Repairability advocate iFixit has performed its first partial disassembly of the AirPods Max, and it's bad news for anyone who wants to poke around inside Apple's premium noise-canceling headphones.

The main problem is that the speaker covers are held in place with adhesive, and iFixit was apparently only able to access the 40mm drivers by heating the AirPods Max until the adhesive melted. This is despite the fact that there are screws elsewhere that are relatively easy to remove.

Teardowns revealed other interesting findings, including that the AirPods Max uses two independent battery cells in the same ear cup. However, these may be difficult to repair, as x-rays revealed that the battery connectors may have been soldered together.

"That said, we are hopeful that battery replacement will be easy. 'It's not always easy to find the connectors from here.'

While it's unfortunate that the AirPods Max is more difficult to repair than other noise-canceling headphones, the Bose QC35 II can be disassembled with a few screwdrivers. iFixit previously found that the iPhone 12's camera repeatedly failed when a third party, not Apple engineers, replaced it. to fail repeatedly when the camera was replaced by a third party rather than an Apple technician.

If you purchased the AirPods Max, you will likely need to use Apple's premium-priced first-party service if you want repairs. If you've already paid $549 for Apple's new headphones, that's something to consider.

If you're a little nervous about spending more than $500 on headphones, check out our best headphones list. Currently topping the list are Sony's WH-1000xM4s, which are well worth a look.