Apple's AirPods Max 2 were listed at $449 on Amazon, $100 off their price, when Wired reported the discount on October 28, 2026. The cut applies across all five colorways: midnight, blue, orange, purple and starlight.
It's not the lowest price Wired says it has tracked for the headphones, and the outlet expects further drops once Black Friday sales properly kick in next month. But for anyone who needs a pair now rather than in late November, $449 is still a meaningful saving on Apple's priciest audio product.
The AirPods Max 2 launched with a redesign built around louder, more effective noise cancelling. Wired's reporting describes up to 1.5 times the active noise cancellation performance of the original AirPods Max, along with support for lossless audio and a USB-C port that enables low-latency wired listening, useful for watching video without the audio drifting out of sync with wireless playback. The plush over-ear cushions remain the headline comfort pitch against in-ear alternatives, even if they do nothing for the ear pressure some flyers get on planes.
AirPods Pro 3 are discounted too, down $49 from their regular price on Amazon as of Wired's report, though the outlet didn't list the resulting sale price. Wired's own advice is to hold off on the earbuds if you can. The outlet says it has seen better deals on the Pro 3 before and expects the same heading into Black Friday. The AirPods Max 2 discount, by contrast, was framed as worth acting on now if you don't want to wait three or four weeks.
For anyone comparing the two, the gap isn't just shape. Wired describes the AirPods Pro 3 as carrying roughly three times the noise cancellation of the entry-level AirPods 5, plus features the Max 2 doesn't get, including built-in heart rate sensing for workouts, adaptive EQ and hearing aid functionality. Battery life on the Pro 3 runs around eight hours with noise cancelling on, stretching to roughly 24 hours with the charging case, and the earbuds ship with five sizes of silicone tips for fit. None of that is new information for anyone who bought the Pro 3 at launch, but it's the practical reason some buyers pick earbuds over the over-ear Max 2 despite the audio quality gap favoring the latter.
Neither Apple nor Amazon has said how long either discount will run. Wired's guidance is blunt: buy the AirPods Max 2 now if you want them before the holidays, and wait on the AirPods Pro 3 if your timeline allows it. Black Friday lands in late November, and that's when both products are likely to see their steepest cuts of the year.
DDFiled by The Deals Desk
Price drops and sales on tech worth buying, with the price, the retailer and the time it was reported. Prices move; every deal says when it was seen.
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