Even though Apple launched the new AirPods Max 2 with much pomp and fanfare a few weeks back, with the surprise announcement coming on the proverbial heels of the Apple Experience event in early March and the plethora of new device launches that it entailed, critics had immediately panned the latest headphones from the iPhone manufacturer as chronically iterative. And now, iFixit appears to have come to nearly the same conclusions after its exhaustive teardown.
The only functional upgrade that Apple introduced in the AirPods Max 2 relates to the H2 chip
In iFixit’s post-teardown comparison of the AirPods Max 2 with the USB-C AirPods Max that Apple released all the way back in 2020, the only major internal change relates to the updated H2 chip found within each earcup.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, the H2 chip is a high-performance system-in-package that is designed for processing audio within Apple’s AirPods Max 2 premium headphones. Paired with a new digital signal processing algorithm, the combo enables a 1.5x improvement in ANC vis-Ã -vis the previous generation, while ensuring that the “sound quality is remarkably clean, rich, and acoustically detailed,” as per Apple claims.
Coming back, Apple’s decision to implement minimal hardware-related changes within the AirPods Max 2 means that the new headphones suffer from the same condensation accumulation problem within the earcups that had plagued their previous-gen counterparts. And, in what constitutes another strike against the new headphones, Apple has still not furnished a dedicated repair manual along with critical spare parts.
Also, iFixit believes Apple could have rendered the AirPods Max 2 eminently repairable had it chosen to make the battery and the USB-C port more accessible. As such, iFixit has pegged a 6 out of 10 repairability score on Apple’s latest headphones.
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