If the AirPods Max 2 have this feature, I will buy them immediately

The AirPods Max have been out for nearly 5 years now, and they still hold up today as great headphones. They have excellent sound quality, the best noise canceling of any headphones tested in our lab, and tons of great features with iOS devices.

So why haven’t I bought them?

No, the answer is not that I have an Android phone, which I’m sure you’ve heard from countless others. In fact, I’m pretty deeply ingrained within the Apple ecosystem, with an iPhone, Macbook, and heck even an Apple Watch. It’s not even necessarily the price of the headphones, though it would be hard to swallow, as an audio professional I’m not averse to investing in hundreds or thousands of dollars for good gear. The actual answer might surprise you in this wireless modern age.

I still need a wire

The truth is that as a creative professional who edits video and audio on the go, I need headphones that you can use with an old-school wired connection. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bluetooth and listening wirelessly – most of the time. I will always gravitate towards the convenience of listening without a wire when I’m commuting or otherwise just casually listening to music. But there are instances where the latency of a wireless connection is simply unacceptable. If you’ve ever tried editing audio or playing competitive video games, you’ll know exactly what I mean. There’s nothing worse than seeing something on your computer, and then hearing it a fraction of a second later. Sometimes there are workarounds to compensate for the latency, but as a music producer, this seriously hinders my workflow.

When Apple updated the AirPods Max in September 2024, they updated the charging port from the outdated Lightning connector to the universal USB-C. While we wish Apple had brought other improvements to the AirPods Max, the inclusion of USB-C was very welcome. In addition to having to use one less charging cable, we were looking forward to audio over USB-C for wired playback. That’s right, in the modern day and age, you don’t necessarily need a 3.5mm aux input to listen to wired audio, it can work over USB-C. Unfortunately, Apple chose not to include this functionality with the new AirPods Max. There’s also still no 3.5mm aux input on the AirPods Max which means for now, wired listening is still off the table.

Wireless headphones that also support wired listening

If I’m going to invest upwards of $500 in headphones, I need to know that they are versatile enough to cover a variety of use cases. When travelling, I’ll always reach for good noise canceling headphones, but since I like to work on the plane, I need to know that latency won’t be an issue. For that reason, my current favorite noise canceling headphones are the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. While they don’t support playback over USB-C, they do have a separate aux input, and come with a 2.5 to 3.5mm TRS cable. If I ever need to edit a video or work on a song in a pinch, I know these headphones have got me covered.

I really enjoy using the AirPods Max, but for now, I can’t justify spending over $500 on headphones that I can’t use for any professional work. Surely Apple, the same company that makes professional editing software such as Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro, will eventually add wired playback to the AirPods Max headphones. Then again, this is the same company that took the headphone jack out of the iPhone, so I won’t hold my breath.