Apple is bringing higher-fidelity audio to its AirPods Max headphones in April, the company announced today. When the $549 headphones switched to a USB-C connector last year, they lost support for wired audio playback — but it seems like Apple is about to rectify that with full lossless support, which even the prior Lightning model technically lacked.
“With the included USB-C cable, users can enjoy the highest-quality audio across music, movies, and games, while music creators can experience significant enhancements to songwriting, beat making, production, and mixing,” the company wrote in a press release on Monday. “With this update, AirPods Max will unlock 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio, preserving the integrity of original recordings and allowing listeners to experience music the way the artist created it in the studio.” Lossless support “extends to Personalized Spatial Audio,” Apple noted.
The previous edition of the AirPods Max with a Lightning connector don’t offer true “lossless” playback because of a signal conversion that occurs whenever a wired input is used.
There’s also an ultra low latency aspect to this soon-to-arrive update, which the company says should make the AirPods Max better suited for music production and gaming purposes. The new firmware update will roll out alongside iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 sometime in April.
You can use a USB-C to USB-C cord for lossless audio, but Apple is also now selling a $39 USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable that shares the same braided design as the company’s other recent cables.
