I flew 2,700 miles with Apple, Sony, and Sennheiser headphones - this pair had the best audio

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It's become my custom to bring along two pairs of the latest headphones or earbuds when I have air travel planned -- one pair for my outbound flight and one for my return.

Although I can gauge a pair of headphones' performance on trips to the grocery store or while working in my home office, there's no more authentic testing ground than the most overstimulating place I know: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

Also: I wore 5 different headphones across 8 flights - here's how each pair handled my stress tests (2025)

This time, I traveled with some of the latest headphones released this year to test them in a new environment. I took the Apple AirPods Max 2 and Sony WF-1000XM6 from Atlanta to New York City and back, and tested the Sennheiser Momentum 5 and the Sony 1000X The Collexion from Atlanta to Las Vegas and back.

In an airport and on a plane, I can better understand my experience with a pair of headphones' comfort, battery life, portability, and Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), thanks to my chronic rushing, my forgetfulness about device charging, and my requirement for as much quiet as possible.

Apple's AirPods Max 2 provide excellent low-frequency noise cancellation, which is valuable in combating the noise from a plane engine. The Max 2's dense earpads provide significant physical noise isolation, along with the headphones' improved digital noise cancellation, leaving little doubt about their strong performance in this category.