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AirPods Pro

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Re: AirPods Pro

#131

Post by mikestew »

willis936 wrote: post #121
pxhb wrote: post #17

The lack of sound isolation is my biggest gripe with my AirPods, so it is nice to see that it has been improved with the Pro version. In the past I have had nausea when using active noise cancelling headphone (especially when used without music), so I am curious to see if any of the reviews hints at this.

I have serious reservations about these. They make big claims yet miss some important, basic design choices. For instance: you will get zero bass with an open back design and the active noise cancellation operates at 200 Hz (presumably) so you can forget about cancelling annoying whines from server fans or turbojets. The dynamic EQ based on a microphone is an interesting choice. This could have really good results if…

The dynamic EQ based on a microphone is an interesting choice.

I don't even know if the two are related, not being sound/audio/whatever expert, but I'm continually amazed that I can blast music on a HomePod, speak in a conversational tone or quieter (of course I've tested), and Siri still hears me. Whatever dark wizardry makes that work would come in handy here, yes? Or is your argument more that, dark magic or not, the physical hardware isn't there?

Re: AirPods Pro

#132

Post by ctdonath »

graeme wrote: post #117
smachiz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite right. What the anti-noise does is generate an inverse wave to cancel out some (as much as possible) of the waveform of the noise. It's not just playing white noise louder than the external noise. The result is that your ear drum receives a smaller waveform to vibrate to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control

Thanks! So it actually destroys the sound and it has no effect? Or does it have an effect on your hearing, but you don’t perceive it?

Actually destroys the sound.

Acoustic equivalent of x + -x = 0.

Re: AirPods Pro

#133

Post by lm28469 »

graeme wrote: post #117
smachiz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not quite right. What the anti-noise does is generate an inverse wave to cancel out some (as much as possible) of the waveform of the noise. It's not just playing white noise louder than the external noise. The result is that your ear drum receives a smaller waveform to vibrate to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control

Thanks! So it actually destroys the sound and it has no effect? Or does it have an effect on your hearing, but you don’t perceive it?

You can definitely tell something is going on when the active noise canceling is on but it's not a big deal most of the time. It's good at blocking repetitive noise (office, car, plane) but bad at blocking other things like a car horn, a gun, someone clapping, &c.

Re: AirPods Pro

#134

Post by samwhiteUK »

baxtr wrote: post #126
diffeomorphism wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't really mention why? Why are they better than wireless earbuds by Sennheiser, Amazon, Google etc?

For me the answer is quite clear: they simply work. Apple like. Did I test all the others you mentioned? No. Probably because I used to have several Bluetooth headset. They hardly ever worked. For me, I had to have high trust in the HW company to ever test a Bluetooth headset again.

FWIW, I've tried to set up one pair of Airpods, and they were broken right out of the box. Wouldn't pair with anything.

So that's a 1 in 1 failure rate ;)

Re: AirPods Pro

#135

Post by sandyarmstrong »

Phillips126 wrote: post #50
sandyarmstrong wrote: post #6

I just end up immediately closing these sites that don't work at all reasonably with a scroll wheel.

Normally I roll my eyes at these types of comments but you are totally justified. I'm in front of a desktop using a mouse and am getting scroll fatigue just trying to get to about the 1/2 way point of the web page. Literally scrolling through individual video frames is moronic. Edit - Just noticed that the animated scroll-breaking stuff seemed to stop when using a mobile view (noticed using Chrome Dev tools) which ma…

Yeah I hate being "that guy", but I just couldn't make any progress on the site.

Re: AirPods Pro

#136

Post by lfowles »

_bxg1 wrote: post #105
whalesalad wrote: post #8

I really struggled to take the plunge on the original AirPods and it has been one of my top 10 purchases ever in my life without a doubt. I stood there holding the little $200 box in my hand and really danced back and forth in my mind about whether or not they would really be necessary. If they broke, I would go buy a new pair immediately. For what they are, the sound is amazing. I can't really do a phone call anymor…

> I am not in the market for anything like this, since I have the high-end spectrum covered w/ some Sony over the ear noise cancelling cans but if I was I would give these a shot in a new york minute. Like the first-gen AirPods, I think having noise-cancelling in this form factor is a game-changer. All other noise-cancelling headphones, as far as I know, are either bulky on-ears or earbuds with a brick that dangles a…

All active noise cancelling headphones just hurt my ears after extended periods of time.

Re: AirPods Pro

#138

Post by sdan »

wilsonnb3 wrote: post #24
bsamuels wrote: post #3

I will personally love to see someone justify spending $250 on wireless earphones whose batteries cannot be replaced. I'm a year and a half into my normal airpods and they already need new batteries.

People are already spending that much on the power beats pro, sennheiser momentum true wireless, and sony wf-1000xm3. It's only $50 more than the AirPods with wireless charging case. These would be a day one purchase for me if I didn't already have the over-the-ear Sony WH-1000xm3 headphones for 90% of my listening and a recently purchased set of AirPods for the other 10%.

How do you like the WH-1000xm3’s?

I think they’re a really dumb pair of headphones considering the fact that they automatically connect to either my phone or laptop at random and I have to reconnect them by holding the power button for 5 seconds every time to switch between laptop and phone.

Despite this, the sound quality is pretty good... but it still doesn’t justify how relatively dumb these pair of headphones are.

Re: AirPods Pro

#139

Post by robohoe »

jsinai wrote: post #116
fancyfish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the noise cancelling and sound quality on these is great, I may actually go from the Sony cans to these, mainly due to Bluetooth pairing woes. With the Sony headphones, if I want to switch from iPhone to Macbook I have to do the dance of Bluetooth repairing. Switch off BT on iPhone -> connect headphones to Mac, switch iPhone BT back on. The sound would have to be in the same ballpark though, which is hardly a guar…

FWIW I have the Bose NC 700 and the Bluetooth pairing is seamless. I can be paired to multiple devices at once; if I’m playing music from my laptop but receive a call from my phone then the Bose are smart enough to pause music on my laptop and switch the audio input to my phone.

Bose appear to has their stuff together when it comes with multi-device pairing. I can pair both my Soundsports and QC35 headphones with multiple devices at the same time.

When choosing between QC35 and Sony's noise cancelling cans, Bose was a clear winner due to that fact alone.

Re: AirPods Pro

#140

Post by te_chris »

fancyfish wrote: post #106
whalesalad wrote: post #8

I really struggled to take the plunge on the original AirPods and it has been one of my top 10 purchases ever in my life without a doubt. I stood there holding the little $200 box in my hand and really danced back and forth in my mind about whether or not they would really be necessary. If they broke, I would go buy a new pair immediately. For what they are, the sound is amazing. I can't really do a phone call anymor…

If the noise cancelling and sound quality on these is great, I may actually go from the Sony cans to these, mainly due to Bluetooth pairing woes. With the Sony headphones, if I want to switch from iPhone to Macbook I have to do the dance of Bluetooth repairing. Switch off BT on iPhone -> connect headphones to Mac, switch iPhone BT back on. The sound would have to be in the same ballpark though, which is hardly a guar…

I have sony XM2's and I just disconnect one and connect the other. Not 100% seamless, but certainly no repairing.
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