To adjust the headband, grab on to the strap near the screw holes and pull the strap holes over the screws. You do not need to remove the screws from the headband to adjust the strap. Maxwell is built on an all-new premium chassis including aluminum yokes and a spring steel headband for durability. Play in comfort, all day, all night with the deluxe contoured earpads and replaceable suspension strap. Shut out the world around you with class-leading passive noise reduction from the reinforced dual-chamber earcups. Most gaming headsets (and most headphones and speakers in general) have dynamic drivers, which produce sound using a passive diaphragm attached to a moving voice coil — which is why dynamic drivers are also called “moving coil” drivers. Audeze specializes in a different type of driver: planar magnetic. Planar magnetic drivers produce sound using a diaphragm with the conductor embedded inside it (instead of attached to it, like a voice coil is), positioned between two magnetic arrays. This allows for more detailed control over the diaphragm, which means (in theory, at least) more accurate sound reproduction. We've added a comparison between these headphones and the Turtle Beath Stealth Pro Wireless PS/Xbox in Noise Isolation.

Thank goodness Audeze opted for a nice dark gray finish, although I do wish it had done a better job with that coat of paint. Sadly, the paint on the aluminum band and yoke is easily scratched off. If you so much as accidentally brush the headset against a hard surface like a wall, that nice finish will come off. This, on top of its size and weight, makes me think this does not belong anywhere else outside of your gaming space – despite the fact that the mic is removable, and it comes with Bluetooth connectivity for mobile devices. Both headphones there offered excellent pinpoint accuracy and you can easily tell where sounds are coming from so that you can lead the target. Jazz, slow musical genres, vocalists in general, all that sort of thing feels great and engaging on this Maxwell but without ever being fatiguing. I’ve wanted this in a cheaper planar for over a decade.

Maxwell uses an All-New Reinforced Chassis Built with Aluminum yokes, spring steel headband, and glass infused nylon for other structural parts including the cups. This is my favorite type of treble experience. It is fun and musical. It is fatigue-free even after hours of playing. Loud bullets that come by the thousands during a gaming session are not annoying and don’t get painful. Maxwell has a brand new driver design that was based on the original Mobius/Penrose design and is going to have a similar sonic signature. The bass is boomy when it needs to be and the sub-bass is colossal. Gunshots, explosions & footsteps are more realistic than ever before. There are actual textural details that can be heard (and felt!) with said impacts, explosions and things such as your character interacting with inanimate objects.

For most head shapes and sizes, as long as you don’t need both sides to be on the lowest screws (which maximizes size for the biggest heads), the headband will be suspension style. Do note that while we try as much as possible to accommodate all head shapes and sizes, the strap does touch the steel headband when the the strap is set to allow for the largest size. This is the first time I’ve received it. Usually, planar headphones are not forward and lush in setup and tone. Treble Famed for their powerful, detailed sound, Audeze’s Planar Magnetic headphones have stormed the high-end market. Now available in their latest gaming headphones, the Maxwell Xbox is Audeze’s answer to studio quality sound, on your Xbox.I made it through enough of The Callisto Protocol to confirm that the Maxwell’s crisp, detailed audio and passive noise isolation is much too impressive for me to be playing horror games with. Directional sound is excellent — even without spatial audio — in games like Fortnite and Overwatch 2, especially on the headset’s “competition” EQ preset (there’s a “footsteps” EQ preset as well, but the highs are a little too high for me). The Maxwell doesn’t include spatial audio in its PC app, but it does support Sony’s 3D audio on PS5. Likewise, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt sounded clear and detailed in testing, with strong directional imaging thanks to the PlayStation 5’s spatial audio processing. During a feast, the sounds of chatter, music, and flames remained distinct. The position of each nearby guest was discernible as the camera panned, with the audio panning accurately with it. The longest I have used them in a one-er was 8 hours and I could have really worn them for 8 more. Comfort: 9.5/10

Prices valid in stores (all including VAT) until close of business on 29th November 2023. (Some of these web prices are cheaper than in-store, so please mention that you've seen these offers online.) Powered by Audeze’s latest 90mm planar magnetic drivers, with over 3X the driver area of leading competitors, Maxwell delivers powerful bass and pinpoint precision. Audeze drivers are trusted by leading recording and game studios worldwide, and feature patented technologies including Uniforce™ voice coils, Fluxor™ magnets, and Fazor™ waveguides. Experience class-leading high-resolution audio up to 24-bit/96kHz over Wireless or USB. One of the biggest improvements comes from the new housing. In the Penrose/Mobius housing the left and right side were not acoustically balanced due to the presence of PCB on one side, and the battery on the other. Buttons were also mostly on the left. With Maxwell, we have a dual chamber design. There is an inner housing that acoustically isolates the driver from the electronics. This alone makes a huge improvement.

How well does the Audeze Maxwell attenuate noise?

We test headphones on our HMS II rig using REW software. We play a sine sweep in the left and right driver separately, and we repeat this process across five different reseats to ensure consistent results. Keep in mind that we do these five different reseats throughout all of our sound tests. This is primarily because each person can experience sound differently, depending on the shape and size of their auditory features (like their pinna shape) and how they prefer to wear their headphones. The value of these five passes is fully demonstrated in Frequency Response Consistency as it allows us to highlight the variance in frequency response depending on fit, positioning, and seal. While wear and variance don't factor in the same way when it comes to imaging, running five tests acts like a fail-safe and helps us catch any irregularities in driver matching. On the exterior left cup, a power button at the base side. Long pressing it turns the unit on and powers up. After that, a double tap will enable wireless Bluetooth pairing mode. Above at the top of the cup, a microphone disables and enables the mute switch, which is great for fast “ Please, stop talking to me while I am on voice cha-type moments”

The wireless adapters are different depending on which gaming console you have, and they are not going to work with each other, so make sure you buy the right one for the console you have. Sound Impressions Bass On the Penrose and Penrose X, the Game/Chat Mix was done by pressing the Microphone wheel and then adjusting up and down, as the default scroll action on the wheel was your mic volume. On Maxwell, as there is no microphone volume control (Maxwell uses AGC - Automatic Gain Control) to control the output level of your mic. Game/Chat balance is now the default action, meaning that you only have to adjust the lower wheel up and down to adjust the game/chat balance. Of course, it isn’t an open headphone, so it doesn’t breathe as nicely and doesn’t move as much air. But, for a closed model, the spaciousness is very appreciated. Without any active custom EQ, or the Bass Boost Preset in the Audeze linked app on your phone, the Maxwell leans to the top side and the pronounced and lush midrange overpowers the low end. We have to talk about how heavy these are and if that matters to gamers who game for half the day. Can I wear them that long? No, I cannot. 490g is fairly heavy.

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

Our new measurements show non-Bluetooth wireless latency is ~34 ms and wired USB is ~18 ms. This means that latency depends on your setup and that some people may have higher or lower latency than others. By learning how latency fluctuates depending on the device and by unplugging/replugging the dongle into the same port, we improved and re-evaluated our test. We thank Audeze for pointing out these flaws in our methodology and pushing us to explore new, more accurate ways of measuring latency. In terms of chipset improvements, the Maxwell uses a newer more powerful dedicated DAC and amp sections. The DSP is also much more powerful compared to Penrose. This gives Maxwell much larger dynamic range and a lower noise floor compared to Mobius and Penrose.