The Apple AirPods Max are some of the best over-ear headphones on the market, but they’re not the only great pair of headphones you can get your hands on.
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There are several solid alternatives to the AirPods Max that you can get, each offering something unique that the AirPods Max doesn’t.
In this article, we’re going over the best AirPods Max alternatives for price points high and low, reviewing every possible choice and highlighting why we decided to include it in this list. We also included a buyer’s guide to give you all the information you need to make an informed purchase.
Our #1 overall pick for the best AirPods Max Alternative is the Sony WH-1000XM5 for its great sound quality and active noise cancellation.
Best AirPods Max Alternatives
1. Best Overall AirPods Max Alternatives – Sony WH-1000XM5
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Soft-Fit Leather
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 30 Hours
When looking for an alternative to the Apple AirPods Max, you want something sleek, efficient, and powerful. No headphones do a better job of this than the Sony WH-1000XM5.
It’s a reliably good pair of headphones that can provide you with some of the best noise cancelation around. At $350 at the time of writing, they’re about $100 cheaper than the AirPods Max as well.
The Sony WH-1000XM5 comes with 30 hours of battery life, enough for you to listen to your favorite songs and podcasts for a full day and more. It also comes with Sony’s fast charging feature, allowing it to gain a resounding 3 hours of battery life from just 3 minutes of charge!
Touch controls on the side also give you the ability to control your listening experience without ever reaching for a phone.
Transporting your headphones is just as important as using them if you ever want to use them in more than one place, and the Sony WH-1000XM5 comes with a portable carrying case that keeps your headphones safe on the go.
If you want the overall best AirPods Max Alternatives on the market, check out the excellent Sony WH-1000XM5.
2. Best Budget AirPods Max Alternatives – Skullcandy Hesh Evo Wireless Headphones
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Ultralight Headband
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 36 Hours
The Skullcandy Hesh Evo Wireless Headphones sell for just above $100, nearly a fifth of what the Apple AirPods Max retails for.
While most other headphones on this list are similar in price, these wireless headphones still provide great active noise cancellation and have a decent battery life, all for a much lower dollar amount.
The Skullcandy Hesh Evo Wireless Headphones come with a quick charging feature and the reliable build quality Skullcandy is known for.
Skullcandy has been making reliable headphones for 20 years and you can see their quality through their great AirPods Max alternative.
The Hesh Evo comes with a collapsible design and an ultralight headband so you can fit it in your bag and take it with you wherever you go. The ear cups come with a noise-isolating fit too, so that external sounds are blocked before they can ever pollute your noise.
You don’t have to spend nearly $500 to get a good alternative to the Apple AirPods Max and the Skullcandy Evo Hesh Wireless Headphones prove it. For just over $100, you can get a great pair of wireless headphones with active noise cancellation and excellent sound quality.
If you’re in the market for an alternative to the wonderful AirPods Max but don’t want to break the bank, check out the Skullcandy Hesh Evo Wireless Headphones.
3. Best Battery Life for AirPods Max Alternatives – Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Padded Headband with Cushioned Ear Cups
- Noise Canceling: Yes (Adaptive Noise Cancelation)
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 60 Hours
Battery Life is very important to wireless headphone users. It should be; the whole point of having wireless headphones is to have a mobile battery you can rely on.
If you like long listening sessions, or if you forget to charge your battery from time to time, let us introduce you to the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless.
They’re around $275, $200 less than the Apple AirPods Max. While you’d be saving a couple hundred dollars on these great alternatives, you’d still be getting a ton of great features.
The Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless comes with an incredibly impressive 60 hours of battery life. To put that in perspective, you can listen to these headphones all day one day, all day a second day, and still have enough battery for a third day.
That’s a battery life not many other headphones on this list can compete with. They also come with a great quick charging feature in which you can get a whopping 6 hours of playback time in just 10 minutes of charge.
Sennheiser’s next-generation adaptive noise cancelation can adapt to ambient noise without you ever having to press a button.
The renowned audio company also built the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless with a comfortable fit and excellent build quality, ensuring you’ll want to wear these headphones for 60 hours straight.
If you love a longer battery life and a lower price, consider buying the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless.
4. Best Noise Canceling AirPods Max Alternatives – Bose QuietComfort 45
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Lightweight Materials
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 22 Hours
While good battery life is hugely important in the world of wireless headphones and AirPods Max alternatives, noise canceling reigns supreme as well. If you’re listening to music or a podcast in a crowded environment, noise cancelation is key to keeping sound quality up and external noise down.
Enter the Bose QuietComfort 45, Bose’s best noise-canceling headphones. They’re on the market for about $150 less than the AirPods too, offering a lot of the same qualities for a more affordable price tag.
Bose placed tiny mics in each of the ear cups to pick up ambient noise and block it before it can reach your ear. If you do want to let outside noise in, however, Bose has included Aware Mode so that you can hear background noise even with the noise-canceling headphones in.
You can control the Bose QuietComfort from the Bose Music App as well which allows you to customize your sound and the headphones to your preference. It’s available for Android devices and iOS devices.
Active noise cancellation is key in the world of wireless headphones and none do it as well as the Apple AirPods Max and their noise canceling alternative, the Bose QuietComfort 45. They come with good sound quality and a decent listening time of 22 hours.
If you need a quick charge, you can get up to 2.5 hours of play from just 15 minutes of charge time. Check out the Bose QuietComfort 45 if you want the quietest alternative to the Apple AirPods Max.
5. Best In-Ear AirPods Max Alternatives – Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Multiple Ear Tip Sizes
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 6 Hours
While the Apple AirPods Max is a pair of over-ear headphones and we included over-ear headphones as the best AirPods Max alternatives, we also wanted to include a pair of in-ear earbuds. They offer something the AirPods Max doesn’t, in more ways than one.
While their battery life may be smaller than the other options on this list, the AirPods Pro are the only headphones that can fit in your pocket, allowing you to take your music wherever you can take your phone.
They come with great sound quality and an even better active noise cancelation feature. By simply holding the touch controls on your earbud tips, you can turn off ambient sound mode and turn on active noise cancelation, bringing out every note from your music.
They also come with personalized spatial audio, meaning they can adapt to your surroundings and control noise cancellation intensity on their own.
If you like the Apple AirPods Max and want a smaller iphone headphones, more portable alternative, look no further than the Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation.
They come with great noise cancellation and a good transparency mode so that you can listen to everything around you or nothing all at the touch of a button. You can get these great active noise-canceling earbuds for half of the price as the AirPods Max as well.
6. Best Apple Compatible AirPods Max Alternatives – Beats Solo3
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Cushioned Ear Cups
- Noise Canceling: No
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 40 Hours
The Beats Solo3 is a good low-cost alternative to the Apple AirPods Max. It comes at a third of the price but with more than enough features to make any music enthusiast happy.
While they don’t have an active noise canceling feature, they do have the Apple W1 Headphone Chip, giving them the ability to play your favorite music at the best sound quality possible.
These headphones are the best Apple-compatible AirPods Max alternative because of the W1 Chip. It allows the iPhone and other Apple products to treat the Beats Solo3 like the Apple AirPods Max, giving you the ability to customize and control your sound from your phone.
You don’t need a separate app to get the most out of these headphones if you’re an iPhone user.
The Beats Solo3 also supports spatial audio so that you can feel completely immersed in anything you listen to. They come with 40 hours of battery life and a quick charge feature called Fast Fuel which can get you 3 hours of playback time in just 5 minutes of charge.
If you love the Apple AirPods Max for their computability with other Apple devices and want an alternative that can do the same, consider buying the Beats Solo3.
7. Budget Alternative to the Sony WH-1000XM5 – Sony WH-CH720N
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Sony’s Lightest Headband Ever
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 35 Hours
While the Sony WH-1000XM5 is our #1 overall alternative to the Apple AirPods Max, they are over $300, meaning they may not be an option everyone can afford.
We wanted to introduce readers of this list to the Sony WH-CH720N, a pair of headphones that share many of the same features that make the Sony WH-1000XM5 so great.
The WH-CH720N costs $150 at the time of writing, a sizable 50% less than the WH-1000XM5. At half the price, you’re still getting intuitive touch controls, a smart control app, and a premium pair of headphones that are built with a spectacular battery life.
They are the previous generation to the Sony WH-1000XM5, but they are still a great pair of active noise-cancelling headphones.
Sony headphones are always great and the Sony WH-CH720N are no exception. They have more features than most other headphones at their price tag and come with voice features compatible with Google Assistant as well.
Check out these popular headphones if you want to get as close to our number one choice for the best Apple AirPods Max alternatives while staying on budget.
8. Best Personalized Spatial Audio AirPods Max Alternatives – Beats Studio Pro
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: UltraPlush Over-Ear Cushions
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 40 Hours
Beats is one of the best audio equipment companies making headphones around. Their Beats Studio Pro headphones are a testament to their dedication to their listeners, as these headphones have personalized spatial audio at the top of their priority list.
When you listen to these headphones, whether on iPhones or Android phones, you will experience great sound through quality active noise canceling and a precision sound filter.
The Beats Studio Pro surrounds you with such immersive personalized audio that Beats claims that wearing these headphones feels like you’re surrounded by 64 different speakers at once.
The updated driver and two-layer diaphragm deliver rich and balanced audio on a level unattainable by most other headphones, making the Beats Studio Pro a deserving Apple AirPods Max Alternative.
The Beats Studio Pro comes with both an active noise cancelling mode and a transparency mode so you can control what you’re listening to without having to worry about taking the headphones off.
If you like to feel immersed in what you’re listening to, like you’re part of the band or in the same room as your favorite podcast, no headphones do it better than the Beats Studio Pro. Their personalized spatial audio is second to none in the world of alternatives to the AirPods Max.
9. Best Overall Fast Charge AirPods Max Alternative – Sennheiser HD 450BT
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Ergonomic Design
- Noise Canceling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 30 Hours
Battery life and fast charging capabilities are important in the world of wireless headphones. Quick charging is especially important for those of us who sometimes forget to charge our headphones before we head out for the day.
The Sennheiser HD 450BT combats this issue through its USB-C fast charger. Their fast charger can get your hours of listening time in just a couple of minutes of charge time.
The Sennheiser HD 450BT is a great pair of noise-canceling headphones built to last. They come from Sennheiser, the same company that made the Sennheiser Momentum series of headphones.
The Sennheiser HD 450BT is a more affordable version of the powerful Sennheiser Momentum, featuring a lot of the same components that make its more expensive version so attractive.
These headphones come pre-equipped with both Siri and Google Assistant interaction capabilities, allowing you to play your next song or call a friend without having to use your phone.
While other headphones on our list may have been better for an Apple user, these are great for an Android user as well. If fast charging capabilities are important to you when looking for Apple AirPods Max alternatives, your best bet is the Sennheiser HD 450BT.
10. Best AirPods Max Alternatives for Phone Calls – Bose 700
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Stainless-Steel Headband
- Noise Cancelling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wireless
- Battery Life: 20 Hours
The Apple AirPods Max are great for making phone calls, and the best alternative for them in the phone-call department is the Bose 700.
Bose noise-cancelling headphones are known for their sound quality and overall comfortable fit. The Bose 700 does well in these departments through its stainless-steel headband and its ultra-soft foam underside.
The Bose 700 comes with a microphone system to not only pick up your voice but also pick up any noise around you. You can have the clearest conversations in the loudest environments or even during the windiest days.
Bose noise-cancelling headphones all come with controllable noise-cancellation modes and a transparency mode so that you can control exactly what you want to hear from the press of a button.
Sound quality is second to none in the Bose 700. Bose noise-cancelling headphones are known for their great build quality as well; these headphones are lightweight, durable, and portable.
Best of all, they’re great for making phone calls, with a microphone system that will work hard to pick up your voice clearly and isolate the noise around you. If you liked making calls on the Apple AirPods Max, you should enjoy it just as much as the Bose 700.
11. Best Expensive AirPods Max Alternatives – Bowers and Wilkins Px8
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Nappa Leather Trim
- Noise Cancelling: Yes
- Wireless or Wired: Wired
- Battery Life: 30 Hours
The Bowers and Wilkins Px8 is the perfect answer to “What if I want to look at the best Apple AirPods Max alternatives without worrying about a budget?”. These headphones are the only pair on this list that are more expensive than the AirPods Max, and it shows.
It comes with a list of features and premium materials that certainly make it stand out. The ANC performance is second to none with the Bowers and Wilkins Px8 and their transparency mode works great as well.
The Bowers and Wilkins Px8 comes with a compatible app you can use to customize your listening experience right away. You can change EQ settings and enable voice control from your phone, making setup easy.
The Px8 also comes with adjustable external microphones so you can further control just how much external noise you want to let in.
Bowers and Wilkins is one of the most respected audio equipment manufacturers today and their flagship headphones, the Px8, is a perfect testament to its abilities.
It’s a great pair of noise-cancelling headphones that provide a sound quality, not many other headphones on this list can match. Get yourself a pair of the Bowers and Wilkins Px8 if you want not just an alternative to your AirPods Max, but an upgrade.
12. Best Audiophile AirPods Max Alternative – Sennheiser HD 600
SPECS
- Comfort and Fit: Velour Pads
- Noise Cancelling: No
- Wireless or Wired: Wired
- Battery Life: N/A
The Sennheiser HD 600 is the perfect pair of headphones for an audiophile looking for an alternative to the Apple AirPods Max. These open-back headphones were built with referencing in mind.
Sennheiser even used lightweight aluminum voice coils to get the best playback possible. It also comes with a wide frequency response so you can listen to hi-fidelity tracks clearly.
42mm transducers are included on both of the ear cups to minimize harmonic distortion as well. Sennheiser knows that most producers and audiophiles use their headphones for hours on end, so they designed their HD600 with an elliptical ear cup and velour pads.
The comfort of this pair of headphones is second to none. The cable comes with is detachable as well, making portability much easier for a pair of wired headphones.
While they aren’t noise-canceling headphones, they are perfect for an audiophile who not only wants to listen to their music but analyzes it as well. The open-back ear cup design facilitates the natural expansion of sound waves so that your headphones aren’t getting in the way of themselves.
If you want to study your music and want the best AirPods Max alternative to do so, check out the Sennheiser HD 600.
Best AirPods Max Alternatives Buyer’s Guide
When you’re in the market for the best headphone alternative to the AirPods Max, there are a couple of key features you need to consider. The four most essential features to keep an eye out for are sound quality, comfort and fit, and noise cancelling capabilities.
Sound Quality
Sound quality is perhaps the most critical feature to evaluate when buying headphones. Look for headphones that offer clear, balanced, and high-quality audio. Pay attention to factors like frequency response, driver size, and audio codecs (e.g., aptX, AAC for Bluetooth headphones).
Comfort and Fit
Comfort is crucial, especially if you plan to wear your headphones for extended periods. Consider the design (over-ear, on-ear, in-ear) that suits you best, and look for features like cushioned ear cups, an adjustable headband, and lightweight materials.
A comfortable fit can significantly enhance your overall listening experience.
Noise Cancelling
Depending on your environment and preferences, you may want headphones with noise isolation or good ANC performance. Noise isolation relies on physical barriers (like ear cup padding) to block out external sounds, while ANC uses technology to reduce ambient noise actively.
Choose the option that aligns with your needs, whether it’s for travel, commuting, or a quieter listening experience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the best alternatives to the Apple AirPods Max?
The “best” alternative depends on your specific preferences and priorities. Some popular alternatives include headphones from brands like Sony, Bose, Sennheiser, Bowers & Wilkins, and more. Research and consider your requirements for sound quality, comfort, features, and budget.
Do AirPods Max alternatives offer similar sound quality?
Many AirPods Max alternatives offer excellent sound quality, with some even surpassing Apple’s offering. To find the right alternative, read reviews, compare specifications, and consider your personal audio preferences.
Are there wireless alternatives to the AirPods Max?
Yes, many AirPods Max alternatives are wireless (Bluetooth) headphones, offering the convenience of wireless connectivity. Ensure they are compatible with your devices and check for features like multi-device pairing.
Conclusion
The right alternative to the AirPods Max will get you what you liked about Apple’s over-ear headphones in another product. You can find the right pair of headphones by looking at their overall sound quality, noise-cancelling capabilities, and their comfort and fit.
The overall best alternative to the Apple AirPods Max on our list is the Sony WH-1000XM5 for its build quality and great sound quality.
