Review: The AirPods Max with USB-C and Lossless Audio

Thank you for this.

So, what I've found is, with everything turned off, atmos, hearing Accommodations etc, there is no difference between wired and bluetooth. Only when I turn bluetooth off does a difference appear with a far wider sound stage, greater imaging etc.

I'm still really unsure that, just plugging in the APM with USB-C gives lossless. I'm of the mind it needs bluetooth off.

I will also say, with the firmware update, I think they've, again, updated the tuning. It's more sparkly to my ears and, wired or unwired, is a really nice experience. I know it's not high end audio, but considering how well they work for us, low lowest latency I've experienced with over ear bluetooth, how the sound output switches back to the iPhone when headphones are off etc, I think they're terrific... Just a tad too expensive.

I'd be interested to know what is actually happening with bluetooth on and off, when atmos personal sound etc are also off as the sound difference is quite significant, to my old rubbish ears.

Thank you for your review. I enjoyed reading it. Now, what I'm curious to know is, have you compared the lossless air pod max technical stats to stats of comparably priced headphbones? If so, do you have any thoughts to share?

Second, have you listened to comparably priced headphones side by side with the lossless air pod max to form an opinion as to which sounds best?

Thanks,

Bruce

Analogue headphones for the same price, for stereo, will always sound better. Significantly better? Possibly not, but for an audiophile something like the HD600 Senhizer, which are actually quite a bit cheaper, will sound better though, it's important to note, a lot of audiophile level headphones are rated as reference headphones in that they aren't tuned and give a very flat and clean response. Sony, for example, are quite heavy in the bass in its consumer headphones, as are beats, though less so in recent years. And then, there are other tunings in analogue headphones like the Grado line which are super bright, cutting almost, but create a very present sound, even if their most popular headphones are uncomfortable and are rather crude in build compared with the APM.

You give up some resolution with wireless but, especially in the case of the APM, you gain convenience, Atmos, automatic pairing, beautiful transparency as you'd only really get in a pair of open back headphones, but with the advantage of best in class ANC.

The audiophile hole is deep and expensive... But fun if you like that sort of optimisation, getting the best possible sound but, as with all of these things, quality, comfort, price are all subjective. ,

Ordered them on Saturday along with the USB-c to 3.5mm jack (male) as well as the USB-c to 3.5mm jack (female), as well as a bunch of other cables and adaptors, and my order arrived earlier today. I don't care much about lossless audio myself, and believe that the higher range felt by the original poster is likely the result of remixing and remastering to take advantage of the higher sample bit depth, however as a screen-reader user, latency is very important to me, so that was my main motivation to buy these headphones.

Since the firmware that came with the new AirPods Max was outdated, the USB audio functionality was not available initially, but the USB-c to 3.5mm jack (male) cable did a really good job of killing latency until eventually the AirPods self-updated and I switched to the USB-c cable for native USB audio. I also don't think that the audio quality is anything worth writing home about, since while the bass response is incredible, the same cannot be said for the treble, so the audio experience ends up feeling rather muffled. The transparency mode, on the other hand, seems to over-emphasize higher pitched sounds, to the point that I hardly recognize some sounds while wearing these AirPods. The Beats Fit Pro that I had before these didn't have these problems, and while I tend to be rather tolerant when it comes to audio quality, I do wish that Apple provided an equalizer so that I could adjust these things, which should be pretty telling regarding my thoughts on the audio quality of this alleged luxury product.

hi,
I'm impressed by your review. I currently have the Airpods Max with Lightning & love them, but my dad uses them when he mows our lawn because he enjoys listening to music while he works. I use them while working & am debating saving up for a pair of these.

If you don't already have a pair the USB C model may be worth the extra cost just to keep all your devices charging from the same cable, especially if you have a type C equipped iphone and if you travel.
I'd say buying wired audiophile grade headphones without a separate DAC is almost a waste unless you plan to add one later but that's just my opinion. I'm loving my steel series nova pro wireless for the simple reason it can be used simultaneously with my laptop and iphone, with one connection by its proprietary 2.4ghz adapter or by 3.5mm/USB and the other by bluetooth letting me listen to media on my phone and use my laptop with NVDA while managing the volumes independently or even talk to someone over bluetooth while again using NVDA at the same time.
The one thing that would really get my attention though is if Apple released a model with planar magnetic drivers, I've been curious about them for a while and I'd love to try some but I haven't been aware of a well regarded brand making an affordable pair with bluetooth which I consider essential.

For some reason I thought that the sample bit depth of these headphones was 24-bit, but I just checked the decibel reduction in Audio MIDI Setup with the volume all the way down while using USB audio, and the reported reduction is 52 decibels. This is roughly 10 multiplied by the base 10 logarithm of 2 to the power of 17, and since sound level in decibels is based on the amplitude of the wave, which in turn is defined by the absolute displacement from zero, this means that the real bit depth of the AirPods Max is 18-bit, with the last bit representing the sign of the sample. These values are internally provided to CoreAudio by device drivers, and since this is Apple hardware, I have little reason to believe that they are not providing accurate information. Another thing I noticed is that the maximum sample rate of audio captured through this device's microphones is 24KHz, putting them in-line with all the other AirPods.

Being able to take advantage of USB audio is nice, however at this point I'm not sure these headphones provide enough value to justify their price, as in my opinion it shouldn't be hard to find a pair of analog headphones with better audio quality. I will not return them since that's not my style, and will continue using them, but I don't think there's much premium quality to be found in this product. I mean the build quality seems to be good, but that's probably the only positive aspect that I can point out given the price.

Is that bit depth with bluetooth on or off?

I very much like the sound of the headphones. I've got wired, but don't use them as, though they sound better, they're less convenient. I don't think, if you're in the apple walled garden, especially for voiceover users, there is a better option for wireless. Wireless, by its nature, makes tradeoffs of course.

I use SoundSource on my Mac for all EQ except that which I recorded using my digital/audio interface. I recommend it. Unfortunately, I don't know if it is available for IOS.

Fully tethered USB audio with the latest AirPods Max firmware and macOS 15.4.1.

Yes, but the sound signature is different with bluetooth off. I'm not sure why, this is also with all spacial etc off.

After using the AirPods Max for nearly two weeks I am now getting used to their sound signature, so the lack of treble no longer bothers me. The build quality continues to surprise me, as accidentally dropping them on the floor caused their ear cushions to detach, which was where I finally learned that their attachments is magnetic rather than mechanical. The USB-c audio firmware seems to be missing features though, since during a work meeting today i clearly noticed that the speech synthesizer had highly noticeable audio compression artifacts, and after checking the connection it appears that, when the microphone is on, the AirPods Max fall back to Bluetooth mode, which doesn't make any sense to me.

@Oliver: I have no idea how to turn Bluetooth off for the AirPods Max, and I'm definitely not turning it off on my Mac since it doesn't have a built-in keyboard so I need Bluetooth for that. I can plug the keyboard through USB-c to test what you said, but since that's not how I typically use the computer I will end up not benefiting anyway. What I can say is that, when the AirPods Max are connected through USB-c, their name in the Menu Extras is "João’s AirPods Max, 100%, USB Audio', whereas disconnecting the USB-c cable or enabling the microphone makes their name change to "João’s AirPods Max, 100%".

I'll be abroad soon and having one less device dependent on a Lightning port, in addition to at least having the option of using USB audio, is worth having, if stupidly expensive. I will also be bringing my wired Sennheiser cans as well, just in case, and the AirPods Pros, for the bus lag.

I think wireless convenience will always be the primary attraction of AirPods of any stripe, let's be honest. I need headphone accommodations to EQ the trebble up sufficiently to make me happy, and that's not a problem I've ever had with Sennheiser cans wired or wireless. I do wish Sennheiser would work on their crappy apps, which always seem to be accessibility-challenged no matter what they do to them. But they do make great cans for listening, if not for transparency or NC.

How’s the latency in pure bluetooth mode, I tried searching but everyone is talking about the ultra low latency wired, but the reason I want those is because its wireless, so I only care about the normal bluetooth latency, owned airpods pro but never owned max

Bluetooth latency is practically the same as with all other AirPods, as even the USB-c variant from last year is still powered by the aging H1 chip. The value of AirPods Max, in my opinion, rests almost entirely on their ability to go wired, and in my personal case I also like the fact that my ears fit entirely inside the ear cups so they feel quite comfortable to wear. However in terms of audio quality as well as the performance of both Transparency and Active Noice Cancelling modes, I find them inferior to AirPods Pro 3 now, which were not yet available last time I replied here.

I must also add that AirPods Max seem to have a build quality issue that was not yet manifesting the last time I commented on this thread but has been becoming an increasingly worse problem for me for the last couple of weeks, which is that some wired connection in the left ear cup starts faltering with use after some time, so the sensors that detect when you're wearing them begin failing and they start refusing to wake up when you put them on your head. While the audio itself continues to work when you are using them exclusively for USB audio, all the other features like Transparency are disabled until the sensor of the left ear cup also connects and they really wake up. For this reason, and because my web searches made me realize that this is a widespread problem, I no longer recommend buying AirPods Max, and may eventually return mine for a refund if the problem keeps worsening.

Finally I must also state that I am no longer confident in the AirPods Max bit depth deduction that I made in an earlier reply, due to having been found to be misconceived about what is actually stored in a Linear Pulse Modulation sample on a reddit debate. In that debate I was confronted with evidence that what is actually stored in a sample is the voltage or amplitude of the signal, which is the square root of the intensity or power of that signal, that hearing perception is actually based on power instead of amplitude, and that the calculation of perception is based on the absolute difference between squared samples so the number of decibels per bit in Linear Pulse Code Modulation is actually 6 instead of 3. Furthermore Apple themselves changed the decibel attenuation values reported by CoreAudio for AirPods Max in subsequent versions of macOS to values that make no sense to me, so I can no longer extract any useful information out of that.

so while I have the pro 3 and they're great earphones, my ear and earphones are just not good with each other, my ear generates a lot of wax(that's an understatement), which lets the buds keep falling after a while, which is distracting because I need to go clean both the earbuds and my ear for it to be stable again, and earphones tend to push wax in which is just an annoyance, the proes are still good for portability where I could keep them in the pocket, but at home, I might need the max, for reference, I used over ear for years, had the pro 2 but mainly used it when out of home but now I want the convenience of wireless because wires always get in the way, and I have a lot of apple devices so the auto switching is awesome, but my biggest concern was latency, but if the latency is exactly the same as the other airpods then that sounds great.
the damage is concerning, but I'm hoping being extra careful with the headphones will help? Still, worst case scenario I'll get apple care plus and repare it whenever.
I wish if beats have that automatic switching, since apparently people say beats pro studio I think it was? The over ear? Are better built while even being cheaper, but not having apple device switching through the h1 chip is a dealbreaker for me.
initially, I was planning to wait the extra year or two until apple releases the long awaited airpods max 2 which will probably be miles better than the current, but it's getting distracting when it pops off so I might get the max in a few weeks.
how does getting a refund even work. I was under the impression you can't return something except in the first 14 days, after that it's fair game, sure there is worenty but from my understanding that's kinda useless unless if you have care plus, which... Doesn't do much either.

Here in the EU, the standard warranty is 3 years, and during the first year you can return the product for repair or refund at your option if it fails for some reason not related to careless use, with the burden of proof when it comes to claiming careless use falling on the vendor by default. After the first year you can only activate your warranty rights if you can make a reasonable case to explain why you never realized that the product was not working properly the first year, and once you do notice a defect, you have to claim your warranty writes within a short amount of time. This kind of consumer protection, in addition to the legal requirement of including VAT when advertising the price of products, is likely the reasons why Apple products are advertised at a higher price on this side of the Atlantic Ocean even though the Euro has 116% of the unitary value of the Dollar.

Do you have the USB-C version of the AirPods Max? I’ve been doing research as well on this, but I’m finding slightly conflicting reports, I’m finding reports, but mmost seem to be for 2020 to 2023, which was for the lightning AirPods Max, and thus are not really relevant, as i'm thinking on getting the USB-C version but for 2024, which was when the AirPods max usbc launched, it seems to be a bit harder to find reports of these issues. Could it be a bad batch? I.e, the airpods pro first gen did have a bad batch or batches ishue; could this be something similar? i’m not invalidating your experience by any means, it’s just that I’m having a little bit of a hard time finding stuff that is more directly tied to the 2024 USB-C AirPods Max, than to lightning AirPods Max. either way, I’ll keep doing research, but worst case, if this is really widespread, I might just say, screw it, and go for. bose qc ultra.

Yes, I have the USB-c variant bought earlier this year, and I don't think that Apple really changed much between the two variants beyond the port and maybe colors. When these problems with the connectivity of the left ear cup began manifesting I had no idea about what exactly was going on, so the first few times I just reset them, and when doing so also noticed that the left ear cup wasn't behaving the same way as the right one while I performed the reset steps so that's how I began to suspect that this was hardware-related and started investigating. I Found a reddit thread where at least one person said that they were already on their 7th replacement, and while they were mentioning the Lightning model there, the symptoms that they described were exactly the same symptoms that I experience so I have little doubt about the problem being exactly the same.

At this point I can still make AirPods Max wake up by either shaking my head or tapping the left side of the head band a few times after wearing them, which somehow re-establishes the faltering connection and the sensors start working. However if the problem keeps worsening to a point in which waking them up becomes impossible, I will have to activate my warranty rights, because although the USB audio connection still works normally regardless of whether they are awake or not when they are also not paired via Bluetooth, wearing them without Transparency mode is completely out of question to me.

I also don't think this is a usage problem, because I've only dropped them on the floor once as they fell off my desk shortly after buying them, and although I turn the ear cups 90 degrees to the front while not using them so that they can rest on my Mac Studio with a more flat profile with the ear cup cushions facing down, this rotation is perfectly normal and expected usage behavior since this is also how they are supposed to be stored in their official bra case.

I suspect the reason why the Lightning variant is mentioned more often might be because this is a relatively old and mostly unrevised product, and most people don't feel like buying them because AirPods Pro are a perfectly good alternative to anyone who isn't as sensitive to latency as I am or doesn't care about going wired, especially considering the steep price and the fact that they are still on the H1 chip so they are missing a bunch of features that are available even on AirPods 4. The fact that the Lightning variant is also older means that people have been using that variant for longer thus making people more likely to experience aging problems.

Even for wired use, I don't know exactly whether the Lightning variant supports USB audio, but the latest firmware for the USB-c variant doesn't yet support using the microphone over USB, dropping down to Bluetooth when they are paired or just warning you that some features are not available over USB when they are not paired. When I connect AirPods Max to a Linux machine over USB, no audio input devices are registered so that's how I know that the firmware itself is missing support for the microphone over USB, which corroborates my earlier report about them automatically switching to Bluetooth when an application asks to use them as an audio input device. It's been 6 months since the release of the firmware that enabled USB audio on the USB-c variant at this point, so given that microphone support hasn't been added yet, and given the aforementioned hardware problems, I can no longer recommend buying AirPods Max in good faith.