Audeze Maxwell Flora Edition

Firsthand listening impressions

Audeze has a stellar reputation with my coworkers, especially our headphone expert Jeff Miller, so I was pumped to take part in the Beta test for these high-performance gaming headphones. I had the opportunity to run the Maxwells through their paces over the course of a couple weeks, playing a variety of games almost nightly on my PS5. I also spent hours listening to music via Bluetooth while I typed away during the day.

To make a long story short, the Audeze Maxwells sound straight-up awesome and really brought my gaming sessions to life. My PlayStation experience should be comparable for folks on Xbox systems, but keep in mind that there may be some differences. Let's dig in a little deeper for the full story.

Bombastic JRPG battles and quiet moments

I started out by dropping into my current run of Tales of Arise. The high-octane battles are one of the main draws for this game, so I wanted to see how the Maxwells handled them. The clang of steel on steel, the crunch of aerial dive kicks, the whooshing flash of giant columns of fire, the rumble of multi-colored magic explosions — the Maxwells reproduced it all with ease. Each split second brought the sound to new highs and lows as I chained huge combos together, hyper-focused and drawn into the anime-powered soundscape.

On the flipside, the quieter dialogue-driven moments between battles, often around a campfire, offered a surprising sense of space and environmental sound detail. While the protagonists chatted about food, their lives, and the impending doom of their civilization (you know, the little stuff), I could clearly make out the crackling campfire, insects chirping in the surrounding woods, and the trickle of a nearby stream. These details were never distracting and felt clearly in their place. It felt like I was there, too, sitting next to the fire, listening in to the conversations of my companions. In no small way this helped draw me into the storytelling, bringing me closer to the characters. As it turns out, clean sound is for more than just shooters. Speaking of....

Hunting the hunter, one sound cue at a time

Accurate sound cues are essential to survival in Predator: Hunting Grounds. You play as covert operatives in a dense jungle, desperately trying to complete a series of missions with a strict time limit — all while a deadly trophy-hunting alien invisibly tracks your team down one by one. I love the original Predator film and the precise directional sound offered by the Maxwells helped me feel like I was right in the thick of that classic piece of action cinema.

In fact, these 'phones helped me and my usual crew turn the tables on the alien hunting us. Covering ourselves in mud with a satisfying splish-splash, we were able to disguise ourselves from the creature's thermal vision (controlled by an opposing player, by the by). We then tried to quickly and quietly move from point to point, listening intently for the creak of branches bending above us.

With the Maxwells on, I was able to immediately pinpoint the iconic trickling purr made by the Predator and we opened fire. No active camouflage could save the monster from us that evening. I was able to track its movement consistently, from the heavy thump of its footsteps to the humming vmmm of its thermal vision changing frequencies. Unlike Dutch in the movie, I didn't escape the nuclear explosion the creature unleashed in its final petty moments, but one of my teammates did, so I'll call that a win.

Rock 'n' roll backed up by explosions

I finished out my gaming tests with Back 4 Blood, a cooperative shooter with massive droves of parasite-infested zombies, or "Ridden" as they're called in-game. The rush of oncoming enemies can be chaotic, and so I wanted to see if the Maxwells would help me keep my head on the swivel. We played a mission where you crank up a jukebox to lure your enemies as you lie in wait for the coming horde. It was the perfect test.

The jukebox started blasting Black Betty by Ram Jam as a wild assortment of undead creatures piled through every available window and door in a mad dash to gobble us up. I found myself bobbing my head to the song as I sprinted through the bar to confront each new incursion. Despite the banging soundtrack and the cacophony of monster screams and gunshots, I was able to catch the cues that mattered. Whether it was smashing wood, breaking glass, or the pitter-patter of zombie feet, I made sense of the whirlwind and was able to redirect as needed. In all the chaos, the Maxwells never let me down.

And I didn't need to charge them

After all that gaming and music listening, I've yet to charge these headphones. Not a single a time over the course of a couple weeks. Last I checked, they were at just around 50%. They have the longest battery life of any pair of headphones I've ever used — a significant plus.