The AirPods Max Are Finally Getting True Lossless Audio
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When Apple released the second-generation AirPods Max last fall, they came with an odd downgrade from the prior models: a complete lack of wired audio support. Fortunately, it looks like Apple is finally rectifying that omission — and adding proper digital lossless audio support in the process.
The only noteworthy change the second-gen AirPods Max brought to the table was a switch to a USB-C port to align them with the rest of Apple’s devices. However, with that transition, they also mysteriously lost the ability to plug in a cable and listen via a wired connection. With the AirPods Max 2, it was Bluetooth or nothing.
When Apple unveiled its original AirPods Max in late 2020, it’s probably fair to say many Apple fans didn’t care too much about lossless audio quality; Apple Music was still streaming in the same lossy AAC format that had been the standard for years. Lossless audio was the domain of niche music services like Tidal and folks who ripped their own CDs in formats like FLAC.
Nevertheless, Apple created and sold a special 3.5mm to Lightning cable to provide owners of its expensive cans with a wired listening experience if they so desired. While it wasn’t truly lossless — the AirPods Max had a built-in analog-to-digital converter (ADC) on the Lightning port end — this still provided near-lossless audio quality, leading to a better (albeit more awkward) listening experience for those who wanted to take advantage of Apple Music Lossless when it launched a few months later.
Meanwhile, many other USB-C headphones of that era already offered a fully digital audio pathway, delivering unimpeded lossless listening without any quality loss from digital/analog conversions (at least until the signal gets to the drivers sitting by your ears). When the news arrived that the second-generation AirPods Max were getting a USB-C port, many hoped — even expected — that they’d offer the same support, but sadly, that didn’t happen.
The omission was even more perplexing in light of the inclusion of USB-C digital audio on the Beats Studio Pro, released by Apple’s Beats division a year earlier — and two months before Apple brought USB-C to the iPhone 15 lineup. This made the situation even more ironic since Apple Music fans could get better audio quality from an Android phone than an iPhone.
It wasn’t just lossless audio; the second-generation AirPods Max offered no way of hooking up to a wired audio source, which made them considerably less versatile than their predecessors. I’ve frequently used my first-generation AirPods Max in studio and live recording situations where a wired connection is the only option available. Mixing and video editing boards don’t typically offer Bluetooth connections, as the latency makes them impractical for live recording and mixing.
Thankfully, Apple is fixing this. The company announced today that it’s bringing lossless and ultra-low latency audio to the AirPods Max next month with a firmware update that will accompany iOS 18.4, “unlocking” the USB-C port for 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio.
With the included USB-C cable, users can enjoy the highest-quality audio across music, movies, and games, while music creators can experience significant enhancements to songwriting, beat making, production, and mixing.
Apple
The upgrade will not only allow music fans to get the best audio quality possible through a wired connection, but Apple also adds that it will provide support for creating and mixing music in Logic Pro using Personalized Spatial Audio with head tracking without worrying about the latency added by a wireless connection.
Along the same lines, this will make the AirPods Max more practical for use by gamers and live streamers due to the lower lag time of a wired connection. “With no response delay, gameplay and live streaming become reliably smooth and even more immersive for users,” Apple says in its press release, adding that the latency should be the same as the native built-in speakers on a Mac, iPad, or iPhone.
The AirPods Max already include a standard USB-C cable for charging, and the same cable (or nearly any other USB-C cable) can be used for digital audio once the new capabilities arrive next month. Apple has also begun selling a USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable for $39 that can be used to connect the AirPods Max to analog sources like the first-generation version.
Although Apple’s press release is a bit vague, it’s safe to say that these upgrades will only apply to wired listening. Essentially, a firmware update will allow the USB-C port to be used with digital audio, but don’t expect anything to change for wireless listening over Bluetooth. While there’s evidence Apple has been researching better codecs, none of these have actually come to fruition — at least not for music.
