Audeze interview: The Maxwell is our best-sounding gaming headset to date

At this year’s CES in Las Vegas, we had the opportunity to interview Sankar Thiagasamudram, the founder and CEO of the popular audio brand Audeze. We talked about the company’s new products as well as its collaboration with other brands from the audio sector.

Mr. Thiagasamudram also mentioned whether or not we’ll see an ANC product from Audeze and much more. You can read a brief overview of the interview below or check out the whole thing in the video above.

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Q: You have announced a couple of new gaming products — the LCD-GX and Maxwell. Does that mean that the Penrose and the Mobius are being discontinued?

A: When it comes to the Mobius, we’ll likely make a new edition of it eventually with the latest chipset. But the Penrose will be discontinued and Maxwell will take its place.

Part of the reason for this is the supply chain, but there are also new chipsets and technologies coming out that we want to take advantage of. We’ve just decided to transition from older proprietary chipsets to the newer platforms available. And we think Maxwell is a new platform that will also include other form factors and headphones in the future. It’s a flexible platform that will not only be aimed at gaming but enterprises as well.

Q: Which of the existing LCD products do you think the LCD-GX is closest to in terms of sound?

A: Well, the LCD-GX is kind of a unique product in the series. The reason why we made these headphones is because we saw that people were gaming with our LCD-2 headphones and we thought we could add some of the gaming functionalities into the LCD-GX headphones to make them more versatile. We even partnered up with Shure microphones on this product.

So the LCD-GX is kind of a mix between products like the Maxwell and the Mobius.

Q: You moved over to Atmos with the Maxwell, which is a big step up from what was available on the Mobius. But does the Maxwell include head tracking?

A: No, it does not. We’re limited in the console world, as we don’t have a choice on which 3D algorithm to use. That’s decided by the companies behind the products. So Windows desktops will have Atmos built-in, Xbox will have Windows Sonic or Atmos, while PlayStation consoles will have Sony’s 3D audio.

We don’t control any of this, which makes it difficult for us to put our 3D algorithm into our headset because we have to work with these companies’ existing platforms. So with Maxwell, we had no choice because we wanted it to support both PC and consoles.

Q: We’ve seen your technology in HyperX products as well as in Edifier products. Are you currently pursuing any other relationships like that?

A: We probably have the biggest speaker manufacturing facility in the US at the moment, which is getting more and more automated. We don’t want to work with just about anybody. We want to pick and choose our partners based on our goals.

If there is a good opportunity out there for us, we will certainly take it. We did work with HyperX, which has offices close to ours. We had a nice collaboration in which we made a variation of the Mobius product for them, and they pushed it out to retail. The cooperation brought great results for both of us.

Q: I see you brought the Maxwell with you today. Is there anything you’d like to share with our audience about this product?

A: This is the best-sounding gaming headset we’ve made so far. It has USB-C and great embedded microphones, some of which are there to help with noise removal. But the best part of the product is the battery life. You can get more than 80 hours of battery life playing continuously at 80dB. I haven’t charged these since I came to CES. They also support fast charging.

When we made our first gaming headset, the Penrose, people gave us a lot of feedback. So we took all that feedback and incorporated it into the Maxwell, so we hope people will like them.

Q: Do you have any plans for making ANC products in the near future?

A: Yes, but we have to make sure everything works as it should first. We have an ANC patent with Planar, but we just need to make sure the technology works properly and that it provides a good experience for consumers at the same time.

So at some point in the future, we’ll try to figure it out.

This is just a quick overview of the conversation we had with Sankar Thiagasamudram from Audeze. If you want to learn more, check out the video at the top of the page.