AirPods Max, Apple’s new high end over-ear headphones

Apple believes its new over-ear headphones can challenge the upper end of the audio market ... but at this price, they should.

Apple AirPods Max

It’s taken years, but finally Apple has announced a set of over-ears headphones to take on the upper end of the market.

Australian users can start ordering its new AirPods Max headphones today and they’ll cost you $899. They’ll begin shipping in Australia next Tuesday, December 15.

Apple is touting features commonly found on high end brands such as Sony and Bose: high-fidelity audio, adaptive EQ, active noise cancellation, and spatial audio.

It is also including some of its home grown concepts: an intelligent H1 chip, and software to support “computational audio”. There is the seamless way you use the headphones to interact with an Apple Music host device.

The headphones will be available in five colours: ‘space grey’, silver, ‘sky blue’, green, and pink.

The digital crown on Apple AirPods Max.

The headphones comprise a stainless steel headband frame and what Apple calls a ‘knit mesh’ canopy that aims to distribute weight and reduce on-head pressure.

“Each ear cup attaches to the headband through a revolutionary mechanism that balances and distributes ear cup pressure, and allows it to independently pivot and rotate to fit the unique contours of a user’s head,” says Apple.

“Each ear cushion uses acoustically engineered memory foam to create an effective seal — a critical factor in delivering immersive sound.”

The internal electronics of an Apple AirPods Max cup.

Apple has taken the digital crown synonymous with Apple Watch and adapted it to provide a range of features on one controller: users can control the volume, play/pause, skip tracks, answer and end calls and activate the Siri personal assistant in one spot. There is also a noise control button to switch between active noise cancellation and transparency modes.

Internally, there’s a 40mm dynamic driver to provide sound ranging from bass to high-frequencies.

Apple AirPods Max.

The H1 chip in each cup offers what Apple increasingly does in other devices – computational processing. The chip processes sound to create what it says is better quality output. (Apple also is using computational processing to enhance images snapped by iPhone 12.) It says each of the chips’ 10 audio cores is capable of 9 billion operations per second.

Adaptive EQ, active noise cancellation, transparency mode and spatial audio are provided through this computational audio.

Apple has adapted the connectivity offered by other AirPods models. There’s automatic pairing with iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. AirPods Max also will detect when they are on a user’s head using optical and position sensors.

Apple AirPods Max smart case

It says AirPods Max will offer up to 20 hours of audio and talk time. Other features include automatic switching of sounds between AirPods Max and an iPhone, iPad and Mac, an ability to share an audio stream between two sets of AirPods, and the full implementation of Siri.

Finally AirPods Max is expensive at $899. In Australia, they’re even expensive compared to US pricing - $US549 is roughly equivalent to $735 locally. If you don’t want to go with AirPods Max, Apple is still promoting Beats headphones, earbuds and wireless earphones on its website.