They sound incredible (with Apple products), feel super premium, excel at noise cancelling and have really good mics. I've tried Bose and Sony; in fact, I have

They sound incredible (with Apple products), feel super premium, excel at noise cancelling and have really good mics. I've tried Bose and Sony; in fact, I have two pairs of QC Ultras sitting in their boxes waiting to be sold. Neither sound as good, even after EQing them as close to the Harman curve as their software allows (with Apple products; I haven't tried them with AptX streaming) and both were slower at cancelling noise. The Bose headphones I tried got decent mics after an update, but they are still unreliable at times. The Maxes are also heavy, but you don't feel it due to its being very nicely distributed across the head. I've seen scores of people run, walk, and work out in these. I even saw a child using them! I can't stress how premium the Maxes feel. The cups, for example, don't deform even after hours and hours of wear (and sweat). Replacing them is trivial and they attach with magnets instead of adhesive and/or clips. The headphone band is also extremely strong; much stronger than it looks. They feel like $549. Meanwhile, Bose charges $499 for their QuietComfort Ultras with their slow noise cancelling processors (AirPods use Apple Silicon, which is unbeatable atm) and cheap, plastic body (though part of the headphone band has a chrome finish --- premium!) All this said, Bose and Sony headphones are significantly easier to travel with, and they have power buttons. This was why I sold my AirPods Maxes the first go around (though I went back to them a year later for the reasons stated previously).