AirPods Max: Apple launches £549 over-ear noise-cancelling headphones
3 min readApple has launched its first pair of over-ear noise-cancelling headphones, the AirPods Max, just in time for the Christmas shopping rush.
The new wireless headphones contain four microphones in each ear cup to detect and cancel out sounds in the wearer’s surrounding environment, coupled with a technology called Adaptive EQ to adjust the sound to the fit and seal of the cushions against the person’s ears for richer, better-balanced audio.
The first AirPods were announced alongside the iPhone 7 in September 2016, before the launch of a second generation (£159), complete with wireless charging case, in March 2019. The £249 noise-cancelling AirPods Pro followed in October 2019, which were the first of Apple’s headphone roster to use algorithms to test the quality of the seal once inserted into the wearer’s ears.
(Photo: Apple)
Like the in-ear AirPods headphones, the AirPods Max use optical and position sensors to detect when they are removed and automatically pause the music or other audio the wearer had been listening to.
Apple claims the new pair, which will retail for £549 on 15 December, will last up to 20 hours on a single battery charge. When not in use, a Smart Case designed to accommodate both ear cups when swivelled flat puts the headphones into a low power state to preserve battery life.
The AirPods Pro Max come in five colours: space grey, silver, sky blue, green, and pink
The headphones’ cups are made from memory foam covered in a knit mesh to provide a close fit to the wearer’s head and prevent sound from leaking, a feature the company claimed was “critical” in delivering immersive sound.
A digital crown, the same rotational dial sported by the company’s Apple Watches, can be turned to turn up or lower the volume or to play, pause and skip what’s being listened to, pick up or cancel phone calls or to activate digital helper Siri.
(Photo: Apple)
Pressing a noise control button on the same cup as the digital crown switches the headphones to transparency mode, which allows the wearer to hear background noise such as traffic or tannoy announcements while out and about.
The pair is also capable of tracking the motion of the wearer’s head via its inbuilt gyroscope and accelerometer to ensure the sound stays centred to the headphones without risk of distortion, Apple announced.
The active noise cancelling headphone market is big business and is expected to reach $9bn by 2024, according to a report from analyst Arizton.
Apple accounted for around half of all true wireless earphones (e.g. headphones without a connecting wire) sales during 2019 and is projected to sell 82m units by the end of the year, data from Counterpoint Research suggests.
The company will be hoping to compete with the likes of Bose and Sony, both of whom have established reputations as well-regarded wireless noise-cancelling headphone manufacturers.
However, their extremely high price may prove an obstacle to wider adoption.
