AirPods Max 2 are my Headphones of the Year Award despite their few clear flaws — because when you do everything else this well, it just doesn't matter

That ANC! That sound quality!

Opinion By Becky Scarrott Published 29 October 2026

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I did not expect to love the AirPods Max 2 so much, upon testing them. Nobody is more surprised than me that I chose Apple's new over-ears for Headphones of the Year at the TechRadar Product of the Year Awards 2026.

Bowers & Wilkins has won this award the last few years, and I even hovered over the excellent five-star HEDD HEDDPhones D1 for a moment. But despite being trailblazing cans from a pioneering new audio outfit (and for some, that will fit the bill perfectly) the D1 are open-back, wired, passive beasts. And the thing is, AirPods Max 2 just do so much more for the money.

Even though you, the readers, also voted the AirPods Max 2 for this award in our TechRadar Readers' Choice Awards 2026, I'm certain there will still be some cries of discontentment about this. 'Wait, so Apple's AirPods Max 2, the set that look almost identical to the 2020 originals, and have lower battery life than any of the competition, and have no wireless hi-res codecs (and the wired lossless support also came to first-gen model anyway), and that still come with the weird headphone bra case, those won?'

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Yes. Yes really. And if you give me a few minutes, I'm going to explain why. That said, if you still want to comment below, I'm all ears.

Yes, AirPods Max 2 look similar to their 7-year-old siblings — they're just that good

OK, so the lossless stuff with a wired connection isn't new, and neither is the look of the things. But what has changed with these March 2026 issue cans is the inclusion of a new H2 chip and all of its computational wizardry. And this makes them punchier sonically, ups the ANC efficacy significantly (and it wasn't at all bad beforehand, remember), and adds new perks such as Live Translation, Adaptive Audio, Conversation Awareness, Head Gesture control and the Camera Remote feature.

The one caveat is that some features require an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. Android owner? This isn't your day I'm afraid, and I'm sorry about that — your closest pick would be last September's Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (Gen 2).

But the box-fresh Apple Intelligence features genuinely make for an excellent, full-throttle music and call-handling experience that does everything you need and does it with minimal fuss, app consultations, screen taps or button pushing.

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