Pay attention - the clarity is stunning
Apple AirPods Max From €619 ★★★★☆
As ubiquitous as Apple’s iconic Airpods had become, there had been much speculation that the company would produce over-ear, full-sized headphones. Despite owning the popular Beats headphone brand, Apple delivered and announced the AirPods Max late last year.
They’re available in five colours, with sky blue or pink being the most striking. Buying them directly from Apple entitles you to free engraving, and that can include a mix of emojis, text and numbers.
Opening the box reveals the AirPods Max, their Smart Case and a Lightning to USB-C cable. These are big headphones, and that’s a consideration as there is nothing discreet about your listening with these on.
APPLE HAVE APPLIED THE BEST OF THEIR EXPERTISE
There are no touch contols on the side of the AirPods, instead they have used a digital crown principle, like that on the Apple Watch. As well as that crown dial, there’s a physical button for the active noise cancellation.
I’ve often found touch controls on headphones unpredictable, and the crown on the AirPods is an intuitive alternative. Pressing it once plays your music, pressing again pauses. Pressing twice quickly skips to the next song and three times skips back a track.
If a phone call comes in while you’re wearing your AirPods Max, Siri can announce the call and also read an incoming message through the headphones. To answer that incoming call, your press once or twice to reject an incoming call. They also allow you to juggle two calls using the hold function.
These settings make sense from the outset, and Apple have applied the best of their user-experience expertise to making the headphones easy to use.
That user experience actually starts the moment you take them out of the box. At first touch, the headphones are wonderfully cold and sleek to the touch. Holding them close to my iPhone a small set-up animation popped up on my screen and I was ready to go.
The making and taking of calls with these is an aside, though, as buyers will most likely be keen to dive into their music collection.
I selected some music that I thought might test them, Hunger by Florence and The Machine.
Instantly, the AirPods show how impressive they are. The delicate detail at the beginning of that track is reproduced beautifully, with crispness and detail. As it went on, Florence’s vocal range is illustrated perfectly but then, a subtle violin steps forward, gently but with wonderful clarity.
I’m a jazz listener in the evenings, and I tried Miles Davis’s Bags Groove. Again, there was wonderful clarity with individual instruments holding their place right to the top of a note.
I was also keen to try out the spatial audio feature that Apple have added to these. This is meant to bring theatre-style sound that surrounds as you watch videos or movies. The idea is that the voice stays with the actor on screen.
Again, they performed wonderfully, and perhaps these headphones are even better at this than they are at straight music listening. Battery life is good for such large gear, and Apple quotes around 20 hours of listening.
Also, if you do need to connect to a 3.5mm connection, you’ll need a converter cable, as there is no standard jack built-in. At 384g, these are not light, but the weight distribution is engineered well and I found them easy to wear for a couple of hours at a time.
Yes, they are pricey, but if you’re already an Apple user, they offer useful functionality as well as audio performance that leaves rivals sounding a little washed out.