Judging by the phrase “quiet and comfortable” (emphasis in the original), the author is using headphones from the Bose QuietComfort series. Those are, indeed, widely acklowledged as the most comfortable in each generation, including for prolonged periods. The ANC is also state of the art though possibly a bit worse than on the Sony XMs, and the battery is decent with the same caveat.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the AirPods Max called the best on any of those fundamentals, only on the Apple ecosystem integration and the spatial audio. (The tuning is also ostensibly less plebeian than on Bose or Sony, but if you care for sound enough to be willing to spend AirPods Max money you’re probably getting the Focal Bathys instead anyway.)

In the article, "quiet" and "comfort" are bolded in that section, indicating that they are referring to Bose QuietComfort headphones

No OP, but I can vouch for for Sony WH-1000X3 (not the most recent model but I assume they haven't gotten substantially worse). I know many autistic folks who use them for very similar audio sensitivity and use them myself.