AirPods Max in 2024: Still Worth It?

Apple released the AirPods Max in late 2020, at the height of the pandemic where everybody is locked indoors. The AirPods Max was the first Apple-branded headphones and it looked the part.

Fast-forward to 2024, Apple is still selling the same original AirPods Max and if rumors are to be believed, Apple will not update the AirPods Max until 2025 at the earliest. So, how does Apple’s most luxurious listening device hold after 4 years?

What I Bought

I bought a Sky Blue AirPods Max in CeX, a store that buys and sells used electronic items. The cheapest AirPods Max they have is $300, which is a $250 discount over the original $549 you found in retail. For $300, you are bound to find some cosmetic issues like dings and scratches, but other than that, the product works as intended.

The unit that I bought is heavily used. You can see that the mesh headband is now collapsed and so are the cups for your ears.

Pros and Cons

Here is a great about the AirPods Max that I bought. Sound quality & Comfort. After all, in any headphones, those two qualities are the most important.

Sound Quality I can safely say, despite the AirPods Max being in a very used condition is great. Officially, according to Apple, the AirPods Max does not support lossless audio over Bluetooth. Despite not being lossless, the sound quality is very good.

I have a Sennheiser HD660 which is connected to a Fiio New K3 DAC which allows me to listen to Apple Music in full lossless audio quality. That setup is at least $500 in hardware alone. The AirPods Max sounds almost the same as the higher-quality Sennheiser. The Sennheiser edges out just a little bit in some sound comparison. But overall, you would not notice the difference between the lossy audio in the AirPods Max and the lossless high-quality audio in the Sennheiser.

Comfort is one of the areas where the AirPods Max can improved. Yes, this is a used item. A very well-used item. I think one of the reasons why the AirPods Max is in the shop is because the mesh around the headband has collapsed and the ear cups are well utilized.

According to various forums, the collapsed mesh is a well-known problem with the AirPods Max and is very expensive to fix it. Some solutions include buying 3rd-party silicon support as a stop-gap measure to the mesh.

The earcups, while very comfortable do get squeezed at the top portion. And it is made of spongy material that tends to absorb your sweat. And the sweat will stay in there. Apple recommends to use soap and water to clean your earcups but not let the attachment area wet. You can’t simply put them in your washer and hope for the best. Using someone else AirPods Max and feeling the previous person sweat as your AirPods Max earcups … is disconcerting. Luckily Apple sells replacement cups at $69 or you can get a replica on Amazon for half the price.

And there’s the question of weight. Yes, a brand new AirPods Max is comfortable. It’s the heaviest of premium headphones out there. Even the legendary $2,000 Sennheiser HD820 super headphones weigh just 20g less than the AirPods Max. But you won’t feel the weight because the Sennheiser is distributed over a large area. The AirPods Max feels heavy because Apple chose to use aluminum and stainless steel to build the headphones. It looks and feels very high-end compared to the usually plastic or cloth headphones of its competitors.

The problem was exacerbated when the supporting mesh on the top of the headphones collapsed. Because the mesh collapsed, the two stainless steel frames are now on your head and you feel it. Luckily, having them supported by a silicon mesh saves the day.

Conclusion

So the article aims to answer two questions: is AirPods Max still a great product? It is worth it?

AirPods Max is still a great product. The build quality, the sound quality, and the comfort level are what you would expect from a $500 piece of headphones. Despite what people tell you, the demographic that can afford to spend $500 on headphones mostly can tell a difference between lossless audio and a high-quality lossy recording.

Is the AirPods Max worth $549 at retail? No. If you want sound quality, you can get a Sony WH-1000XM5 at $200 less. If you want comfort, any other Sony or Sennheiser headphones are more comfortable. AirPods Max has the ecosystem advantage that their competitors haven’t. It will be very competitive at $400 but Apple hasn’t dropped the AirPods Max to that price. Not even in Amazon.

So the best compromise is to buy a heavily used one and repair the cosmetic damage.

Plug

Support this free website by visiting my Amazon affiliate links. Any purchase you make will give me a cut without any extra cost to you

Other Ecosystem Items

• Apple TV (Amazon) / Apple TV 4K (Amazon)
• AirTags (Amazon)
• HomePod Mini (Amazon)