The Audeze Maxwell ranks as one of the best gaming headsets on the market, and now its successor has arrived amongst the CES chaos. The Maxwell 2 replaces the first version and comes in at a slightly higher price, but offers a laundry list of upgrades including audio quality, comfort, mic quality and bass response.
The major improvement here is the inclusion of Audeze’s SLAM technology, which the company says ‘produces heightened spatial immersion and precision along with punchier bass response’. That’s achieved through pairing the firm’s 90mm planar magnetic drivers with patented magnets and waveguides, ‘delivering an expansive 10Hz to 50kHz frequency range’. The same tech is used in Audeze’s S20 and CBRN2 headphones, where it has attracted largely positive reviews, so it could be a nice acoustic upgrade for the Maxwell too.
The Maxwell 2 also sports an AI noise-cancelling microphone with twice the bandwidth of its predecessor, a trend we’ve seen on a range of gaming headsets released over the last year or so, which is intended to offer clearer communication while gaming.
The Maxwell 2 (and the original Maxwell) also benefits from the release of a new Audeze mobile app, simply called ‘Audeze’, which lets you customise various aspects of the headset. This is a key feature for the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite and other recent SteelSeries headsets, as it allows you to set custom EQs for console games, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the Audeze app is as powerful on this front. The redesigned app is also available on Windows and Mac.
The one noticeable downside to the original Maxwell we noted in our review was its heavy weight, at 490 grams. Unfortunately, this new model is even heavier, at 560 grams. That’s pretty substantial, though the original model was well balanced enough to not be too bothersome, even for long gaming sessions. Despite cultivating more mass, the headset does include a redesigned head strap, which hopefully will do the trick, and the Maxwell 2 also retains a hefty battery life figure of 80 hours.
The Maxwell 2 is in stock at various retailers now and costs $329 for the PlayStation version or $349 for the Xbox model. That’s up slightly from the original Maxwell, which was $299 for the PlayStation model and $329 for the Xbox version. In the UK, prices are £339 for the base model and £369 for added Xbox support. A pricier version with ANC support is also expected to be released later this spring.
Will is deputy tech editor for IGN, specialising in PC hardware, sim racing and display tech. He has been publishing about games and technology since 2001 (age 12). Will was formerly Deputy Editor at Digital Foundry. He is currently playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
