The 2021 MacBook Pro Is The Perfect Companion For The AirPods Max

You’d think it to be the other way around, wouldn’t you? The AirPods Max being the perfect companion to the 2021 MacBook Pros, but I feel, that would be a bit backwards. It’s a bit like Cruella. Once you watch the movie you realise it’s not so much her needing the Dalmatians, but the Dalmatians needing her. Or at least that’s what I got from it. Or maybe it’s a complete symbiosis. Anyway…

When in 2020 I forked out nearly 700 euro for a pair of headphones, I felt a little bit silly. I was raised to be financially responsible, and this purchase felt anything but. However, insatiable tech curiosity got the best of me, and there I was sporting a space-grey pair of objectively overpriced cans. Because no matter how stylish they look, which they do; no matter how good they sound, which they do; and no matter how good that noise cancellation is, which it undeniably is, I will contend that these headphones are overpriced and hard to sell at face value, on their own.

Often as I wore the AirPods Max, listening to The Midnight, Glen Hansard, Helene Fischer or Leonard Cohen, I felt like somehow in an abstract existence kind of way, my headphones were almost an orphan. Sure, they connected just fine to all my Apple devices, but the moment I took them off and moved on to either the MacBook Pro 13" M1, the iPad Air or the iPhone’s speakers, there was a sensation of a jarring disconnect in sound experience. It almost felt like none of my devices were complimenting well the AirPods Max.

That however all changed when I didn’t even expect it to. Apple’s new MacBook Pros of 2021 are marketed as bringing superior sound in a six speaker setup. Apple goes as far as calling it a sound-system. I will only technically agree with that, as yes, a set of speakers working in tandem, are called a system, however traditionally it means something with visible separation of sound channels, geometrically positioned in space. I had my doubts about how much sound-stage really can the new MacBook Pros deliver. I was — to some extent — surprised, and to a lesser extent, not so much. Something felt familiar about the sound. Very familiar in fact.

Enter AirPods Max. After a couple of songs on the MacBook Pro (16" model, btw), I grabbed my AirPods Max and continued listening. I then switched back to the MacBook Pro speakers, then back to the AirPods Max and did that a few times. This could very well be just my ears, but I instantly noticed two things:

• Very similar sound-signatures on both the AirPods Max and the MacBook Pro 2021 16". This is not entirely surprising, both devices are built by Apple.
• A much more fluid soundstage transition experience between the headphones and the MacBook Pro.

To me the latter was the welcome surprise. I finally feel like the AirPods Max has a true companion. Taking them off because they need a charge, or I just simply want my ears to breathe doesn’t feel any more like a huge compromise in sound. It feels more like whatever sound my headphones rendered, suddenly got amplified and are now filling the room, rather than a much tinnier, barely any soundstage alternative I have to put up with.

I know it maybe sounds a little bit pretentious, and very much financially irresponsible, to claim that getting the best of both worlds in sound, and the most out of the AirPods Max, one needs to pair it up with a 16" MacBook Pro 2021, but whether anecdotal or not, to me it feels like the AirPods Max is finally a purchase I can justify to myself.

Attila Vago — Sr. Software Engineer building amazing ed-tech software. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!