Audeze Maxwell Wireless Gaming Headset

Great sound, awful build quality – The headphones sound awesome, however, the reliability is woeful. Firstly, the headphones were purchased at Addicted to Audio, a licensed distributor. I purchased the Maxwells in January and have had them for about 1 month. In that time, I have spoken to Audeze support in the USA and they have replaced the dongle, no qualms, just sent it right away. The issue was, if the computer started without the headphones turned on, the volume of the "Game" signal was extremely low, whereas the "chat" signal was the expected volume. Only fix was to restart windows or restart the audio subsystem. However, when restarting the Audio subsystem the Audeze APP would not function, could not use a volume wheel on the keyboard to change volume etc...

Second issue was far more serious. After about 1 month, the right earcup decided to start loosing signal and producing no sound at all or intermittent sound depending on where you moved the headset. If the headset was twisted or the ear cup tapped, sometimes the sound would return. Obviously a bad connection somewhere. I have had to pay $35 to send them back to the distributor for "assessment". The headphones are only 1 month old and have already failed, the distributor informed me that I have to pay for the return as they did not fail within the first 2 weeks and were not considered "DOA"..... They also informed me that I was not able to receive a refund as they failed outside this 2 week period and hence can ONLY get a replacement or store credit. Yes, I know this is against the Australian Consumer guarantee hence the law...

The good. The Maxwells have a great sound signature, very even through the frequency band with great lows and also really great highs. This alone is enough to justify the cost. The battery life is also outstanding....

The Bad. They are quite heavy due to the magnetic planar speakers, while this does give the Maxwells a really great sound, the cost is far more weight, think about twice the weight of most other "Gaming" headsets. The APP is not really very good seems to have a lot of bugs. The build quality seems to be lacking, my $600 Maxwells only lasted 1 month before failing, this is simply not acceptable.