Audio, To The Max

 Audio, To The Max

Monday October 9, 2023

By Joseph Morin

Since I was a young child I’ve been a fan of music. Growing up in the 80’s and 90’s I had the privilege to hear so much great music.  Most notably 80’s new wave and 90’s alternative. Phil Collins and Trent Reznor were responsible for some of my favourite songs growing up. The song In The Air Tonight is the first song I can remember ever hearing. It was during the end of an early episode of Miami Vice. Which is still one of my favourite tv shows. Music for me is something special. There are just certain songs that trigger memories and moments for me. This is a feeling you likely share if you enjoy music as well.  

Enough reminiscing about my music memories. We’re here to talk about AirPods Max. Likely one of Apple’s most polarizing products of the last ten years.  Released in late 2020 during the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic the product never received a proper introduction at one of Apple’s signature keynote presentations. It released very quietly to a decidedly mixed reception. Criticisms ranging anywhere from it being overpriced to its less than desirable case. All of those have been well documented and beaten into the ground by several people.  Im here to focus on letting people know about the positive aspects of this product that I’ve experienced during the course of my time owning this product. 

I’ve owned several headphones over the years. Some good , some bad. One thing though that they all had in common was there was always some type of technical issue or some kind of compromise you had to make to use them.  The two main issues have been short cords on wired headphones and poor to mediocre battery life with wireless headphones.  Another key issue with other headphones is poor build quality.  So many headphone are made of cheap plastic that just aren’t worth your money. AirPods Max, in my opinion, are headphones without any major compromises.  Yes the price tag is high (we’re talking rough $800 Canadian before taxes).  But for that price you get an audio experience unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. The best way I can describe it is that it's the next best thing to being there live with a band playing.  Spatial audio while cool, isn’t a feature available for every song.

  While you can technically enable it for every song, it doesn’t always work.  Especially if the original audio wasn't recorded for spatial audio.  That's not a fault of the headphones themselves. Its just a lack of a lot of spacial audio on Apple Music itself.  The best way is to just keep it at regular settings and just crank it up.  Noise cancellation on the AirPods Max works incredibly well using eight built in microphones to block out any unwanted sounds. Now when you do want to hear what’s going on around you, there’s the best transparency mode I’ve ever used. I can literally hear more clearly while in this mode than when I’m not even wearing them. It's almost like it's a built in hearing aid. Now let's talk about battery life.  This is an issue I’ve had with ever single other wireless headphones I’ve ever owned.  I listen to music on the way to work, during breaks, and on my way home and I only have to charge them once a week.  I think that’s pretty amazing.  I already listened to a lot of music but thanks to these I get to listen to music wherever I want now.  Also they intelligently switch between your devices if you switch while still wearing them and whenever you hop on one of your devices, they immediately connect without you having to do anything.  

If you have the budget for them, and you are already in the Apple ecosystem, I strongly recommend them.  They’re quite simply the best over the ear noise cancelling headphones for Apple devices. Hopefully Apple will provide a more budget friendly version of these headphones in the same form factor because it would sell like crazy.  That’s it for this time guys.  For those wondering I will be discussing tech topics outside of Apple.  It just so happened I talked about them back to back. Rest assured I’ll be covering anything noteworthy in the tech industry including non Apple stuff.  If you are enjoying the blog please fell free to share these on your social media so more people get a chance to read these.  Thank you.