Few months ago, my Sony WH-1000-XM4 headphones started having issues where they would randomly produce high-pitch unbearable sound directly into my ear. After some troubleshooting, I managed to narrow it down to Active Noise Cancellation. It would appear microphone used for ANC started going bad.

Long story short, there’s no point in repairing those, and it is outside of my area of expertise anyways. I wanted to remove the microphone completely and use them that way, but in the end, I decided to go with a new pair instead. They also started to have a bad battery life, so there’s that.

Since this is a second pair of Sony headphones/earphones that went bad while not being much older than 2 years (just outside of the warranty period), I decided to not buy Sony anymore. I understand many people have good experience with them and are happy with durability, but I am not impressed.

After a bit of research and the fact I’m mostly within the Apple ecosystem I decided to go with AirPods Max.

Having AirPods Pro for some time now, I expected the magic integration from Max as well and this is exactly what I got. From the moment of pulling them outside of their case and connecting to one of my devices, they started working like magic with all my devices, switched seamlessly between Mac, MacBook and iPhone.

First impression was that they’re high quality, very pretty, very premium but also quite heavy. Having that mesh on the headband, they’re not uncomfortable though.

Noise cancellation and transparency modes are amazing. Sound is clear, very balanced and nice. I’m not an audiophile, but occasionally I like to listen for a song or two, and I’m quite amazed with this pair of headphones. I started listening to more music ever since I got them.

But this is not my primary use of the headphones. I primarily use them while I work, to basically isolate myself from my surroundings and focus on the work. I also have calls with the clients and was naively thinking call quality would be good. Oh boy, was I wrong. When using the microphone on them, sound is really, like really, bad. It is amazing how bad it is. Every time my computer would switch input to that microphone, people would immediately complain they can’t hear me clearly. Luckily, I mostly use either iPhone microphone (continuity mode), webcam microphone (old Logitech C910) or laptop microphone. Each one being miles ahead of the headphones. Even AirPods Pro are 10 times better than Max regarding microphone quality.

Another thing that is quite bad is the battery life. With Sony headphones I got accustomed to turning them on and leaving on my head for prolonged periods of time, just for sake of canceling out noises and to hint other people (either in some random office space or in my household) I’m not to be disturbed. They would turn off automatically after some short period of time, and I would forget about them. This way, I would probably charge them once a week, or sometimes even less frequently. With AirPods Max, this is not the case. They last one and a half day at most. Probably because they don’t turn off automatically unless you leave them resting on the desk in the folding position or within the case.

Besides charging them often, I am also a bit disappointed by the fact there is no early indication about battery percentage prior to the sound notification. When that wind-down sound comes they’re drained and I must plug them, leaving me quickly searching for a spare pair of headphones if I’m in the middle of the call or something similar.

Would I purchase them again and recommend them? Yeah, definitely.

What would I like to see improved? Without particular order:

  • case - whoever “designed” it should be punished
  • ability to turn them off, and if not playing anything, turn off automatically even if they’re on my head or enter ultra battery saving mode
  • longer battery life in general