When I started here at Linus Media Group, Linus made sure that I was given a pair of
AirPods Pro. They are admittedly the first pair of AirPods I have ever used, and after hearing all the
hype over the years, it was exciting to be able to try them myself.
The pairing is great. The connection to my M1 Max?
Not so great. The transparency, for me at least, is essential, and the sound is fine.
I still don't feel like they helped me fully appreciate the hype, but I like using them.
Now though, there's a second generation of AirPods Pro, and they appear to offer some
sizable improvements over the ones I've been using for the past two years.
So are they worthy of the upgrade for $250?
At first glance, there's little difference between the new and old AirPods Pro.
They have the same basic tips, shape, and case.
But look closer, the case now has four holes and a lanyard strap loop.
And on the buds themselves, the placement of the grills is completely different.
Even the tips. Yes, the Gen 1 tips will fit, but look at how loose that mesh is.
Why settle? There are also brand new extra small tips available, which is a big boon for people like Nicole,
who were previously having trouble getting a comfortable seal.
If these extra small ones fit, that's a game changer.
That changes everything. That's pretty amazing. And there's a new vent system for pressure equalization to help active noise-canceling
comfort.
Most important with headphones is the sound, and under the mesh is a new speaker driver
and H2 chip. Altogether, these should make everything sound better no matter what's going on around
you. And they do sound better.
I'm no sound expert by a long shot, but I can definitely tell the difference between
these and my old first generation pair. A little bit more bass, a lot fuller.
Now to verify my credibility, we headed to headphones.com to test the AirPods Pro in
their lab. And yep, it appears that the second gen AirPods Pro do in fact have more bass.
What's more, despite not advertising the feature, our tests confirmed that Apple added
a volume-dependent EQ to the new buds.
This adjusts the level of certain frequencies at different volumes.
It's great for when you want to still hear some bass with the volume down.
So if you're an audio-obsessed AirPods Pro user, you will definitely notice and appreciate
the differences. And if you're a normal AirPods Pro user just listening to music off the phone, well, you
can probably still wait for your pair to die. Because while the sound improvements are amazing, it's not worth the upgrade alone.
They still sound really good.
I tried these against a bunch of similarly priced Bluetooth headphones and I have to
say they all kind of sound so similar to each other.
It's Bluetooth compression in small earbud drivers.
I mean, if I got any of these, I'd probably be perfectly happy with the sound.
Compared to other Bluetooth headphones, when you consider the adaptive noise-cancelling
and transparency modes, the differences do reveal themselves.
As I mentioned before, I'm one of those people who doesn't like living in ANC.
For instance, when I tried the Pixel Buds Pro in ANC, I found them to be almost too effective.
I could barely hear myself breathe. It was exhausting and felt suffocating.
You, however, might like that. On the other hand, the Sennheiser True Wireless 3 offers a bit more flexibility, allowing
you to dial in your transparency in ANC on a slider, as opposed to trusting Apple's
automated systems. But I do trust Apple.
These new AirPods Pro sounded better and were more comfortable than any of the other headphones
I tried. And even though the previous AirPods Pro already had great ANC and transparency, these are
noticeably better. If you're a frequent flyer or you take lots of walks in a loud city, then you'll definitely
appreciate the improvements. The usability has improved a lot too.
For instance, you can now adjust the volume of these AirPods on the Buds themselves just
by swiping up or down. It's not fast by any means, but it works well every time I use it.
Not all wireless headphones have onboard volume control, and most split the controls between
the headphones. In these Sennheisers, for instance, long pressing the right Bud raises the volume, and the left
lowers it. Having it all on one Bud is much simpler.
I love the new case.
Where is it? If you misplace it, it's much easier to find thanks to the addition of the U1 chip.
And when you're trying to figure out what couch cushion it's under, there's now a
speaker that can get pretty loud. It also plays fun sound effects when you charge, which you can now do with an Apple Watch charger.
And the U1 chip also makes it clearer when you need to charge.
If you want to know how much battery your case has with the older AirPods, you have
to put at least one Bud in the case and then open it near your phone to get the reading.
Now though, the case's connection to the phone is direct, so the battery level is always
there. It's really nice. Apple's really committed to spatial audio.
Using crazy audio processing, spatial audio can simulate sounds floating around you.
It's very weird using spatial audio headtracked with noise cancellation on at the beach because
it's like, oh, I'm in a different place.
It's neat technology that as of last year I discovered, I'm not that into, especially
for music. And with the latest iOS update, Apple added personalized spatial audio, which is actually
available to all AirPods introduced after 2019.
Using the Face ID camera system, your iPhone can make a map of your ear to tailor the spatial
audio to your ear shape. Your brain is tuned to a particular ear shape, which affects how sound bounces into the canal
from the space around you. It's part of how you can tell where sound is coming from.
Using the ear map, personalized spatial audio should make surround sound and Dolby Atmos
content come to life for you.
It's so much boomier. And I don't know, I mean, to my ears, I don't think I'll use it.
SM, our headphones guy here at LMG, describes increasing the trebles and the bass in audio
as hyping. And sure enough, when I did the hear ID hearing tests with the Soundcore Liberty 3 Pros, hyped
was the result. And that hyped kind of sound is what I hear when personalized spatial audio is on.
The difference is very apparent when you turn it off.
I don't know. I think I prefer it unpersonalized and I'm only really going to use spatial audio anyway
when I'm listening to video content mixed for surround.
With music, plain old stereo is much better to me.
Oh wait, turning it back on requires doing the whole scan again?
Oh, and another annoying glitch is that the audio still cuts out if I have too many Bluetooth
devices connected to my M1 iMac. I thought this was fixed.
It's cutting out. It's cutting out.
Spatial audio support is strange on the Mac 2. It really depends on the app.
Say if I'm watching a video on Firefox, there's no option to turn it on or off until I open
an app that does support it, like music. I've even had head tracking anchored to an iPad on my desk and not the iMac that the
audio is coming from. Also, the menu bar icon doesn't show a set of AirPods, but the old ones do.
I miss that. When it comes to upgrading, if I had bought a pair of AirPods Pro in the last year, I'd
be annoyed about all the great features I'm missing with this new model.
For the uninflated $250 price tag, it's hard to do better.
Especially because of this case, I believe in the magic now.
The second generation AirPods Pro are a super easy way to get great sound out of your Apple
devices. As for me, I still have the first generation AirPods Pro that work well.
I want to see how long they last, and I want to keep them at the landfill, so I'm going
to keep using them. I know what I'm missing out on, and it hurts a little bit.
But what if I didn't own any AirPods? What would I spend my own money on?
Well, not these. I still can't get over the isolation of silicone tips that are so penetrative and uncomfortable.
So I remain ever so drawn to the third generation AirPods, which are the ones I get.
Thanks for making this Mac Address easier to find, which you can do by liking and subscribing.
I'm curious in the comments below, if you're the type of person who for sound quality improvements
alone would actually upgrade a perfectly good set of Bluetooth headphones, like who would
do that? You wouldn't do that. I would.
You would? Yep. Yep.