{"id":541596,"date":"2026-03-17T04:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/541596\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T04:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:45:09","slug":"apples-airpods-max-2-bring-h2-chip-boosted-anc-in-april-for-549","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/541596\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s AirPods Max 2 bring H2 chip, boosted ANC in April for $549"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Apple announced the AirPods Max 2 today, following up\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2020\/12\/apples-new-airpods-max-over-ear-headphones-cost-549\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the original AirPods Max<\/a>, which were announced in December 2020. The new model brings improved active noise cancellation (ANC) and other new features via an updated H2 chip.<\/p>\n<p>            <a class=\"cursor-zoom-in\" data-pswp-width=\"1960\" data-pswp-height=\"1104\" data-cropped=\"false\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-AirPods-Max-2-color-lineup_big.jpg.large_2x.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-pswp- rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n              <img width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-AirPods-Max-2-color-lineup_big.jpg.large_2x-640x360.jpg\" class=\"none medium\" alt=\"The five AirPods Max 2 colorways.\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/><br \/>\n            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>              The AirPods Max 2 are available in the same five colorways as their predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>\n                  Credit:<br \/>\n                                      Apple\n                                  <\/p>\n<p>\n      The AirPods Max 2 are available in the same five colorways as their predecessor.<\/p>\n<p>          Credit:<\/p>\n<p>          Apple<\/p>\n<p>Apple introduced the H2 with the <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/gadgets\/2022\/09\/second-generation-airpods-pro-use-h2-chip-new-noise-cancelation-and-spatial-audio-features\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)<\/a>, which came out in September 2022. The original AirPods Max released in 2021 with an H1, meaning the new over-ear headphones should be more in line with Apple\u2019s AirPods series in terms of features.<\/p>\n<p>Apple claims that the new chip, combined with new computational audio algorithms, makes ANC up to 1.5 times \u201cmore effective\u201d on the AirPods Max 2 compared to the original AirPods Max.<\/p>\n<p>Transparency mode, meanwhile, should sound \u201cmore natural\u201d due to a new \u201cdigital signal processing algorithm optimized for H2,\u201d Apple\u2019s announcement said.<\/p>\n<p>The H2 adds support for a slew of additional AirPods Max 2 features, including adaptive audio (which automatically adjusts levels in Transparency and ANC modes based on ambient noise) and Conversation Awareness (where the device automatically lowers the volume when someone starts talking to you).<\/p>\n<p>            <a class=\"cursor-zoom-in\" data-pswp-width=\"1306\" data-pswp-height=\"1306\" data-cropped=\"false\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-AirPods-Max-2-Active-Noise-Cancellation_inline.jpg.large_2x.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" data-pswp- rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\n              <img width=\"640\" height=\"640\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-AirPods-Max-2-Active-Noise-Cancellation_inline.jpg.large_2x-640x640.jpg\" class=\"none medium\" alt=\"A close up of an AirPods Max 2 can in the starlight (purple) colorway.\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  \/><br \/>\n            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>              The AirPods Max 2 also feature a small spec bump from Bluetooth 5.0 to Bluetooth 5.3.<\/p>\n<p>\n                  Credit:<br \/>\n                                      Apple\n                                  <\/p>\n<p>\n      The AirPods Max 2 also feature a small spec bump from Bluetooth 5.0 to Bluetooth 5.3.<\/p>\n<p>          Credit:<\/p>\n<p>          Apple<\/p>\n<p>The H2 also enables the AirPods Max 2 to support live translation (which uses Apple Intelligence for real-time language translation) and voice isolation (which taps \u201cadvanced computational audio powered by H2 to prioritize the voice during calls, while blocking out ambient noise,\u201d according to Apple\u2019s announcement today).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple announced the AirPods Max 2 today, following up\u00a0the original AirPods Max, which were announced in December 2020.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-541596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}