I was gifted a high end pair of Beats many years ago, and my reaction was that music sounded “fun”. They couldn’t replace my studio monitor headphones, which we

I was gifted a high end pair of Beats many years ago, and my reaction was that music sounded “fun”. They couldn’t replace my studio monitor headphones, which were way more accurate. But they hyped up music in a way that was pleasurable. If you shoot photos or video, you may be familiar with flat color profiles. RAW photos, or Log color profile videos. That flatness is important for professional work. But sometimes you want a JPG straight out of a Canon camera because their “color science” is gorgeous, and the photo doesn’t need much correction. Otherwise — fashion trends aside — an unprocessed RAW is dull. At this price point, I feel like the Max’s are for people who want a quality fashion accessory that sounds amazing with little work. Kind of like the Bose speakers my dad splurged on when I was a kid. I’d later find out they were not considered great speakers. Did we care? No. They made movies fun, and brought my dad joy as he cleaned the house on Saturday’s blasting Led Zeppelin or some 80s New Wave cassette. But for a professional tool, the author’s comparison to computational photography catches my eye. Because, despite buying every high-end iPhone for the camera system, I’m perennially frustrated. My DSLR smokes it, consistently. The computational stuff is impressive, but it still just doesn’t come close to reliably capturing quality shots the way my Canon does. But the “best camera is the one you have with you” — and when I’m out and about, I still appreciate having the lates-and-greatest iPhone camera system. Anyway, long winded but my point isn’t to throw shade at the new Max’s. I haven’t tried them personally. I came close to buying them, but considered the back order and price and decided on some AirPod Pros - my first wireless ear buds. And I love them! They’re life changing for me because I can clean, and exercise, and turn on noise cancellation and get stuff done. I think the bottom line is, if you love Apple stuff, don’t care about the price — or are excited to splurge on high end accessory — and you don’t do professional audio work, I get the impression that you’ll probably love these headphones. But professional audio engineers are probably going to still rely on monitors for serious work.