Audeze Maxwell 2 review: Worth it if you don’t have the original

It’s been three years since the audiophile-centric company Audeze took the audiophile-grade wireless gaming headset by storm with the Maxwell. Now, they’ve released the much-anticipated Maxwell 2, which includes some upgrades. However, are they enough to warrant upgrading from the original Maxwell, and should new buyers grab it over the originals? Find out in our Audeze Maxwell 2 review.

What’s it like to use the Audeze Maxwell 2?

Looking at the Audeze Maxwell 2, it feels familiar enough to be mistaken for the original Maxwell. There are a few differences, such as the holes on the earcups, the controls, which no longer sit on a single earcup. The headband is much larger and perforated this time around.

The earcups are plush and deep, with a pleather cover. Despite weighing 567g, I was only able to wear the Audeze Maxwell 2 for 4 hours before they became uncomfortable. The pleather cover is the main point of concern. I don’t have issues wearing it outside in Canada’s frigid cold, but when I come back inside after a few hours, it becomes uncomfortably warm. It’s not uncomfortable enough that I couldn’t keep wearing the Audeze Maxwell 2; I just noticed it sticking to my skin.

The headrest is an absolute pain to adjust if you have to. The plus side is that it’s never going to slip out of position, so it is a once-and-never-again scenario. To adjust it, you’re pulling the strap completely off the pins that hold the headrest to the headset. This takes a lot of effort and has only three adjustment points. The headrest is much wider, which increases the sweetspot and makes it feel like it’s not adding extra pressure to the top of my head. This mostly negates the feeling of weight on my head. However, while moving around on the bus during a commute, I feel a bit of inertia pulling my head. It’s not a commuter headset, but it can double as one in a pinch.

Speaking of the commute, there’s a slight rattling while I walk wearing the Audeze Maxwell 2. This is because the mute switch is loose in the mute position. This isn’t the case when I’m sitting still at home. However, there is an audible noise floor that bugs me only a little bit, which rears its ugly head whenever there are quiet parts in a song. More on that in the sound quality section.

How do you control the Audeze Maxwell 2?

On the right earcup, there aren’t many controls, but it does have the power button and the mic mute toggle switch. The power button doubles as a Bluetooth pairing mode switch. When the Audeze Maxwell 2 isn’t paired via Bluetooth, double-tapping the power button puts it into Bluetooth pairing mode. There’s a mute switch that, on our unit, is excessively loose in the mute position. It could use a spring as it rattles a bit. Despite that, I only hear the rattling when walking with the switch in the mute position.

On the left earcup, there is a button on the front to toggle mic AI noise reduction modes, and two jog wheels, one for volume, playback, and EQ. It’s not the most intuitive to find, but at least you still have playback controls. Pressing the jog wheel cycles it through the three modes. In playback, scrolling up is forward, and scrolling down is backward. In volume mode, it’s up to increase volume and down to decrease volume. I’d be surprised if it were the opposite. Going to EQ mode will cycle through the available EQ built into the Maxwell 2. Additionally, it will cycle through the custom EQ set through the Audeze app. I personally don’t like that there isn’t a dedicated playback control section, as it’s annoying to switch between volume, EQ, and playback controls.

Should you use the Audeze app for the Audeze Maxwell 2?

The Audeze desktop software only recognizes the USB dongle, not the Audeze Maxwell 2 when connected via Bluetooth. There isn’t much difference from the mobile app, other than the larger screen and the ability to update the firmware of the USB dongle and headset itself.

The mobile app doesn’t recognize the USB dongle as a connected device and will require a Bluetooth connection. Not that you would want to use the wireless dongle while gaming on the phone, since it sticks out too much. However, once you get into the app, the home page is pretty bare bones. There’s the battery percentage, current EQ setting, and microphone mute state. Diving deeper into the app, you can control the AI noise removal filter, which is adjustable on the headset itself. There’s the headset volume, which is adjustable on the headset itself. It also has side-tone controls, which are adjustable on the headset itself. You get what I mean, but it is nice if you want to know the numbers for the volume you prefer.

What I do like is that the app can hold four custom EQ settings, plus it comes with 5 presets. The presets include treble boost, bass boost, immersive, competition, and footsteps. With the custom EQ profiles, you get a 10-band equalizer with ±12 levels of adjustment. You can change the current EQ through the app. Unfortunately, it’s not a parametric EQ, and I can’t target a specific frequency or adjust the Q depth. This is typical of most gaming headsets, but competitors like Logitech have a fully adjustable EQ in their mobile app. There is no clutter or advertising, like Logitech and Razer. It is nice that there’s no login option or push to sign up for emails on install. Would love to see a little more customization here, but it is a good start.

How do you connect the Audeze Maxwell 2?

The Audeze Maxwell 2 offers two wireless and two wired connection modes. The wired connection is through the 3.5mm jack and USB-C on the left earcup. The wireless options on the Audeze Maxwell 2 are via Bluetooth and the 2.4 GHz wireless dongle.

I’ve connected the Audeze Maxwell 2 USB dongle to a Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, and Android. Using the wireless USB dongle, the audio shows no noticeable lag. Switching to Bluetooth, there’s no noticeable lag either, which is pretty good, as many wireless headsets don’t offer a lag-free Bluetooth experience.

When connected to a computer, either the wireless USB dongle or the headset’s USB port will provide 2 separate outputs. This allows you to output the game and chat audio separately. I found that this works on both macOS and Windows. One caveat when connecting via the wireless USB dongle to different devices with Android or iOS is that the volume is much lower than expected, so you’ll need to push it to max. I tried to connect the Audeze Maxwell through both the wireless dongle and USB-C connection. It will default to the USB-C connection and disconnect from the wireless USB dongle.

The Maxwell 2 supports Bluetooth 5.3 with Auracast, LE Audio, LC3, LC3plus, LDAC, AAC, SBC, and Multipoint. This is great support, but we would love to see some aptx support as well. It’s not a deal breaker, as I expect most people to use the wireless USB dongle, which supports up to 24-bit at 96kHz for audio streaming. You can connect the headset with both Bluetooth and Wireless USB simultaneously, but it will prioritize Bluetooth. When audio plays through the Bluetooth connection, it will override the USB dongle audio. So you won’t miss calls if you get one while gaming. Unfortunately, you can’t have simultaneous audio via Bluetooth and the wireless USB dongle, which is becoming more common on wireless gaming headsets these days. It’s a missed opportunity, as many gamers use their phones as a secondary chat when playing on consoles.

How long does the Audeze Maxwell 2’s battery last?

The Audeze Maxwell is rated for 80 hours of battery life, which, in use, is more than enough if you plug them in at least once every few days. I’ve tested them for roughly 8 hours a day, playing games, heading to the office, and working for some time. It lasted just over a week without plugging it in. The downside is that when it does go into low battery, it announces it pretty annoyingly, even though it has about an hour before it runs out. It’s not horrible when the audio playing is really busy.

If you want to extend the battery life of the Audeze Maxwell 2, you can adjust the auto-shutoff feature to be more aggressive than the default 1-hour inactive time before shutting down. I have not found a reason to change this, and given the extensive battery life, the default setting is more than enough.

How well does the Audeze Maxwell 2 attenuate noise?

There isn’t any Active Noise Cancellation on the Audeze Maxwell 2; that’s for the upcoming Maxwell 2 with ANC. This means the Maxwell 2 blocks sound through passive isolation, which it does pretty well. Looking at the graph, it’s just like most passive noise isolation: it dulls higher-pitched sounds, such as the screeching of children or the screaming of trains on the tracks. The noise of a large crowd turns into a loud murmur. With music playing, the passive isolation lets it drown out most external noise, but you’ll have to turn the volume up to a painful level.

How do the Audeze Maxwell 2 sound?

The Audeze Maxwell 2 has great separation and precise spatial depth for FPS shooters. However, even with Audeze’s “Slam” technology, basslines can still feel lacking during busy tracks.

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the sound of the Audeze Maxwell 2 was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.

Looking at the MDAQS of the Audeze Maxwell 2, the overall score is within expectations for gaming headsets. The Timbre is slightly higher than most gaming headsets, and most people would rate it highly. The Distortion score is a little higher than most gaming headsets. Many people would believe there isn’t much added noise to the sound of the Audeze Maxwell. The Immersiveness scores are in line with most gaming headsets, where many people would be able to reasonably place the sound source.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Objective Measurements

The Audeze Maxwell 2 uses 90mm planar magnetic drivers to produce sound. They’ve added new tech to their Slam tech to address the original Maxwell’s underemphasized bass. The Slam tech is the acoustic channel that helps to tune the bass. This is used in tandem with Audeze Fluxor and Uniforce technologies to allow Audeze to tune the sound to their liking.

Looking at the frequency response graph, the bass looks really odd; it’s as if there’s a high-pass filter starting at 35Hz, but it does follow the SoundGuys preference curve pretty well. The huge dip in bass, especially under 30Hz, is felt more than it is heard. This explains why kick drums have a good amount of presence without the feeling of pressure. The mids dip in the lower mids at 200Hz, which can clean up some of the muddiness caused by the bass peaks. Other than that, the Maxwell 2 closely follows SoundGuys’ preference curve. A majority of the Treble follows the SoundGuys preference curve, but with a peak in the 7KHz region. The peak in the 7KHz region can make some voices feel painfully sibilant, and when paired with a lack of bass, they can make the Maxwell 2 sound bright.

How good is the Audeze Maxwell 2’s microphone?

The Audeze Maxwell 2 uses the same microphone capsule as the original Maxwell, so there’s no change there. The volume is low and slightly muffled, but it is passable. However, the new feature is the AI noise cancellation.

Enabling AI noise cancellation on either Low or High excessively increases the volume, which is a shame. Both modes do well at isolating voices from the background and removing external noise. However, the voice can sound distorted and clipped, and turning it to high in a noisy environment, such as windy conditions, introduces crackling. It also struggles to remove reverb, failing to detect and isolate the voice from the reverberation.

Audeze Maxwell 2 microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Audeze Maxwell 2 microphone demo (Office conditions):

Audeze Maxwell 2 microphone demo (Reverberant space):

Audeze Maxwell 2 microphone demo (Street environment):

Audeze Maxwell 2 microphone demo (Windy environment):

Should you buy the Audeze Maxwell 2?

As I’ve already mentioned in the title, it’s worth buying if you don’t already have the original version, which is one of the best gaming headsets to date. It’s definitely an upgrade, but if you already enjoy the original, there aren’t any extras that feel like a meaningful upgrade. If you were already looking at the original Maxwell, I still wouldn’t recommend it, since Audeze has announced an ANC version of the Maxwell 2. I would suggest waiting for that instead. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Audeze should have just launched the Maxwell 2 with ANC, or launched them both simultaneously. We don’t know if the active noise cancelation will affect the sound of the upcoming Maxwell 2 with ANC, but since it’s their first ANC product, we don’t have data to serve as a baseline to suggest one way or the other.

Audeze Maxwell 2 price history

What should you get instead of the Audeze Maxwell 2?

If you need a good headset now, there’s the Alienware Pro, which has ANC for an entire $100 less at $229. “The Alienware Pro wireless headset is great in both gaming and everyday use. More than just gamers, music enthusiasts, and professionals will enjoy the sound quality, comfort, and versatility.”  The downside is that, if you are a console gamer, there is no official Xbox support, but this generation of Xbox didn’t sell very well anyway, so it’s a negligible downside.

Audeze Maxwell 2 review: FAQs