The AirPods Pro 3 flight problem

Post by philistine » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 10:50 PM UTC

Fwirt wrote: post #83

el_benhameen wrote: post #62

I have this happen outside of flights. Cupping your finger over the ANC mic is enough to trigger it. The new tips (that’s my guess, at least) also transmit vibrations into your ears much more than the old tips or third party memory foam tips. This results in a popping noise when walking or moving around, and a horrible thumping sound when running with them in. I think the latter is partially caused by the “reduce lou…

I have been able to trigger it when fumbling around with adjusting the fit. If I run my finger over the top of the body I can get a brief squeal out of them. Happened just a few seconds ago. I also have noticed on multiple occasions that if I take them both out of my ears and cup them in the same hand, they squeal audibly enough to hear faintly from a couple feet away. The skin contact sensor is very sensitive. Howev…

Post by SchemaLoad » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 10:52 PM UTC

OGWhales wrote: post #169

Fwirt wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with the required update to 26, I was hugely bummed when I discovered I had to update my devices to pair them. I've had the opposite experience with noise cancelling though, the APP3 feel like magic when I'm working with power tools - better than any other (passive) ear protection I've tried in Noise Cancellation mode, and still enough protection in Transparency mode that I can use my circular saw without…

> 100% agree with the required update to 26, I was hugely bummed when I discovered I had to update my devices to pair them. Interesting, I had no issue pairing despite not being on iOS 26. The only things I noticed was that they didn't show up in the Find My app (which is pretty bad) and that I didn't get the shortcut to the airpods settings on the main setting page and had to go through the bluetooth menu instead, o…

Post by coldtea » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 11:24 PM UTC

el_benhameen wrote: post #62

I have this happen outside of flights. Cupping your finger over the ANC mic is enough to trigger it. The new tips (that’s my guess, at least) also transmit vibrations into your ears much more than the old tips or third party memory foam tips. This results in a popping noise when walking or moving around, and a horrible thumping sound when running with them in. I think the latter is partially caused by the “reduce lou…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 28, 2025, 11:30 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #108

spot5010 wrote: post #27

A wild guess as to what is happening. I haven’t actually tested this hypothesis so I could be completely wrong. In feedback systems, the gain is a function of frequency, and typically decreases when going from low frequency to high frequency. This is often accompanied by a phase delay. So if the overall gain of the system is high enough, there will be some high frequency where the gain is 1, and the phase is 180 degr…

That doesn’t explain why the issue seems to be specific to left APPs.

Post by mvkel » Wed, Oct 29, 2025, 12:13 AM UTC

garyfirestorm wrote: post #29

mvkel wrote: post #18

I suspect this is fixable in firmware. What I heard on a long haul flight was the faint sound of the plane's engines traveling back and forth down a paper towel tube; a hollow, cavernous sound. It must be so tricky to nail these algorithms, but with the data of millions, it should be easier to triangulate and address.

i disagree here - having a feedback loop that makes loud noise instead of cancelling is fundamental failure of their ANC algorithm. There's basically no protection mechanism incase of divergence.