Audeze just gave the Maxwell 2 ANC, but there’s some stuff you need to know before buying

At last! The delayed Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC cometh, following up the fantastic Audeze Maxwell 2 and, before that, the original Audeze Maxwell. I’ve reviewed and extensively used both prior models, and believe me, it’s long been a winning formula.

The Maxwell 2 ANC packs the same 90mm planar magnetic drivers as the Maxwell 2, for super crisp audio (especially up high); the same SLAM plates for improved bass response down low; and, well, the same pretty much everything. Only now there’s ANC.

That level of similarity also has its cons. Just like its forebears, the Maxwell 2 ANC is heavy, and uses the same suspended headband that has minimal adjustment — complaints I’ve had with both previous iterations. It’s also a lot pricier than the non-ANC model, and battery life takes a major hit when using ANC.

So is this the best gaming headset for you? Find out in my full Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review.

Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? An elite-tier gaming headset from audiophile manufacturer, Audeze
• Who is it for? Gamers who want the absolute best sound quality for gaming and music
• What does it cost? A fair bit: $429 / £429
• What do we like? The sound quality, strong ANC, excellent mic and solid build quality
• What don’t we like? The headband, weight, ANC battery life and cost

Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review: Specs

Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review: The ups

The Maxwell 2 ANC sounds fantastic thanks to its Audeze pedigree, and boasts strong ANC, a fantastic mic and decent build quality.

Audiophile pedigree

Audeze, is well known in the audio industry for its high-end audiophile headphones. As such, the Maxwell headsets have some serious sound quality pedigree.

Like its predecessors, the Maxwell 2 ANC features 90mm planar magnetic drivers. Instead of the cone-shaped dynamic drivers typically used in headsets, planar drivers create sound using ultra-thin metal filaments that vibrate when electricity is passed through them. This means planar drivers can start and stop vibrating much faster than cones, giving much sharper response and greater tonal clarity, especially in the higher frequency range.

Connectivity-wise, there’s support for up to 24-bit/96kHz over the USB-C dongle, for wireless high-res. Or lossless via USB-C wired. Bluetooth-wise, this headset supports LDAC for hi-res(-ish) Bluetooth and Auracast for hooking up to a single audio source in tandem with other devices.

Note: The Maxwell 2 ANC Xbox/PC version supports Dolby Atmos. Audeze supplied me with the PlayStation/PC version, which doesn’t support Atmos.

Isonzo

Planars are Audeze’s ‘thing’, and it’s very good at them. Response is super tight and fast, delivering extremely crisp sound, especially in the treble. That gives you excellent clarity for competitive gameplay. In the FPS Isonzo, using the ‘Footsteps’ EQ, enemy footsteps were easy to distinguish among the cacophony of WW1 noise, and effortless to pinpoint thanks to strong spatial imaging. As always with Audeze’s planars, though, the treble isn’t overdone and never becomes painful or fatiguing. There was plenty of mid-range clarity too, for satisfying, mechanical reloads, helping with immersion.

Planars typically lack the super thick, powerful bass of dynamics. Indeed, through the Maxwell 2 ANC, artillery explosions in Isonzo lacked the outright depth and impact of dynamic headsets like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Elite, Fractal Design Scape and Razer BlackShark V3 Pro.

However, the Maxwell 2 ANC has the same SLAM plates as its predecessor — metal plates over the drivers which help keep bass frequencies cleaner and free of distortion at higher amplification. That means you can amp up the low end via EQ in the Audeze app, to better reproduce explosions and heavy rumbles. In general, I had to do a little work EQing this headset per-game, but that’s cool, as the Audeze app makes it easy.

Sniper Elite: Resistance

In quieter, more contemplative gaming, I really appreciated the Maxwell 2 ANC’s top end detail. In Sniper Elite: Resistance, enemy footsteps are often extremely soft, but I was able to detect them with relative ease, even using the Maxwell 2 ANC’s Immersive EQ rather than Footsteps preset.

Vocals also sounded great, with Harry Hawker’s cockney accent staying prominent and clear above the din of a misfiring engine. There was also a lovely, natural timbre to vocals — Hawker sounds like he’s smoked a 20-pack then swallowed a bag of gravel, and I could hear the subtle distortions and crackles in his hoarse, husky voice.

Total War: Rome II

In Total War: Rome II, the game’s magnificent, cinematic OST sounded absolutely fantastic. I could hear each orchestral instrument with pinpoint clarity, from the gentle flutes and panpipes through to the boisterous trumpets and huge percussive smashes. During battles, that stereo imaging came to the fore once again, and I felt myself immersed in the chaos of the fighting.

Music

I also listened to my fair share of music on the Maxwell 2 ANC, playing my usual audio testing playlist on Qobuz, our favorite music streaming service for audiophiles. Bass was, again, tight and enveloping, if not the punchiest or subbiest in electronica. Plenty of top-end detail and mid-range clarity provides strong instrument separation and lets vocals and delicate effects shine — even during busier productions and when EQ’d for bass.

There’s a respectably spacious sound for closed back cans, too. Sure, there’s not the same amount of width as with open backs like the Sony Inzone H6 Air, but that’s the price you pay for isolation and noise cancellation.

Overall, if you want a dual-purpose headset for gaming and detailed music listening, it has to be a Maxwell.

Listen along to my audio testing playlist on Qobuz.

Genuinely good ANC

Audeze claims the Maxwell 2 ANC has the “best ANC in gaming”. It’s not the first brand to bring the hyperbolics to ANC marketing, with SteelSeries claiming its Arctis Nova Elite ($599) and Arctis Nova Pro Omni ($399) can block out the sound of a helicopter (spoiler: they couldn’t block the road noise outside my window).

Audeze claims it has proof, though, touting a lab test graph showing the Maxwell 2 ANC’s superior noise reduction versus a certain $599 competitor. And yeah, I can believe it. Combined with redesigned earpad foam for increased passive noise reduction over its predecessor, the Maxwell’s ANC performed much better than the Nova Elite in my tests. Same room for gaming. Same road outside. Same keyboards on my and my wife’s desk. Same office when I tested at work.

The Maxwell 2 ANC cut road noise very effectively, keeping me immersed in the tense mood of Sniper Elite: Resistance, as well as the atmospheric OST and tumultuous battles of Total War: Rome II. It almost entirely cut the noise of my NuPhy Halo75 V2, and completely drowned out voices, so was great for working, too. On several occasions my wife had to come upstairs and tap me on the shoulder after shouting up to me had failed. I also tested the headset at the London launch event, playing Star Wars Battlefront II in a busy, noisy pub — I heard virtually no noise, and again someone had to tap my shoulder when my time was up.

Annoyingly, mouse clicks not only got through, but sounded piercing. My wife has a cheap, noisy mouse for work, and the sounds were really frustrating. This was mainly an issue when using Bluetooth, though. Over 2.4G, higher frequencies were a little more muffled.

I didn’t notice an appreciable drop in sound quality with ANC on, either. There was a slight contracting of the soundstage — the radio vocal effects in Sniper Elite: Resistance cutscenes sounded a little less reverby, for instance — but nothing serious. This ties up with Audeze’s frequency response curves, which show marginal differences between ANC on and off.

Warm, clear mic

The Maxwell 2 already boasted the best performing headset boom mic I’ve tested, so it’s no surprise that the ANC version, which uses the same mic, sounds great too. On test calls with colleagues, they reported that my voice sounded clear and warm, and surprisingly high quality for a headset mic.

The Maxwell 2 ANC uses two mics — a hypercardioid boom mic and a beamforming mic in the headset. The combination works well for reducing environmental noise. The hypercardioid mic pattern cuts out most noise from the side and peripheries, focusing only on your voice, while the beamforming mic uses noise reduction to cut ambient sounds. On test calls, I left my window open to let in noise from the busy road outside. My colleagues heard no distracting sound whatsoever.

Same old Maxwell build, plus extras

Weight-gain aside, the Maxwell 2 ANC’s design is more or less the same as the Maxwell 2. It looks pretty much the same, is built just as nicely and also features removable earcup plates to allow for customization.

The build isn’t on par with the exquisite (and cheaper) Fractal Design Scape or Razer BlackShark V3 Pro, but the Maxwell 2 ANC doesn’t feel cheap (which is good, because it isn’t).

Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review: The downs

Unfortunately, the Maxwell 2 ANC maintains its predecessor’s frustrating strap and is very heavy at 1.2 lbs. Battery life with ANC on takes a big hit over 2.4G, plus it’s rather pricey.

Strap still lacks adjustment

My biggest gripe with the Maxwell 2 ANC is the same that I had with the OG Maxwell and Maxwell 2: the headband. The only adjustment is via three fixed levels on the suspended inner headband. If, like me, you fall between one of those, you have to fit one side lower than the other, resulting in a lopsided headset.

I wish Audeze would just add some adjustment to the earcups sliders like literally every other headset. I actually spoke to Audeze’s design team about this at the Maxwell 2 ANC press event. They're aware it can be an issue, but it hasn't been a priority to change thus far. Hopefully we see improvements next time.

Huge, hot ‘n’ heavy

Like its predecessors, the Maxwell 2 ANC is a beast, thanks to those big drivers and large batteries needed to drive them. The size doesn’t bother me too much, but the weight does. Thanks to the ANC system, the new model weighs 2.5 ounces/70g more than the already weighty non-ANC version. The new model weighs a whopping 1.2lbs, and I found my neck getting pretty tired after longer stints.

I also found the earcups getting pretty hot and sticky, although I was testing in unseasonable hot conditions during a string of U.K. summer heatwaves, where temperatures pushed to 100F/38C.

If you regularly game for longer stints and think this would be an issue, I would advise a lighter and more breathable headset, like the Arctis Nova Pro Omni, Fractal Design Scape or Razer BlackShark V3 Pro. All three were incredibly comfortable during our testing.

ANC battery life suffers

Obviously, with ANC, battery life is gonna take a hit. Audeze claims 35 hours with ANC, down from 40 with it off. That’s over Bluetooth, though. Over Wi-Fi, my headset was dropping 20% every couple of hours, meaning around 10 hours of playback, extrapolated.

Audeze just can’t compete with SteelSeries here — the Nova Pro Omni and Nova Elite both come with second batteries that charge in their USB hubs/DACs, meaning up to 60 hours of playback, but zero downtime as long as you’re near the USB hub.

Really rather pricey

The Maxwell 2 ANC costs $429 / £429, so up a sizable $100 from the Maxwell 2’s launch price. While it sucks, I’m not surprised by it. Flagship/ultra-premium headsets are regularly pushing into silly money now, with the Nova Elite having set the precedent at $599. The Nova Pro Omni costs $499 and packs similar features to the Maxwell 2 ANC.

If you want the best sound in gaming, the Maxwell 2 is still my suggestion and costs much less, although obviously doesn’t pack ANC — if you have a noisy road nearby, like me, that could be a dealbreaker. For even less, you can pick up the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro for $249, which features powerful ANC, but its strong sound quality still won’t match that of Audeze’s planars. The Nova Pro Omni is even pricier and way more comfortable, although its ANC isn’t quite as good, and the sound quality, again, just can’t quite compete with the finesse of those planars.

Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC review: Verdict

As so often is the case in life, if you want everything, you gotta pay for it. If sound quality is the only priority you have and you want a headset for gaming and music, there’s really no reason to buy the Maxwell 2 ANC over the Maxwell 2 — the cheaper headset uses the same drivers and puts out equally excellent sound. Unfortunately, if you want or need ANC for work, or simply a noisier home environment, you’ll need to cough up the dough… if you also want those lovely planar drivers.

Our 3.5-star score is defined as very good, but with enough caveats to prevent a 4-star award and our outright recommendation to buy. The Maxwell 2 ANC sounds fantastic, but there are cheaper alternatives that give you ANC without sacrificing comfort. If it has to be the planars, though, and you need ANC, then this is pretty much the only headset to shortlist.