This is where the fun stops and the work begins.

Those screws got our hopes up, but they behave... strangely. They turn a little ways in each direction, and then stop.

If you forcibly remove them like we did, you'll be rewarded with the sound of loose pieces rattling around inside the earcups... which remain sealed shut. Huh?

It turns out, you're not supposed to remove the screws—just rotate them each a quarter turn or so, to release a locking wedge on the other side. Our pal Quinn over at Snazzy Labs has a lovely video of what that looks like, along with his review of the AirPods Max sound quality—check it out!

The next round of frustration: adhesive. That's right, releasing the locks and/or removing the screws isn't enough. Out comes the heat gun, which must be wielded very carefully to avoid melting all this plastic.

There's really no clearance at all for prying these things out by the edges—if you try, you're gonna do some damage. Since we've already removed the screws, we use a handy dental pick to hook under the screw holes and pull. Finally... we're in!