headphones more portable and comfortable, as well as given the class leaders something to really worry about in terms of sound quality.

Let’s hope the next generation is a more revolutionary update – and that we won’t have to wait as long for it.

Review published: 31st March 2026

SCORES

• Sound 4
• Build 5
• Features 4

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