Source: Christine Romero-Chan / iMore The rumors floated around for a few years, but Apple finally dropped the AirPods Max as the December 2020 "surprise," and the AirPods Max pre-orders sold out quickly. The latest AirPods are over-ear premium wireless headphones that bring high-fidelity audio while offering a seamless experience across the board with your Apple gear, as long as you're on the latest software. On paper, this all sounds great, but then you need to consider the price of admission — are all of these features worth the $549 that Apple is asking for? Now, I want to state that while I enjoy a good pair of headphone cans, I am not what you would call an audiophile by any means. I don't have a multi-thousand dollar rig set up for music and audio, I don't have any experience in playing musical instruments, and I don't have other HiFi headphones like Grados, Sennheiser HDs, or even the popular Sony XM4 or Bose 700. The most expensive headphones I have, other than the AirPods Max, would probably be the older Bose QuietComfort 35 IIs that I bought during Black Friday in 2019. I compared the Bose QC 35 II to the AirPods Pro earlier this year, but it looks like I'll be using it once again to compare with Apple's new over-ear cans, which honestly, would be a better comparison anyway.