Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC Review: The Best Over-Ear Gaming Headset Just Got Better

What if your gaming headset didn't have to compromise on basically anything? That's seemingly the premise for Audeze's Maxwell 2 ANC, which delivers really excellent sound and connectivity, but has something of a compromise that we'll discuss. We've already looked at the previous generation of Maxwell headset and come away very impressed. Audeze released a new version of these headphones earlier this year, and recently added ANC to the mix.

So now that we've gotten everything a game could ask for, we decided to take these headphones for a spin. They do not disappoint. These are some of the most feature-complete gaming headphones I've had the opportunity to test. They're big; that's for sure, but they earn that size with a set of features that gamers will absolutely love. I've been testing these headphones for two weeks, and this is my full review.

Everything about this pair of headphones is big. The earcups are huge, the buttons are large, the headstrap is very wide. The headphones themselves are on the heavy side at 560 grams (1.23 lbs). I'm a bigger guy so I didn't mind wearing them for longer sessions. The fact that I have no neck probably helps considerably.

The headphones are made of metal with some leather/faux leather trappings. The head strap adds comfort and the earcups are deep and very well cushioned. Even without considering the active noise cancellation (ANC) the passive isolation provided by the headphones is quite good.

As mentioned, the padded earcups and the head strap that supports that keeps the metal headband from resting on your dome. In addition to the leather head strap, there's additional padding as well. Comfort is not an issue here. The microphone is removable, so you can have it or not, depending on what you need.

The controls on the headset are a little confusing. On the right earcup, there is a power button and a microphone mute switch. That's good, but the microphone (via the boom mic port) is on the left earcup, so it's hard (for me) to remember that it's over there in the first place.

The other earcup has two scroll wheel controls. The first wheel (near the four-rectangle volume icon) controls volume, but also controls the audio track you're listening to as well as your EQ presets. Scrolling controls volume, one press + scrolling moves to your next or previous audio track, and a double-press + scrolling cycles through EQ present options. 

The second scroll wheel controls your "Game/Chat" balance: that's the amount of noise from the game you hear as opposed to the voices from the chat room to which you are also connected. With a press + scroll, the second wheel also controls your "sidetone" volume. A double-press on this second wheel toggles "sidetone" control on/off. 

Next is an aux input port, USB-C port, boom mic port, and finally ANC button on the front of the earcup, above the microphone. That is not how I would lay out those buttons and switches, if I were the designer. Below you'll see an image from Maxwell's function guide/user guide for the headphones. 

Maxwell

Speaking of the microphone, as mentioned, it's removable. It plugs into the headset with a 3.5mm jack and remains there very securely, though the goose neck isn't as still as I'd like it to be.

The microphone sounds pretty good compared to most gaming headsets. Gaming microphones are usually tuned to heavily favor midrange tones to help a gamer's voice separate from the sounds of the game itself. This follows suit, but much more subtly than most. I wouldn't plan to record a podcast with this microphone, but I wouldn't hate it either. I found you can get the best sound by keeping the microphone in line with your jawline, and about a fingers width from your chin. That gives you the best sound without a lot of popping or wind noise from your breath.

As for the audio quality, it's excellent. I regularly test headphones from the likes of Sony and Bose, and I would say that this headset is in the same ballpark for sure. Put a gun to my head, and I'd probably still go with one of those other two, but, like with podcasting, I wouldn't hate having to use these either. You get a very good range of tones, with little distortion. The sound is evenly balanced as well with no frequency overpowering any of the others. The sound is excellent.

Of course, the new addition to these headphones is the ANC that comes with them. The passive isolation provided by the headphones is already great, but ANC adds another 35db of noise suppression which is enough to get rid of most of the droning noise around you. It will not eliminate sudden bursts of noise, like a person coughing or a door closing, but as for droning noises like those from a washing machine or a central air system nearby, those are reduced to a whisper. I've heard better ANC — or not heard it as the case may be — but this is very good indeed.

On the other side, transparency mode is excellent. There's no side tone — unless you want it. You can have whole conversations without having to take the headphones off which is hard to do, and goes to the tuning of the ANC microphones. The whole ANC experience is quite good.

Audeze offers software that is compatible with your PC or mobile device. There is versions for Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac, which is great to see. It'd be easy to overlook either desktop or mobile, but Audeze didn't do that. The apps largely mimics on-headset capability, in turning side tone on and off, setting levels of side tone and game/chat ratio. It also lets you build your own EQ profiles which is a nice bonus that you don't often see in gaming headsets.

You can also change settings like the volume of the voice prompt and the auto shutdown timer. It's a fairly basic app, but it covers everything that needs to be covered. The fact that it's available for all platforms is an excellent bonus. It's also a lot easier to adjust things like side tone and game/chat balance in the app than it is using the roller switch on the headphones, so overall this is a win.

The Audeze Maxwell 2 ANC headphones are available at the company's website, Best Buy, and a few other retailers. They are priced at $429. That's a considerable amount of cash for a pair of headphones — it's up there with the aforementioned Sony and Bose headsets. The fact that these headphones bridge the gap between high-end headphones and a gaming headset it definitely a bonus, and if I were a gamer, I might be tempted to pick up a pair for I only needed one set of headphones for all of my listening needs.

But that's a pretty high price to pay. My favorite set of headphones to this day remains the Nothing Headphone (a) because you can't beat them for the price, which is less than half of the price of these headphones. But I wouldn't call those gaming headphones by any stretch.

The low-latency dongle that these headphones come with alone make these headphones better for "Fortnite" and the like. But if you're not a gamer, latency probably isn't a chief concern. There is something to be said for one headphone for all situations, and to be frank, gaming headphones aren't cheap. If you want a set of headphones with excellent sound, great ANC, and a lot of comfort, these check all those boxes, but they come at a price that's hard to ignore.