I don’t know that it should be a generation specific thing. I’m a millennial, and I like their look.

Apple added wired lossless audio last year when they moved to USB-C iirc

> My experience with Pros has always been that they exaggerate the bass

Based on my experience, almost all consumer-grade headphones (in ear and headphones) seem to suffer from this, I'm guessing people tend to prefer bass-heavy over "not enough bass". Not until you start looking at headphones meant for studio-use does it seem to get closer to expected when it comes to the bass.

A literal dent in your skull?

You are wearing it wrong?

Yea I ran into the exact same issue. My workaround was buying a silicone band that wrapped around the top of the set to help as a sort of "2nd layer."

It isn't perfect, but it makes them wearable.

Pretty incredible oversight by a company that focuses so much on "design."

The bands sell pretty well on Amazon from what I can see so this isn't an isolated issue.

I've traveled extensively with my AirPods Max. I just toss them in my backpack with whatever else is there and move on. They travel a lot better than my Bose ones did with the bulky case. I much prefer Apple's approach here.

No

try them out , there should be display models in your nearest tech store / apple store

Depends on your use case, I need exceptional noise cancellation. These and Sony XM6's are top tier in that department. I would wait until they're $100 or more off on Amazon.

I had the Sony's but returned them after 3 days. I had this issue: https://corychu.medium.com/sony-wh-1000xm6-sound-terrible-wi... I went back to Apple.

Oh I wish I knew about this before buying SoundSource. SoundSource is a decent app when it works but it causes my mic audio goes in an out with it and people complain.

Oh my god, where has this been. Is there any way you can make it work for 14.4? I desperately need this.

This is Apple, my dude - the company that sells a glorified sock to carry your phone in for US $230.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/introducing-iphone-po...

That’s all you have to understand.

I assume Apple ecosystem integration and also they give off that "I bought an expensive Apple product" vibe that an iPhone or Macbook no longer do IMO.

As someone with an iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and a Macbook, I never got into Apple's headphones. My Sony WH-something-4 that I bought refurbished 4 years ago are more than enough for me.

Because Apple

They are a luxury item, you are paying for the privilege of signaling you can afford $550 headphones. Generic black over-ear headphones could be $800, could be $80, useless for signaling. Doubly true in the context of a gift.

Well, if you buy only one pair it does work really nicely with all Apple kit. So you get really nice cinematic sound from Apple TV (for my non-prosumer ears), and effortlessly can switch between phone, laptop etc. The sound is really good for video calls.

They just work.

I mean there are other pieces of kit that probably just work as well but with these you don't need to do market research.

It's surprising how non-trivial even _adequate_ sound is still in 2026 and that's what these are guaranteed to give in any situation IMHO.

If you have only one Apple device probably no selling point as such.

>I really don't understand how these are $549.

H2 chip enables smart audio switching when paired with Apple account + other Apple products. This is a feature that many people find valuable.

> What makes these worth that much when there are so many options?

You want to be seen in public wearing this object

There are two kinds of Apple products - those they make for the mass market and those that are for Apple "enthusiasts".

Mass market Apple products may be expensive but they are still great value. Look at the $499/$599 Macbook Neo for a recent example, but this generally covers iPhones and other Macs, as well as Airpods, Apple Watch etc.

Then there are the $550 Airpods Max, $3500 Vision Pro, $600 storage upgrades, $700 CPU wheels, $230 "iPhone Pocket", $20 polishing cloth...

In the latter category there is no effort to actually compete on price or value, because it is made for people who will blindly buy anything with an Apple logo on it.

More than, considering Apple is willing to openly advertise Neo at $499 for education. The minimum-advertised-price on these won't ever drop below ~$529 for a hot minute.

Sony HH-1000XM6 are $500

Bose QC Ultra are $450

That is the market for premium BT headphones. There are way more expensive headphones out there.

But yeah it is notable that the Neo is cutting the legs out of the lower end laptop market to that degree.

I've had some headphones in the past where I stuck them over a slightly-bigger-than-my-head object when not wearing them to stretch them out over some time to alleviate this problem.

Did you try putting them in the freezer for 20 minutes?

The H2 enables lossless audio over wireless. So this reads like a temporary limitation that software might solve down the road. But knowing Apple's track record for enabling features in partially dormant hardware ... I wouldn't buy these expecting that.

So you're one of the few people who actually can consistently tell MP3 and lossless apart?

https://abx.digitalfeed.net/

The screech is produced by feedback in the noise canceling I think, happens if you lay on a pillow at the wrong angle also, never had it due to moisture myself.

What was released last year was the same AirPods Max just with a USB-C port. This is a new generation.

All three pairs of AirPod Pros I've owned have had rattling issues that would reproduce when I physically moved/tilted my head. It's really annoying.

Funny that something similar swore me off another brand’s headphones. The noise cancelling would amplify mechanical vibrations of the headphones, so much so that even eating with them on would cause a deafening bass. Walking with them on was also incredibly loud.

I sent them to support with a very good description of the problem, came back the same, “cannot reproduce”.

It seems support workers for both companies just connect them to an audio source and check if sound comes out relatively alright.

It's amusing to me how personal all this stuff is.

The XM5s were super uncomfortable to me (to the point I was relieved when they got stolen) and I ended up going back to Bose even though I liked the sound quality on the Sonys better.

I had the xm6 but the combination of worse sound (for me at least) and shallow earcups which hurt my ears drove me back to airpods max

Crazy to think Apple is now pricing their consumer headphones in the same segment as serious professional gear, they seems to cost more or less the same I paid for my "studio-grade" DT 1770 Pro.

What did Support say when you opened a case?

The Bluetooth chip & version in these won’t be the same one you have today, so there’s no guarantee that present experience will inform future experience (better or worse).

Apple hardware sound is the best on the market (macbooks, ipad, etc.).

It is unwise to dismiss their prowess

Honestly Apple's Airpods Pro and Airpods Max sound pretty great though, and I own several pairs of "audiophile" IEMs and headphones.

Apple knows its cookies when it comes to sound. I can say that as someone who uses proper HiFi systems and has played in orchestras.

Still pretty happy with my Homepods in Stereo

These earphones are not for people who appreciate good audio. They are for people who want more products in the Apple ecosystem and have lots of money to spend.

Apple headphones have better audio fidelity than you are giving them credit for. I have several different pairs of high-end studio headphones and expensive amps to drive them. The Apple Max, which I also own, frankly provides a cleaner reference than some of the classics. They are perfectly usable as reference headphones.

The built-in Apple audio DSP, amps, etc have surprisingly good fidelity. Much higher quality than you would expect from consumer hardware. They even provide high-impedance headphone jacks on their recent computers.

XM6 does not support audio over USB-C (The USB-C port on the XM6 is only for for charging) QC Ultra 2 does, but the headphones turn off when plugged in and have to be turned back on while charging

AirPods Max with USB-C and AirPods Max 2 appear to be the only headphones among this group (XM6, QCUltra2, AirPods Max with USB-C, AirPods Max 2) that support both Audio over USB-C and automatic charging while in use.

> even with the Pro 3's having inferior sound quality

Then

> I decided to buy the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2

Have you seen its frequency response?

can you use them in wired mode?

a lot of non apple headphones cost more... and many don't even sound better...

Different target markets. Audiophiles and wealth exhibitionists are much more willing to pay the large amount

As said, different markets. If you look from the same perspective, the last iPhone I ordered is 3x the price of a last generation MacBook Air.

$549 is pretty reasonable if the headphone has the sound detail it's advertising. Given how AirPods Gen 3 sounds, I'm sure that thing sounds pretty amazing.

Isn't this pricing pretty in line with other high end ANC headphones?

e.g. Bowers & Wilkins PX8 ($699), Focal Bathys ($849), Sony WH-1000XM6 ($399), Kef Mu7 ($399), Bose QC Ultra ($449)

Sennheiser HD 800 S is $1700 and has been around for years. Or the Meze Elite Tungsten at $4,000 - if Apple can get 80/90% of the way there at $549, they'd be a steal for the right customer.

Price and quantity go in pairs.

As long as a pair exists on the demand curve, Apple can charge that price.

Same could be said about the Vision Pro, much pricier than their mass market alternatives, while being in-line with high end professional gear.

And _STILL_ the Sony MDR's are still ~$100.

Peripheral tech must have absurdly lucrative margins. I see it in my niche interests too. Cycling or golf gps are like hundreds of dollars. They are the same products they were 15 years ago: cheap lcd screen with a cheap gps radio and some severely underpowered cpu with noticable input lag. Designed to fall apart in a few years. Still same prices they always were, maybe they get away adding another $50 a year to the price on occasion. It is like they hit their price point and margin number and are perfectly happy making probably >60% markup on us who have no option otherwise. Yes we could potentially order prototypes trivially for cents a unit from same places in china the first party manufacturers go to, but minimum order is probably 1000 units.

That is literally the sole moat of these companies: minimum orders from china and the fact we can't spend the ad money they can to move that volume quickly. Not tech or offering a good deal. Just being there already with money and doing the inevitable. Being the more productive drug dealer quicker to move the kilo to the captured audience and bankrolled to get the next several and scale.

It does look strange when you compare it directly to a MacBook, but headphones are a weird category

The worst built apple product is the HomePod.

It just sits there, with no one touching it. Suddenly, music randomly starts and stops playing. Take it into the Apple Store, they acknowledge it’s a known hardware defect to start registering non-existent touches, and they refuse to fix it. Offer to replace it with a refurb unit for like ~$20 less than a brand new unit.

Edit to add: the unit is less than 2 years old.

I’ve been using AirPods Max since they first launched, and over the years I’ve tried several times to switch to Bose.

However, the Bose headphones just haven’t worked as smoothly for me from a software and integration standpoint. I tend to run into more glitches and small issues compared to the AirPods Max. I’m not sure whether that’s primarily a Bose issue or something related to Apple’s ecosystem, but my guess is that other high-end headphones probably face similar integration challenges when paired with an iPhone.

On the bright side, Max is very reliable.

Are you sure your AirPods Max have the latest firmware? This issue was addressed in an update right after the first version came out and people reported the issue you're describing:

If you set your AirPods Max down and leave them stationary for 5 minutes, they go into a low power mode to preserve battery charge. After 72 stationary hours out of the Smart Case, your AirPods Max go into a lower power mode that turns off Bluetooth and Find My to preserve battery charge further

[Archive link, as the latest Support doc doesn't have this wording any longer]

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20210315052229/https://support.a...

I held off buying the first version for exactly these two reasons. Will also "hold off" on buying these.

I’ve been using my AirPod Max for hours for the past 2 years and never noticed they were “heavy”. I’m wondering now as I’ve never researched on headphones (I just buy simplicity from Apple, I’m not an audio sophisticated costumer) that was never brought out to me, so I haven’t even noticed.

I feel that fit and comfort is an incredibly personal thing, but the weight was always fine for me - their design spreads it out pretty well.

The killer feature for me is the deep ear cups. All the Sony headphones touch my Dumbo-sized ears and get crazy warm, the APMs don’t.

As someone who has never seen these or paid attention to them I was thinking "how heavy could they possibly be?" Then I saw 13.6 oz and I was blown away. That's actually really heavy for headphones!

Apple clearly optimized for the "always ready" experience, but it does feel awkward that the intended workflow involves putting them in the case

I leave my AirPods Max sitting on my desk for weeks at a time outside of the case and the battery never drains. I just put mine on today after sitting on my desk for a week and they still had 99% charge.

Thats 386,2 gram for the rest of the world.

Absolutely! I have both the AirPods Max and the Bose QC Ultra and even though my whole ecosystem is Apple, the QC Ultra is a lot more comfortable reliable on day to day usage. Comfort is due to weight, and reliability is the batter is predictably on the QC Ultra, but on the Max I never know if the battery went all down because I can't turn it off.

Replacing the batteries on the Maxes is actually a fairly straightforward process (no adhesive melting required, just a screwdriver and a pry bar), and spare batteries can be purchased on Amazon or Ebay for around 50 USD. It's one of the better Apple products in that regard, very unlike the in-ear models.

> Irritating thing is how Apple hides bluetooth headphones pairing 2-3 clicks deeper than AirPods pairing – on iPhones and Apple TV.

Can't you just create a Shortcut on the iPhone to pair with whatever you want via bluetooth in a single tap? Or just edit the control center menu itself and add the Bluetooth button directly to the control center?

4 clicks from control centre on stock settings. Two if you add the Bluetooth widget into control centre. Swipe down control centre > Bluetooth > hey presto

As for ATV, yeah that thing is deep

> so perhaps the headphones org just doesn't have to face the music?

Some people don't like anything in their ears. Some people have ear canals that don't work/aren't comfortable with "standard" tips. This is why headphones will always exist.

I don't know exactly how to measure bang for buck, but my Sony XM4s have been holding up well, sound good, are decently comfortable for a day's work, the battery life is good, etc.

They do have some annoyances like not always sleeping correctly when left connected to my laptop, but overall they are easy to recommend

What is your main use case?

Conference calls? Get soundcores.

Actual music? Buy proper open backs and a DAC.

I found this forum last year https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php which opens the door up to a high number of lower cost manufacturers making very high quality products. although the forum audience (audiophiles) generally eschew wireless products and prefer open backed (loud for everyone else and no noise cancelling) headphones, there are all kinds of products discussed.

The two sibling comments were good suggestions. I have Sony XM3s that have been going strong for 6 years, sound superb, and have IMHO better noise cancellation than Bose.

For my kids I got Anker Soundcores, and for the price they are astonishingly good.

Ignore the thing about open-backs though, I have some extremely high end Grado open-backs and barely use them. My primary hobby outside of work is making music and I have a dedicated studio at home with expensive sound damping / proofing - the only reason to ever wear the Grados is if I'm going to be wearing them for hours on end. Even then, the Sonys are comfortable enough that I've never reached a fatigue point in them.

If you want to go cheap and don't want ANC (eg. open back headphones) then there's a lot of good reference/studio headphones around. I have a wired Audio Technica M40X for home use and a wireless pair of M20X for travel; both are great in a quieter environment.

Wireless:

- Top tier general: sennheiser Hbd 630

- good enough: sennheiser momentum 4 (affordable)

- good ANC and “bassy”: Sony xm5/xm6 (‘muddy’ for some)

- I like the Bose ANC profile: Bose QC2

All of them have bad microphones (worse than wired ear pods)

All of them have good to great ANC

All of them are wireless

If you need a good mic then get dedicated headset for calls. Otherwise settle for “ok”

I didn’t include bathys/marklevin cause the new senn 630 outplay them on all fronts.

Bose Quietcomfort (i have the 2nd gen ultra now but I've owned other models too) live up to their name for comfort. Very lightweight and the earcups are large enough that they don't pinch. They may not have the best ANC or featureset, but I enjoy mine immensely

Best bang for the buck in terms of sound quality is probably the Hifiman HE400SE, which is less than $100, the AKG K701 and Sennheiser HD6XX, which are about $200. The catch is that you need a proper setup to drive them. But to be honest, getting the tuning you like that suits the music is more important.

any ANC soundcore (anker) headphones or TEMU if you fancy rolling the dice. A colleague got a clone of the Sony 1000xm4, they sounded and look very similar.

For all day online calls, Jabra evolve2 65 are hard to beat for the price.