My impressions:
I used the headset for about 2 hours of gaming. I'm not a reviewer, so I'll focus on the comfort and allow the more hardcore audiophiles to dive deep into the sound.
On comfort, it's say it's better than the stock Penrose, but worst than a modded Penrose (Wicked Cushions with a aftermarket headband).
Weight: The weight of the headset wasn't a problem, but the side of my head did feel some discomfort after about an hour due to the clamp force.
Headband: It's some what a challenge to find the correct position for the headband. The middle was ok, but put pressure on the top of my ear, while the bottom position was too small. For the people who have bigger heads and need the top position, there is some cushion between the band and metal headband so it shouldn't be too uncomfortable at the top position. For me, I stuck to the middle and delt with the discomfort at the top of the ear. I will say, the headband is not the most comfortable material. It's like a hard canvas material with a very cheap/thin PU leather film over it. Hopefully Audeze comes out with some more comfortable upgrades in the future.
Earpads: Are soft to the touch and feel good overall. Definitely got a little hot after a while, but that was expected. Overall, pretty good.
Controls: I still need to get used to this. So no strong feelings here outside of not knowing yet what the different beeps mean when you hold down the volume wheel.
Sound: Like I said, I'm not going to get too deep, but it sounds slightly better than the Penrose. Clarity is great, very low volume floor, and overall was good to go even without EQ. I will say, I solely played MW2 during my play session and the imagine was great, but the sound stage was pretty bad. I was using my Astros right before this and could hear footsteps from longer distances. What you sacrifice in soundstage you make up for in imaging, but I am a bit disappointed they couldn't make bigger improvements to the soundstage. Overall, if you liked the Penrose, you'll like this. It's just not the best for FPS.
Sound isolation: Sound isolation is good. Probably cuts out 30% more sound than the Astro A50s with the mod kit (if you've ever tried those), but I could still hear my fan going fairly well.
Range: I have a 2 bedroom apartment that's about 1100 sqft. With the Penrose, I can make it to about 40% of my apt before it disconnects (my PS5 is at the edge of my apt). With the Maxwell, I can make it basically anywhere in my apartment without it cutting off, BUT the quality drops considerably the further I go. The range with good quality is fairly similar to the Penrose for me, but the outside of that range it's bluetooth level quality sound not 2.4ghz. With the A50s, sound quality doesn't dip until I'm at the polar opposite side of my apt (~90% of the way).
Saving the 2 biggest things for last (good and bad):
Mic: The mic is INCREDIBLE from what my teammates said. The headset comes with the AI filter on medium out of the box, and the initial reaction was "the mic sounds like it's trying to make your voice too clear". I turned it off and BOOM it was perfect. They were saying during the game, the mic was so good it actually threw off their game audio lol. Even with the AI stuff off, another teammate commented that my air purifier in the background is MUCH lower with the new mic.
Problem: The left earcup has a rattle when you pick it up or move it around. It sounds like there's a piece loose inside. Very disappointing. I'm going to send Audeze an email. I don't want this post to be overall negative, which is why I'm putting this last, but I am very sad they didn't catch this quality control miss considering they manually unboxed and updated each headset individually.
