Most people are familiar with the original Airpods Max at this point, along with the USB-C refresh last year. This year they’ve come out with the Airpods Max 2, which promises some additional improvements. Naturally, we had to buy one to check it out.
I’m going to first point to our resident Apple Airpods enthusiast @listener’s article for the non-sound related aspects, and why he wishes this were a more substantial redesign. The Airpods Max 2 seems more iterative than anything meaningful. It looks, feels, and behaves in a very similar way.
But there are actually some improvements to the sound.
It’s worth also noting that these types of ‘smart headphone’ devices require a kind of priming before measuring, which is a matter of playing a stimulus tone before the sweep. Be wary of data out there that hasn’t specified if the headphone has been primed, because it’s likely not showing accurate data for the headphone. We’ve seen this a number of times with various Apple Airpods products, and it’s an easy mistake to make, but I’m just calling it out here that for these measurements, it has been primed.
Also note, the sound is essentially the same whether ANC is on or off, the only time this really makes a difference is if there’s a break in the seal where the acoustic impedance compensation doesn’t occur with ANC off and so you lose some bass.
B&K 5128
HpTF
Raw
Apple Airpods Max 2 vs Airpods Max:
HpTF
AVG
Since the B&K 5128 is a more humanlike measurement fixture with a more accurate acoustic impedance, we want to be using this system for measuring acoustic impedance sensitive devices like the Apple Airpods Max 2.
But we also have some new measurement data that we’re rolling out in our reviews, and that’s on-head human data. We recently travelled to a lab in the UK to get our HRTFs with in ear mics, to get data on how our heads and ears impact sound. This allows us to effectively measure headphones on our own heads, rather than using measurement rigs.
Why do does this matter? Headphone behavior varies from head to head, and it varies between measurement rigs and real humans too. By subtracting our HRTFs from the data, we can get the picture of how the headphone is behaving on our individual heads, and not just rely on the vibes of “it measures like this but I hear a peak there that doesn’t show up”, or “this peak doesn’t exist on my head”. We can literally show you that as well.
Moreover, we can show the differences between how the rig hears a headphone and how each of us individually hears it.
On-head MIRE data
Resolve Head (big)
With Glasses:
Resolve Head (big) vs B&K 5128 Head (average)
ANC On vs Off
Note, these measurements are taken with in-ear mics that sit at the ear entrance point (EEP), not at the drum reference point (DRP) like the previous measurements done by the measurement fixture.
But, we’re able to compare this because it’s the same methodology and using the same mics.
Analysis
Overall this is a familiar sound to the original Airpods Max, just slightly refined and made more consistent throughout the response. The bass is still great, the mids are also excellent, the ear gain is relaxed and the treble is… spicy.
I’d say it improves slightly in the areas that were problematic on the original Airpods Max, notably the mid to treble transition is integrated a bit better, even though it’s still a little rocky. So it has the same features, just not as exaggerated, and I feel several small steps in the right direction.
Still, if you hated this sound signature before, this new one probably doesn’t go enough in the right direction to really make it worth jumping on, and I’d have a hard time saying it’s worth upgrading to from the original if you loved this sound signature.
More testing to come.