Recommendation: We recommend waiting for the AirPods Max with a USB-C port to launch later this year, but the headphones will still more or less be four years old beyond that change, so you may wish to consider newer competing options, such as the Sony XM5, Bose QuietComfort Ultra, and Sonos Ace. Amazon does have the AirPods Max
on sale for $399 if you are interested in purchasing them now at a discount.
That's one of the dumbest recommendations I've ever read: "We recommend buying something with a more recent release date, because it's newer." If the suggested products were unequivocally better, or cheaper, or whatever, then sure! But that would hold true no matter how new or old they were.
If not, what does it matter what the release date is? What kind of a recommendation is "Who cares about quality, just look at how recently the product was refreshed?"
Example: The Sonos Ace just came out, and are a year newer than the Bose, 2 years newer than the Sony, and 3.5 years newer than the AirPods Max, so by the "newer = better" logic they should be the best option.
Here's a
review directly comparing the Sonos Ace and AirPods Max in absolute terms, rather than based on when they were refreshed.
Here's another. The AirPods Max list for $50 less, but both currently cost exactly the same $399 at Amazon.
The former review gives the Ace the bottom line:
We're not mad, we're just disappointed. After such a long wait, and sky-high anticipation, the Sonos Ace really don't deliver where they need to in such a competitive marketplace. Sound quality and noise cancellation both need to be better to compete with the Apple AirPods Max (and some cheaper rivals) – particularly when you're charging the kind of money Sonos is.
And for the AirPods Max
It's fair to say that the Apple AirPods Max are looking a little long in the tooth in the features department, three-and-a-half years since they were released. But from a sound perspective they still more than hold their own at their premium price point, and the noise-cancelling here is great too. The Sonos Ace may have been inspired by the Max in the design department, but they can't worry them where it counts.
The latter review tests shows that the AirPods Max have better ANC than the Sonos Ace, and sound quality that's similar but arguably a bit better, and Apple's product has better integration going for it if you're in the Apple ecosystem.
So: The AirPods still "more than hold their own", and are better than the Sonos Ace, and cost the same, but according to MR you should consider the Ace because it was released over 3 years later.
Genius!
Now, reviews of the Sony XM5 put it much more on par with the AirPods Max, and it's cheaper, so there are recommendations of that set over the AirPods Max if you don't want or need the Apple integration and Spatial Audio, but that was true when they were released... 2 years and 3 months ago, when the AirPods Max were a year and a half old, and newer than the Sony cans are now.
So, again, nothing to do with release date--all that matters is absolute quality and features vs. price. Otherwise, no one should buy the Sonys over the Sonos Pro since they're 2 years older, even though in absolute terms they're better
and cheaper.
Then again, Sony also still sells the MDR-7506, which was released in
1991, and people are still apparently buying, and even highly recommending, them.
1,360 days old, and still listed at the same official MSRP as day one.
That's Apple.
You don't buy much audio equipment, do you? Sure, there's electronics and active stuff in the AirPods Max that don't exist in many other audio products, but it's not even remotely unusual to see several-year-old audio gear with the same MSRP as day one. Honestly, even in other gear, it's pretty unusual to change the MSRP.
Sony did apparently drop the list price on the MDR-7506 by $30 at some point in the last 15 years, but they apparently haven't gotten any cheaper at retail in at least the last decade.
www.macrumors.com
