Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

These headphones are in a weight class of their own. Now, it might seem like these are supposed to be direct competitors with the Bose QC 35/700s or the Sony XM4s, but these are truly a step up from those headphones in every respect. The first thing to consider is the materials used in the headphone. There are not many all metal construction headphones on the market and these use a solid block of aluminum that get machined into the cups on both sides, classical Apple over-engineering on the telescoping arms, and a truly comfortable mesh net that distributes the weight elegantly on your head. The headphones benefit from active noise cancellation which immediately improves sound quality because we have an increase in insolation. The drivers in these headphones may not be cutting edge or in line with headphones in this price bracket (they are dynamic, not planar or electrostatic), but they benefit _heavily_ from Apple's active tuning via DSP. The HomePod was frequently praised for its sound quality largely because of the DSP that Apple had achieved to bring out the most performance from the device. In the same vein, the AirPods Max achieve great sound, far surpassing the Bose and the Sonys, with the added benefit of DSP. There are some slight design decisions that are annoying. The case is cumbersome and non-protective and the headphones do not power off on their own for a while. These are things that Apple can change via Software Update so I imagine that will be addressed in future iterations. But what really separates these headphones from the $300 bracket and headphones that sell for $400-600 is that they are brilliant bluetooth headphones. They sound better than the $300 market and offer features that are _nowhere_ to be seen in the mid-range audiophile market, namely ANC and active DSP. These are inherent to bluetooth headphones because there is a DAC/AMP stage in the AirPods Max themselves, but are the reason they cannot be easily compared. Overall, if you have the money and value good sound quality, these are an easy buy. Personally, my life style does not lend super well to the AirPods Max current design but I imagine future iterations will fix those issues.