I test headphones for a living — here's why the AirPods Max have a permanent home on my desk

Tom's Guide

4 days ago

I get the pick of the crop when it comes to the best headphones. I have a forever-moving cycle, as new headphones pass over my desk for evaluation. There are some that stick around, be that because I like their sound, their comfort or their noise canceling, but everything generally re-enters the rotation soon enough.
But there's one pair that remain separate from the circulation of headphones, with a permanent space reserved for them on my desk. It's the AirPods Max, Apple's ship-of-the-line cans. It's not because of their excellent sound or their stunning build, however. Let me explain.
The AirPods Max top Apple's AirPods line, with some useful features and a very unique look. 20 hours of battery life needs improvement, but they make up for it with some excellent sound and top-quality noise canceling. It helps that they're built exceedingly well, too.
Against my better judgment, I am a Mac user. I like macOS, I love the look and feel of my MacBook Pro and I've used the platform for so long that ceasing my dependence would feel like chopping off a limb. I don't want to do that.
The AirPods line is perfect for Mac users, especially if you also use an iPhone, or if you've completed the trifecta with an iPad. Unlike other devices, you don't have to hop into a menu or hold down a button to connect your headphones or earbuds to your device. You just open them near your phone, laptop or tablet, and you get a prompt for connection.
One tap later, and you're connected. But it's better than that — you're not just connected to the device you initiated the connection on, but every single device that your Apple Account is signed in on. Now that's magic.
It's been this way for a long, long time; it's nothing new and barely revolutionary at this point. Yet still, no other device has been able to rival the interoperability of AirPods and their macOS, iOS and iPadOS cousins.
It's thanks to that incredible interoperability that the AirPods Max have earned a permanent place on my desk. Whenever I'm going to have a work call, a language lesson or some kind of communication that requires my voice or listening, I reach for the aluminum monsters that have taken residence immediately above my keyboard.
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It's not for their sound, as good as it may be. It's not for their ANC, despite how good they are at blocking noise. It's not even because they look all fancy — no one on my work calls is going to care that my headphones are made by Apple.
It's because of how simple they are to use. The other headphones I use would have to go through a complicated connection protocol in order for them to become a good replacement, and despite the proliferation of multi-connect modes, none of them have come close to Apple's version.
I recently waved goodbye to my iPhone, replacing it with a Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Apple wasn't going to give me an iPhone Fold any time soon, and I wanted a piece of the creased pie.
So one of my devices is now no longer part of the AirPods Max connection "fold." It lives separately from my little audio ecosystem, relying on its own connection as opposed to the symbiotic relationship that my MacBook and iPad are part of. A limb has been replaced, but the nerves remain unconnected.
I use my phone for most of my music listening. It means that I don't have to worry about connection issues if I stand up for my half-hourly leg stretch, and modern Bluetooth protocols mean my music still sounds excellent. I'm not critically listening while I work, so I don't need the most impressive sound possible.
My new phone shows a significant chink in the AirPods Max's blue, aluminum armor. What happens if I switch out the rest of my devices? What if I swap my laptop for a Windows machine, or my iPad for another tablet? It's not likely right now, but I could have said the same thing about my iPhone a few months ago.
For now, the AirPods Max remain permanently on my desk, an almost guaranteed appearance in work calls and my Japanese lessons ("why do your headphones look like that?" my teacher asks — "you'd have to ask Apple," I reply). But that says nothing of the future. My laptop does need replacing soon, and those Razer models look very, very tempting...
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