Audeze Maxwell Wireless Gaming Headset for PlayStation, Mac, PC, and Switch

Hi all, I’ve been gaming almost daily for the past couple of years. When I first got started I purchased the Bennune brand of gaming headset. It’s a $40 wireless headset and I have to be honest, it’s actually really good. Mic is clear and great surround sound for finding where the footsteps of the other players are coming from in Call of Duty. So if you want an amazing starter pair go for that. You won’t be disappointed. Now, Let’s get into these Maxwells. They are quite heavy, and it will get some time to get used to but for me, they seem ok. I don’t mind knowing I get primo sound out of them. They are comfortable enough, but not for the 4+HR gaming sessions so I did change the ear cushions to gels. They are a bit cooler and fabric against the ears is always better than pleather or leather?… not sure. Moving to the sound- All the reviews are true! They are as good as everyone is saying.. plain and simple - they are sick! Set up- I had no problem downloading the app on my iPhone and connecting. Same with the PS5 connection. No problems. (Tip- If playing Call of Duty, make sure your in-game headphone setting are set to headphone and not bass boost.) it’s not needed. The app has adjustments for custom settings if you need them. Not necessarily needed though. They are pretty good out the box. Quality- You can feel the build. They are solid and feel very expensive. Features- All the features are well done and functional. The one issue I ran into was with Side-Tone. I would faintly hear a crackle. Kinda like listening to a record and just before the song it’s about to start, you hear that crackle. It only happened when I was paring and playing with all the buttons without knowing what they do. Since then, I haven’t had the problem. Side-Tone- For Side-Tone to work properly, press the corresponding wheel button and let go and wait about 3 to 4 secs. Give it time to shift from in and off. All commands do have voice and beeps to let you know they are working. (A very welcome feature) As far as in game, Side-Tone is not great. To be honest, this is not something I care about so much. I don’t need to hear my self when chatting with my team. it’s almost weird when you never had that feature before. Lol. With out the mic attached, Side-Tone is great. I can hear my wife from across the room and have a conversation with her while listening and watching videos on my phone. Mic- The mic is excellent. Probably the best you’re going to get without having to buy a boom mic. All in all they are great. I watch a ton of videos on my phone and love how good they sound while playing as well. For me- and this is a big statement, they are truly the perfect headset for $300 bucks. They sound as good or better than my iPod pros. Hope this will help you and if you don’t mind that they are a little heavier than most, then go for it. You won’t regret it!

First of all, these are great. The stock pads are a bit too hot but I've bought Wicked cushions right away and that solved the problem, only added 10% to the price. What got me the most though was the promise of non-compromised audio and although I knew it won't be entirely true, still was a bit disappointed when it turned out to be an exaggeration. Exaggeration doesn't mean a lie, and you get night and day difference comparing Maxwell to any other “gaming” branded headphones, including those which are $100 or so more expensive. But still, it's not exactly audiophile quality sound, even when used wired, and won't stand a comparison with something like HD6XX driven through a decent external DAC/amp. Still, it provides all-around decent sound, amazing battery life and charge time, and great EQ options to tailor to your personal sound signature preferences (one thing that's great about EQ is that you can set it up on PC through app and then use this setting with any wireless connection). This is my first planars and the newness of planar response was uncanny at first but I got used to it and didn't notice any planar timber people sometimes talk about (although I did lower the very highs in the EQ). In games i get better positioning and immersion than I had with my Arctis 7, for conference calls and Discord this is just amazing (but make sure to tame your software noise reduction because it messes with the Audeze's built-in one), and for music and movies I rarely switch to another pair of more fit cans now because the difference not always worth it, which makes the promise of uncompromising audio kinda delivered. Now, the cons. The frequency response is noticeably different between left and right driver in my unit and seems like it's a very common thing. This makes the left one louder in most cases and I've had to make the right canal two points louder in Windows settings to compensate (no solution for PS or Bluetooth). The weight is not a big bother for me but they do be heavy. What disappointed me the most is the lack of option to use them properly with an analogue connection. The AUX is there, but the signal still gets through the internal amp and you can't bypass it. Which make it dangerous to use the cans with a headphone DAC/Amp because too much power from the amp might kill them. I think these drivers can do much much better than with the portable set up they connected to and driving them through a proper external DAC/Amp would make them truly shine in terms of audio quality, but that's where you actually do have to compromise. Bottom line, you get the best gaming headphones you can find at this price, but that's just it, don't expect it to be any more than that.

Let me start by saying I was SO excited to get these after researching and seeing the reviews about how great they are. I wanted to drink the Kool Aid and I was not able to. In fact, I'm very wary of the articles I read saying these are good. I bought TWO PAIRS for my partner and I. Here was my experience: THE GOOD: -The sound quality is pretty much as good as they say. Crystal clear with nice heavy bass. I'm not an audiophile by any means but it just sounded good. I'm happy to give credit where it is due. -Battery life: I didn't use them long enough to benefit, but it's hard to beat 80 hours. -That's literally it. THE BAD (here we go): -The software on these things is so bad that I gave up using them after 20 minutes of trying to get by with them. The firmware included in the headset cuts out the first second of audio from any "new" source. Youtube Video, Discord call, Spotify, etc. It seems to want to "fade in" new media sources, but you just end up missing the beginning of whatever you're trying to hear. There is no setting for this and Audeze literally won't even acknowledge this if you email their support. -I know, who really cares about the mic on a high end pair of gaming headset? As long as people can understand you, it's fine, right? Well, that was too high a standard for the Maxwells, I guess. The mic quality is about the same as the $15 office headset you might use at a call center in Mumbai. It really is that bad. Condensed and muffled to the point that my friends on call were asking if maybe my input had defaulted to my webcam that was 15 feet away. (Ironically, that actually sounded better.) I thought maybe I just got a bad set but I looked up a Youtube video of comparing mic quality (Hardware Canucks has a great video showcasing what I mean) and that is just how they sound. Audeze Support says this poor sound quality is "designed to make your voice sound more natural," when I emailed them about this. -Enabling sidetone (which is helpful since they are noise cancelling) introduces an extremely loud hissing noise in a dead quiet room. Turning it down enough to a tolerable level means the sidetone is not really hearable. Furthermore, you can hear the terrible sound quality of the mic in your ear if you can manage to tune out the loud everpresent hissing. Audeze Support says "All headsets do this!" (My 4 year old Arctis headset did not do this, nor do the Razer Blackshark V2 Pros I got to replace my Maxwells, so I almost don't believe them!) -Chat app instability (at least in Discord): Many random things just cause the mic to stop sending audio altogether. Turning on your video, deafening briefly, locking my PC would cause the mic to stop working. Audeze has an article on what settings to change for Discord (because why would I want a headset that works out of the box?) and I followed the instructions and then emailed Audeze Support that it didn't make a difference. They said, "Have you read our article about changing the settings on Discord?" TL;DR: If you want to use these for console I hear they're pretty good other than the mic quality. If you are going to just use them for headphones, they're probably fine (though for 300 USD you can probably find better). For PC gaming, you will be disappointed and your friends will ask why your microphone sounds so bad, and then they'll say "Why did you stop talking?" If you email support, they will give you a copy/paste response and make you pay to ship them back and send you a pair with the same set of issues. My advice: Don't bother.

As soon as you touch them, you feel they're very good quality, quite heavy, made of very good materials, and the sound is the best you can find, even above this price point. Now, none of the reviews mention the drawbacks of these headphones, which are no small feat. They have one problem: after using them for a while, the drivers become damp, and they start to make a clicking sound when they're silent. The headphones go into standby mode every 5 seconds, so if you're watching YouTube videos, when you start one, you'll miss the first second until it starts playing again. Sometimes you hear several cracking sounds through the planar headphones when you suddenly turn the volume up too high, but this is normal for this type of headphones. They're very heavy. They gave me a headache until I found the perfect weight distribution, but some people may find it very uncomfortable. They come from the factory with a slightly low volume, but nothing that can't be fixed with a preamplifier. The software often doesn't recognize the headset, and you have to reconnect it. Sometimes you experience random disconnections, especially if the dongle is near the router. Anyway, if you're going to use them all day, even with the desktop on silent, just to watch YouTube and the like, I don't recommend them at all. If instead you use them to play games, watch movies, or listen to music, they are highly recommended. If you are willing to pay the price for all the other inconveniences, they are definitely a great headset.

Although it's marketed as a Game Headset, I mainly bought this for work meetings and I've been using this headset for work and gaming for the past month. I decided to write this review because today at work, in two different meetings, two colleagues mentioned how good my voice sounds over Zoom because of the mic in this headset. I use this for meetings everyday, gaming and talking over Discord and also on native chat audio games on my Steam Deck. I've also traveled with it once. Overall, it's the best headset I've ever had with only two minor opportunities for improvement. I mainly use it with the USB-C dongle. I like to listen to music while I'm on Discord with my friends and both my voice, the chat audio and music are perfect quality while doing that. I also plug the dongle into the Steam Deck USB-c port and get perfect quality over there while chatting and listening to the game audio. I've got a single issue with the USB-C dongle: it doesn't work if you plug directly into a newer Mac computer. From my research, the Mac USB is a model that's unsupported by this dongle, which sounds crazy to me. Isn't USB-C the universal solution? It does work if you plug the Dongle into a USB adapter like a USB Hub. I won't take any stars from this because since Macbooks have so little ports, I'd have to use an USB hub thing regardless of this dongle just to fit my other stuff, but I found this to be disappointing when I just got it out of the box. The other shortcoming is the software. When I have the Dongle plugged in and the Headset connected, it still somehow shows up as disconnected and 0% battery. Also, the interface is clunky with questionable design choices. I'd wish for a cleaner more functional piece of software like Logitech's Logitune that I use for my other stuff, that's easy to access the battery and well, actually works?? Pairing in bluetooth is also easy, but I found this headset a bit too big and heavy to take on the go. It's definitely a consequence of it being so high quality, so I'm fine with having a cheaper, ligher headset for flights that I won't cry over if I loose it in a trip. The thing I love about this headset the most, besides the Mic quality is the battery, which lasts me somehow more than a week with a bunch of meetings and at least two long discord gaming sessions. If you're in the market for sounding good in your meetings and voice chats without worrying about battery life, get this!

Before buying a pair of Maxwells, I did extensive research on the headphones and decided they’d be a good fit for me. But when they arrived I sadly realized that this product is WAY to overpriced for the product it is. For starters, the sound quality is immaculate, the sound is rich and the bass punches through so you hear any type of sound Ina game, and instruments in songs you didn’t hear in previous listens. As far as being an audiophile headphone, it’s top notch. But my issues lie with the quality of the build of the product, the 90 MM planar magnetic drivers in the headphones cause them to be a bit heavier, which for extended periods of use, can be uncomfortable or “annoying” but this wasn’t the biggest issue of all. The setup for these headphones was a bit complicated, as the software for them wouldn’t update so the headphones weren’t working correctly (the headphones failed to connect via Bluetooth due to the software not updating, which I came to learn was a problem with Audeze, not my PC) and even after I had connected the headphones via USB, they would fail to work or connect. After a couple restarts and workarounds I was able to get the software updated and the headset connected via Bluetooth (although it took almost 30-45 minutes, not including update time for the software) and even then, the software didn’t work, the EQ changes wouldn’t save, and it seemed none of the software options would save or change. So I resorted to just using it via USB. They are EXTREMELY sensitive, I didn’t read the reviews about the headphones being extremely sensitive due to the oversized drivers, meaning a small bump or bang can cause the headphones to break or not work correctly, my problem specifically was a clicking sound coming from the headphones even tho no audio was playing, and then when audio was played the clicking got even worse, I was advised to turn off mic monitoring which didn’t work, after following multiple FAQ’s on the internet I came to learn that the drivers just ended up being damaged due to whatever bump or drop. (Although I didn’t drop or bump them, past reviews saying that even setting them down the wrong way can cause damage to the drivers or cause them to move out of place, causing sound issues) I could not find a solution to the clicking sound and after unplugging and trying a completely separate headset, I came to the conclusion it was the headset that was damaged. Now that’s where I thought my troubles ended, but after more research I had learned that Audeze themselves will NOT replace headphones that are damaged or have issues with the drivers as they say (not exact quote) That damage to the drivers is not covered by the warranty, and that audeze would need me to send the headphones to them in order for them to troubleshoot them and POSSIBLY see if there was an issue with my headphones (all of which I would have to pay for in shipping) there are multiple bad reviews with the same concerns throughout the internet and considering the price point of these headphones I’d assumed they’d have better customer service, but I guess not. Since I had ordered the headset through Amazon and not Audeze Directly, I was able to just return them for a full refund (THROUGH AMAZON) but that wouldn’t be the case for if you had sent them back to Audeze (apparently the case, which I had read on FAQ’s and Forums) Overall, the headset is ok, you get the sound quality you expect, but the hiccups in terms of setup and the fragile damaging issues are what made me shy away from this product, I didn’t have the product for more than a week before I started seeing issues. Which apparently according to Audeze, is something they can’t and won’t fix, and are hesitant to offer a refund on. So I would NOT recommend this product to anybody especially for the price point, there are far better options for gaming headsets and headsets in general that are not 300-350$ and that have way better customer service than Audeze offers. Overall 2 out of 5 stars. 3 out of 10 Do not waste your money on this product

Got the headphones for a few weeks to try them out as online reviews are absurdly mixed about these. Some people, especially reviewers say the headset is the best wireless one in the market; and, to others, it is garbage. Here is my opinion: First, I want to talk about the durability issues. (3/10). The Maxwell metal-built and sturdy, they won't break...at least externally. All people say about the crackling noises in the drived is TRUE, it is usually not super loud, but it's there. There are other noises that show up from time to time that are more strange and louder, and this is after just a few weeks...So, if you are worried about that, don't buy them or expect to have to return them. Now, let'd go with comfort (7/10). These are comfy enough, a bit heavy but not as big of a problem as some people say, now, this is with the stock earpads and headband. If you buy the Wicked Cushions stuff, as most do, they get too heavy and the clamping force increases a lot, which was really uncomfortable for me as I have a big head. Also WC earpads are itchy; they're breathable though. But, overall, the stock pads are better, they just get a bit overtime, so you'll have to take some breaks after long sessions. Last, sound quality (7/10). The main sellong point of these is that they are supposed to be the best sounding wireless headphones in the market. I didn't feel that. Regarding music, I'm used to my Technics AZ-100 and the bass, the spatial audio and the detail feels waaay better than the Maxwell, and they have the same price, so, if you just want to listen to music and don't mind buying earbuds, that's the way to go. For gaming, It's true that is difficult to find something with the same level of clarity, but as I said, the bass lacks and that leads them to fail to create "impactful" sound that remind you why you paid 300 for. Connectivity (5/10). Nothing crazy, just Bluetooth, 3.5mm and the dongle. No simultaneously listening across sound sources, if you get a notification on your phone, the audio of everything else will stop for some seconds. It is ANNOYING. CONCLUSION: it has too many problems to risk buying it, I did 'cause I wanted to believe reviewers' words and I regret it. I'm returning it and buying the Nova Elite. Even if they are extremely expensive, I know they don't lack in department. For everyone who just don't have $600 to spend, just buy the Astro50X, all the features, good sound and sturdy built. Those are the best allrounders in the $300-400 price range.

I was waiting to upgrade my headset for many years but nothing seems to have the versatility of my logitech G933. When this came out and I was very hyped about this headset and decided to finally pull the trigger. I received this unit on 3/21 and been using it daily. This headset sounds amazing. Overall, i enjoy this headset and it was a well worth purchase. Here are some pros and cons after 2 weeks of use. Pros: - Headset sounds amazing and can get extremely loud. There are various presets such as bass boost and treble boost. These presets slightly boost the bass and treble and maintain very clear sound. It doesnt make the sound muddy. Setting this headset to volume of 78 is equivalent to my old headset at 100 with dolby atmos on. If i turn off dolby for the G933, the volume will be extremely low. -Battery life: the headset battery life lasts quite long. Under the first week, i manage to get around 60 hours. I havent done a true test yet as Audeze claims 80 hours with volume being 80 dB. During my first week of use, I push this to the limits and multiple times running volume at 100 and connecting to multiple device. Overall, huge step up from my old headset which lasts ..maybe 8 hours now. - Connection versatility - Like my old logitech, this can connect in a variety of methods- aux, usb dongle, bluetooth 5.3 and wired USB mode. All these require the headset to be turned on but the battery life is so good that its not a big deal. Also, this support mutliple bluetooth codecs SBC,AAC, LC3, LDAC. - Connection range - the range using the dongle is quite amazing. So far for my apartment, i was able to walk out to the living room and still have good audio. Distance is about 25 ft or more. With bluetooth, it was almost as good, audio did get a little static. -Microphone was very good . My GF said I sound clear and loud. The background noise suppression was amazing. I was able to eat chips while talking and she did not hear it. Theres also a built in mic when you remove the boom mic which is neat. -Build quality - Aesthetic is sleek and very understated. Did not look gaudy at all. EarPads were comfortable but gets a little warm. Earpads were deep enough but after long use, my ears can eventually touch the driver. The construction feels sturdy and nice. Although makes me worry that I will scratch the paint off. Cons: -No simultaneous bluetooth with the dongle. Not a huge deal but this may be important for some people. You can still achieve this via usb + BT or aux + BT. Due to the nature of the dongle, I dont see wireless simultaneous BT ever being a possibility. The dongle is not a 2.4 ghz dongle. It is actually an LC3+ bluetooth dongle. Despite this, the latency is just as good. I did not notice any latency. -Latency for gaming on phone at the moment is okay. Since most phones dont have LC3 support, we are stuck with SBC, AAC, or LDAC. All three dont have amazing latency. I play alot of rhythm games on phone and I can sense lag right away. So far SBC is the best for Android and AAC for iphones. -Comfort - this headset is heavy so may be a dealbreaker for some people. It was fine for me with the suspension headband. One annoying thing was that on the default notch for the headband, the bottom of my top of my ears touch the inner ear pad wall. However, if i move the band notch up, it becomes too tight and the bottom of my ear now touches the earpad. I ultimately went back to default configuration and wore a hat instead. - Software - still needs to be updated. On PC, none of the custom preset can be set at the moment. You can still use android app to set the preset on your phone and it will sync with your device I think. Also the battery indicator on the Audeze HQ for PC is not giving the right readings. If you charge to 100%, and start using, it wil quickly drop to 95%. However, the next time you turn it on, it will read 100% again. Customer support says they are working on a fix for this to show proper battery reporting.

Ottime, indubbiamente l'audio più pulito che abbia mai sentito tra i prodotti "gaming". Vorrei scrivere elogi al riguardo, ma conviene andare a leggere recensioni tecniche invece. Principalmente le uso per PC, personalmente ho preso una versione PlayStation per poter sfruttare l'audio Tempest, ma in realtà o non ho sentito alcuna differenza io o non cambia poi così tanto, conviene prendere la versione Xbox che fornisce la licensa Dolby Atmos per PC inclusa... mica male, quelle PlayStation non lo fanno. La latenza tramite Wireless e Bluetooth è ottima, unica pecca è che quando non vi sono suoni di alcun tipo il primo playback ha un minimo di ritardo e si perde la prima parte di ciò che si ascolta. Per farla breve, se sei su Windows e non hai suoni ma cominci a sentire un audio tipo di Telegram ti perdi il primo mezzo secondo, stessa cosa per quando si registra col microfono. Indubbiamente è un problema relativo al risparmio energetico, penso lo abbiano quasi tutti e non ho visto se è risolvibile, però durante le varie call nessuno si è mail lamentato. Qualità del microfono OK, non incredibile ma OK. La batteria dura veramente tanto, ormai le uso ogni giorno da più di un anno e non mi si sono mai scaricate durante l'utilizzo, ho sempre avuto tantissimo tempo dal primo avviso di batteria scarica. Comodissimo il fatto che si ricaricano tramite USB-C. Bello anche il fatto che sia possibile collegare sia al dongle Wireless che al Bluetooth allo stesso tempo, unica pecca è che questa può essere un'arma a doppio taglio. Se lo collegate al PC (Wireless dongle) e al telefono (bluetooth) sentirete il PC, tranne nel caso in cui ci sia dell'audio nel canale bluetooth, in tal caso non sentirete più il PC ma solo il bluetooth. Di suo questa cosa è comodissima, bisogna solo fare attenzione alle notifiche, che potrebbero interrompere il playback del dongle senza motivo, però lì basta smanettare con il telefono. Mai avuto problemi con tasti e cose varie, non sono leggerissime ma sono incredibilmente comode. Per la prima volta ho avuto delle cuffie che non hanno avuto bisogno del periodo di "break in", sono state comode da subito. Inoltre non ho mai avuto problemi relativi a pairing, tasti non funzionanti o cose del genere (che sono state sempre le cause di un cambio cuffie).

These are so good and my God do they get loud if you need them to. Sound incredible while gaming and the battery life is disgusting, genuinely charge them like 4 times a year and I game at least 4 hours a day. They are so comfortable too, dont know how they've done it but they are pretty heavy but once you get used to them you don't notice them on. My discord mates recon its the best mic I've ever had too. 10/10 defo recommendo

Dolby Atmosに対応してるので、PC用にライセンスを購入して映画を見るのにも良かった。 音質、遅延、バッテリー持ちは言うことないです。 イヤーパッドは柔らかく密着するのでやや蒸れやすいです。あと外す時ちょっと怖いです。

Took a while playing with the settings in Audeze HQ to get the sound right. After 9 months, it no longer works, I put it down one day, worked completely fine, upon picking it back up, it had become completely unresponsive, tried all the fixes I could find, including a hard reset with the power and sound buttons, but there was no longer any feedback from the headset whatsoever, tried different cables, nothing.

اكثر سماعة تعبت وانا انصح الناس فيها. صارلها معي سنة تقريباً والى الان مالقيت اي سماعة تسوى تتقارن فيها حتى، كان اهم شي عندي انها تكون وايرلس وبافضل جودة صوت ممكنة. دورت وبحثت كثير، والخيار جا على هالسماعة وكان احسن قرار اخذته، جودتها ما تتقارن مع سماعات القيمنق نهائياً وتنافس سماعات الاستديو بالراحة بس اللي يميزها انه متكاملة من كل النواحي ان بغيتها بدون سلك ولا راحة ولا جودة صوت ولا للقيمنق مع اضافة المايك. لكن للامانة المايك فيه الافضل منه، بس ما مايفرق معي لاني استخدم مايك خارجي ، الشي الوحيد اللي كان مخليني اتردد هو وزنها، لانها تعتبر اثقل من اغلب السماعات الثانية. بس بعد ما جربتها بالنسبة لي اريح لي من سماعات وزنها اقل بحدود 40٪