Apple AirPods Max 2 (2026)

Six years is a long time to wait for a sequel, and the AirPods Max 2 answers that wait by changing almost nothing you can see and quite a lot you can hear. The aluminium cups, telescoping metal headband, knit canopy and Digital Crown all return untouched, which means you're either still charmed by one of the best-built headphones ever made, or still annoyed that it weighs close to 390 grams and ships in the same widely mocked case. What's new is underneath: the H2 chip from the AirPods Pro 3, Bluetooth 5.3 in place of 5.0, a high dynamic range amplifier, and up to 1.5x more effective noise cancelling than the original.

That points squarely at who this is for. If you live inside Apple's ecosystem and want Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Voice Isolation, Personalized Volume and Apple Intelligence-powered Live Translation working without friction, this is the most complete over-ear expression of that. Creators get a genuinely interesting angle too, with studio-quality recording, a camera remote on the Digital Crown and Logic Pro integration for mixing in Personalized Spatial Audio with head tracking over USB-C. If you're on Android, or you simply want the most headphone per dollar, the picture is far less flattering at $549 / £499 / AU$999 — a price that has held in the UK and US but climbed in Australia.

The critical consensus tracks closely with our own read: PCMag handed it 4.5/5 and an Editors' Choice, calling the noise cancelling class-leading and the transparency mode unbeatable; SoundGuys landed at 7.8, praising ANC, sound and microphone quality while flagging weight, battery and price; What Hi-Fi? found a smooth, balanced sound with better punch and dynamics than the original, but noted the generational gap is small and that rivals dig out more detail and rhythmic precision. Read together, that's the profile of an excellent product that has been out-evolved in specific, measurable ways.

The frustrations are the ones Apple chose not to fix. Battery life sits at up to 20 hours with ANC, when competitors are quoting 30 hours and more. The weight is identical to the 2020 model, so long sessions remain a commitment. There's no user-adjustable EQ and no water resistance at all, which for a $549 pair of headphones in 2026 is hard to defend. Lossless is capped at 24-bit/48 kHz and only over the included USB-C cable — wireless lossless still isn't happening — and codec support remains AAC-only, so Android listeners are paying a flagship premium for a compromised experience. Meanwhile the Sony WH-1000XM6, Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 and Sennheiser HDB 630 all undercut it.

The verdict, then: this is a superb pair of noise-cancelling headphones and an easy recommendation to iPhone owners who value build quality and seamless software over spec-sheet value. It is a much harder sell to anyone else, and a genuinely questionable upgrade if you already own the first generation. We're rating it strong rather than outstanding, because the things holding it back are exactly the things a six-year gap should have resolved. Note that our sound-quality impressions here draw on published reviews and measurements rather than our own listening panel.