One really interesting effect of the AirPods - is that its changed the paradigm - where the default choice of headphones is Bluetooth.
I personally own a pair of Beats fit pros - which are great for running, Zoom calls. But I recently acquired a schiit vestri and I pair these with some old wired seinheisers (HD1). I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I say this as someone with tens of thousands in audio equipment, as someone who can hear the compression warble in the hihats and the cymbals - audio quality with earbuds doesn't actually matter. It's like the argument for audio quality in cars - you're listening in a hostile environment, and convenience wins over fidelity. I remember walking to work one time with over-the-ear Sennheisers attached to my iPod and it felt ridiculous, and unsafe.
I finally capitulated to earbuds when they started giving them away with the Pixel phones. The "find my" feature basically justifies the pro-prices, to me, because my biggest complaint about bluetooth earbuds in my own use case was how easily they're lost. I've lost and recovered my Pixel Buds Pro 2 a couple of times now. When traveling a lot by train and plane, the convenience of pocket-sized noise-cancelling earbuds has become worth it for me.
But when I'm on meetings, I'm wired in. During the pandemic, I lost track of how many times my colleagues' Airpods would sputter out and die in the middle of a client meeting. Then they'd switch to wired headphones and their Macbook microphone. They sounded better, they could hear better, and there was no battery power sword of Damocles anymore.
Disagree slightly with audio quality for cars. I recently got a car with "good" speakers and the difference from regular car speakers is striking. Although I'm sure that the curve quickly flattens on spending more to get more quality, going above the base car speaker level has been awesome for me.
I think the point is that when you're driving (at least in a combustion engine car), the 60-70dB noise floor is so high that it almost doesn't matter how good the speakers are in an ideal silent, soundproof chamber.
There's only so much you can do. A car is filled with funny angles, plastics, and a lot of glass. It's never going to be a particularly good acoustic environment even if you manage to shield 100% of the road noise.
You can't have a proper soundstage in a car no matter your setup, which kinda degrades a lot of music that wasn't designed for clubs. In a car it's basically background music when you're driving because you can't really give the music your full attention anyway (passive listening), where the lack of focus also masks a lot of details you'd hear on a proper stereo system (active listening).
Edit: to answer your question below, I like both, active and passive listening. But I wouldn't try to optimize for active criteria like details in a passive evironment like a car, so I'd spend more money on fun things like buttkickers instead of high end detail.
Obviously a car isn't a dedicated listening room. Music can be enjoyed by just listening to it and not focusing on all the nuances. Or are you one of those hardcore audiophiles who can't listen to music without a ultra high end sound system?
Also soundstage can be greatly improved by placing speakers on non factory locations because manufacturers usually prioritize packaging above all else. A tweeter placed at the bottom of the A-pillar near the windshield is the worst possible location and sounds like it was put in a tin can.
Background noise in a car also has a solution, turning up the volume. Plus getting quiet tires.
Sure is for bass. It's a sealed box that you're in, with shapes that stop anything from acting like a simple room shape, and surfaces that can soak up highs, and so small that this absorption is a huge percentage of surface area.
There's a reason mix engineers have always done 'check the mix in a car'. It might be way more revealing of what's happening in the bass, even when the speakers are relatively weak. Once you get anything decent, watch out. It's a bit like having your whole body inside headphones.
> I recommend ripping your car apart and putting sound insulation panels everywhere you can! Also replacing your sound system...
Ripping the car apart to install sound insulation might void your warranty.
I have a Bose sound system in my car with 11 or 13 speakers (they're everywhere), but the car is so poorly insulated that I have to turn up the volume quite a lot at highway speeds, or even after about ~ 35-40MPH.
That's the point, isn't it? You'd have to spend a lot of money on related stuff before audio upgrades, otherwise those audio upgrades are just money wasted.
Is it that high? I know that in my Audis, there's actually a system that (in sport mode) pumps engine noise -into- the cabin because the sound damping was that good. And my partner's A4 is at the point where you hear only tire noise, not engine noise.
And I used to own a Jaguar XJ that (while the car itself I had to get rid of after the entire cooling system shit the bed for the second time) was the quietest car I've ever owned and not even close, despite being a 5L V8. (The Jaguar also had probably the best sound system I've heard in a vehicle - 1200W B&W 7.1 channel, 20 transducers).
I believe the disconnect is that the goal isn't to be as good quality as a controlled indoor environment; it's that there are car setups that sound dramatically better than other car setups. There is merit to your interlocutors stances, even though cars are a challenging audio environment as you point out.
In cars it’s also important how good it isolates you from the engine and external noise like wind and wheels on the road. Some cars even have noise cancellation for that.
Some cars have gone so far on the isolation and sound damping front that they pipe back in a little bit of engine noise (but only the part that sounds sporty) via the speakers.
Its interesting though because I have a car with excellent speakers and I am extremely glad that I can plug my phone into my car and play music through the Lightning port, it sounds drastically different between that and playing it through the Bluetooth connection.
I am looking to purchase a new car and through test driving it has a better sound system on paper with more speakers and a subwoofer and the sound is limited by the performance of the Bluetooth connection.
I agree. Hell, when I'm listening to music with my full-fat expensive setup, even the noise of the fans in my desktop computer is distracting and adversarial to the listening environment. Bringing those cans outside would be insane.
Sound quality is worse when transmitting and receiving over Bluetooth, when I use the AirPods for calls on the MacBook I switch to the microphone on the MacBook, they will hear me better and I will hear them better since the AirPods will use all the bandwidth for outputting audio only.
When making a call and using headset mic+earphones the audio mode/profile drops back to HFP instead of A2DP used for music. The quality difference is huge. By using the computer mic you can keep using A2DP with better quality for your voice capture and listening experience.
It's technically not a bandwidth issue, AFAIK, it is a "profile" issue. When listening to audio only you are using a different bluetooth profile than when you are using it for two way mic+speakers.
Try playing some music on your computer and then start a video call. Even before I jump into the meeting, as soon as I hit the Google meet site and it opens up the meeting "camera preview" page, the music quality goes straight into the toilet.
This also happens to my "puck" speaker+mic array that is connected via USB.
As I understand it the codec used in Bluetooth headsets is from 2003 and doesn't use the bit rate effectively compared to a newer codec. Sometimes a device will support a newer codec especially with the aptX branding, and even rarer will both devices support it!
They mean that the audio quality you hear on the AirPods is better if you only listen to audio compared to listening and using the microphone. I don’t know if that happens on Macs too, but it’s certainly true when using AirPods on Linux because you have to switch the profile when you want to use the microphone and then the audio is really compressed for playback.
This is certainly the opposite of my experience. The sound quality from someone speaking via their MacBook microphone is noticeably worse than someone speaking via their AirPods microphone.
I'm not audiophile, but I was prepared to do the same, despite the discomfort and obviously-lower sound quality... but the mic isn't even sufficient for meetings in a public place (e.g. a diner at lunch time), whereas my laptop's builtin mic is. How can they expect us to use these things??
Convenience is close. IMO it’s all about accessibility, or more generally Good UX. Your coworkers AirPods died because they used it consistently and could just get up and walk around without having to take them out. They were always on because they were in ear and had no reason to be disconnected. They’ll turn off the moment you take them out on iPhones atleast. This is a small example of how the user experience in the Apple Ecosystem for AirPods has been kind of nuts. So if you’re on these devices, there is a palpable difference in ‘convenience’ that goes beyond what is carry-able or safe or consistent.
To further this concept, the reason why you tolerate variable quality isn’t just convenience or accessibility. It’s because you can’t carry your setup around, yes, but furthermore you don’t habitually listen to music because you have the best setup. You do it because you love music. In that regard, the user experiences do become interchangeable. Quality music is accessible on every device and you will listen to it with anything if you love music. The user experience enjoyment levels are ultimately similar with most devices for you, purely when it comes to music listening, just because you love music. It’s a consistently good UX for you.
I say all of this as someone who has also wasted money on expensive listening devices (and loves music) and also someone who isn’t like, crazy about the modern Apple UX. They just got earbuds right when it comes to the experience of an Apple ecosystem user.
> They’ll turn off the moment you take them out on iPhones atleast. This is a small example of how the user experience in the Apple Ecosystem for AirPods has been kind of nuts.
Every 'pod' type headphones I've used do this. It's odd you admit to only knowing Apple, then use it to support Apple being superior.
I use my Shokz headset for calls. The boom directional mic is excellent at suppressing background noise on its own and the connection is super reliable with the USB-C dongle (that works on phones as well as laptops)
Any good over ear headphones you’d recommend to someone who is generally skeptical but curious of the audiophile world? Cost being no issue, what would you recommend?
- wired: Philips SHP9500; open-back, so not an "office" model. The single-sided 3.5mm jack is convenient and lets you plug in a 3rd party boom mic. I know these are priced way below any audiophile-grade stuff but the non-EQd frequency response rivals or is sometimes outright better than many "audiophile" specimens (looking at you, Sennheiser HD800 and your 6kHz ringing). Also exceptionally comfortable - but that's subjective, of course - and lightweight.
- wireless: I have a pair of Airpods Max and these are somewhat interesting (but nothing exceptional wrt audio quality). These are lagging behind AirPods feature-wise but the transparency mode is very clear and convenient, so I find them safe enough for walking outside. The ANC is also good.
Only tangential, but man I really hate sitting in zoom meetings with bad audio. It could be one person with a bad mic. But the worst is when you’re talking to people in a room somewhere and they simply don’t have the equipment. Combine that with a weekly dose of feedback…
The connection type has nothing to do with it though. Modern bluetooth is basically transparent with 256kbps AAC, like you'd have to be an omega-expert listening in a silent room to identify it vs lossless. Certainly the difference you're noticing is just the headphone quality.
Honestly for me the Airpods 4 with ANC are one of the greatest feats of audio engineering ever. For such a tiny form factor they reproduce really great sound, big soundstage, AND they have good ANC without needing a closed earbud seal. They also have internal mics that listen to the response of your ear to adjust the sound profile, which you can hear happen in real time after bumping the earbuds. Obviously you can get better sound if you make different tradeoffs and wear over-ears, but they are absolutely cutting edge for what they are.
> Modern bluetooth is basically transparent with 256kbps AAC, like you'd have to be an omega-expert listening in a silent room to identify it vs lossless.
Sure, unless you want to do something rare and exotic like, say, have a microphone on your headset. Then you get the HFP/HSP profile, which makes two tin cans linked by a string seem high quality by comparison.
I am now curious how much you can optimize the quality of a tin cans and a string. You could encode the sound digitally over the string perhaps. I wonder what bitrate (also bandwidth) you can achieve.
Using acoustic data transmission because it is easy and I am lazy, I'd guess comparable to copper wire broadband based on the short distances involved in an average tin-can + string operation.
If you’re outside with a smartphone, why do you actually need that though? If you call someone, their audio will be bad anyways, and when do you need playback and microphone at the same time? Outside multiplayer gaming, I don’t really know any application where high quality audio playback and microphone is needed at the same time.
I can understand people just fine with the voice profiles provided by Bluetooth. Strictly speaking, I don't need anything better than that.
But it sure is nice to be able to make phone calls where people don't sound worse than they did with digitally-switched analog landline telephones in 1995. Bluetooth doesn't get there at all.
The losses of Bluetooth even compound generationally: The inescapable tin-can audio of Bluetooth at one end first gets transmogrified by at least one intermediate lossy codec for transmission across/betwixt the network(s), and then gets tin-canned harder when the far end of the connection is also using Bluetooth.
For perspective: 1995's phone calls were ultimately limited by the G.711 codec, which itself dates to 1972. I'm not setting the bar very high here at all.
Calls on AirPods don’t sound worse to me than on the phone speakers, I don’t think the AirPods noticeably decrease the quality compared to the stuff happening on the phone network.
"The phone network"? As in the usually 8 kHz to 16 kHz quality call typically encoding at ~a quarter the rate of dial-up?
Of course that sounds like a tin can either way, it's coming in encoded with the quality of a tin can! People here are talking about modern VoIP calls (Teams/Slack/Discord/Zoom/etc) which have a snowball's chance in hell of sounding decent in the first place. HSP/HFP will often crank that right back down to traditional phone network quality again. You also lose stereo, which isn't so bad if the only thing you're doing is having a 1:1 call but kind of sucks for a background group call.
The "phone network" nowadays offer high quality sound. Things improved drastically with VoLTE and other technologies which allows much more bandwidth for calls than the old networks could support.
EVS is typically not horrendous, I just wouldn't describe it as the usual VoLTE quality yet. That's still most commonly AMR-WB at 16 kHz, though it'd depend largely on who you're dialing from what where I suppose. One person who dials local cell users on a 5G network will probably tend to get EVS, one who doesn't probably won't.
I mean: I, for one, was definitely talking about telephone calls. :)
But now that you mention it: Yeah, the state of common VoIP (Teams/Slack/Zoom/whatever) is also usually not very good. It's like there's some huge bandwidth crunch here in 2026 that is driven by the strenuous demands of VoIP, except: There isn't.
When I was doing some live streaming with others in a studio a couple of years ago, we worked with some of that. It never sounded very good. (It doesn't sound very good when the big-time acts at CBS or NPR or Fox News do it, either.)
But! When we occasionally had remote co-hosts who had enough technical competence to make it work properly on their end, we were able to use SonoBus[1]. That audio was positively pristine, like they were sitting unseen in the same room as everyone else.
As I mentioned in my comment, I don’t notice the worse Bluetooth quality on calls because the audio itself is already bad, so making calls isn’t really a reason to not use Bluetooth.
Your comment frustrates me! With that said, how about Discord? I have high speed internet 90% of my waking life, high enough for Discord to be high fidelity. I actively avoid using discord to join calls on my phone- because Bluetooth absolutely destroys quality. I use the same pair of headphones to use discord on my PC, with a separate mic, no problemo.
Need? A committee of the dumbest software on your pc/phone will get together to tell you what you need, and they have decided you need tin-can audio quality so that the microphone can be active so that AT&T spyware embedded in the Taco Bell app can listen for off-hand comments about refreshing your phone to opportunistically target you with the spam-cannon.
Why hasn't this been fixed? It seems like something that would be a high priority issue. And maybe it has? I noticed iPhone + AirPods doesn't suffer from this.
Surely it would be very rare to want to listen to music at its highest quality while simultaneously recording your voice. It’s perhaps conceivable for some sort of niche mode of music or audio production, I suppose.
I'm frequently listening to music or a video in the background. Join a zoom call early because I don't want to be late, instant AM radio. You can argue I shouldn't do this, I'll argue that it shouldn't matter and should just work. It's 2026, not 1926.
Modern pocket supercomputers don't divulge anything useful about the kind of connection that is being used for Bluetooth audio so we don't know if it's using 256kbps AAC or something else instead, and it cuts out in some areas of [insert city], and when it comes back it sounds demonstrably worse.
It's an inscrutable mess.
Wires don't have these problems. Plug them in. Use them. Clean the contacts every now and then if/when they get crudded up.
That only works with A2DP one-way audio. The two-way HFP mode still uses the horrible classic BT compression unless the new BLE-based LE Audio is used(but IIUC Apple still don't support it). Besides there are still many devices that only supports BT's own 2000s-optimal SBC codec.
Connection type means the sound quality drops significantly when headphones are used for speaking, though. Maybe don't notice as much in normal calls / only speech, but using Bluetooth when gaming and some kinda of voice chat makes all game music / ambient sounds sound so crunchy.
For some reason my iphone sporadically won't go back to "music quality" mode after cutting a call on a wireless speaker or car play, and it's incredible how bad music sounds with telephone quality.
The trick is to switch input to the laptop/external mic. Audio quality stays great. It’s kind of ridiculous that Bluetooth still needs the shitty lo-fi mode when the mic is on - I was recently surprised that this is still the case with modern headphones like it was a decade ago.
Isn't the main issue that the audio you're compressing over bluetooth, like spotify streams, is already compressed? As far as I know, compressing already compressed audio compounds artifacts in the same way re-saving a JPEG does.
Comparison is the thief of joy. I remember when I first got a 1080p display, comparing it to my previous 480p one the difference was amazing, but before I got the 1080p display I had no problem with my old one.
All that to say.. what's best, cheap, no wires, no headaches and happy or expensive, wires, having to download music and make a library etc and always looking for the next high, the next minor improvement?
One of the happiest days of my life was when I listened to my music on a 10$ mp3 player with 2$ earphones after 3 months of not listening to it.
So yeah, you may be right, even though I've tried 3000$ open-ear audiophile headphones, with an amazing amplifier, listening on tidal and it didn't blow me away but even if it did, I'd be stupid to even try, then I'd know what I'm missing and craving a 5000$ setup when I'm already happy with the 1 inch box I can easily carry wherever I go.
> what's best, cheap, no wires, no headaches and happy or expensive, wires
You can get great sounding wired iems for very little money, while wireless earbuds are usually pretty pricey for anything not crummy. Cables are indeed annoying, but so is your earbuds being dead because you forgot to charge them. The battery problem gets worse too as they age. If you want reliable, cheap, good sounding music it is pretty hard to beat chi-fi iems.
I'm reminded of a quote: "the best camera is the one you have on you." People ditched their digital cameras en masse when smartphones became popular. Not because the smartphone cameras were better, but because they were convenient.
The market has spoken. People drastically prefer the convenience of Bluetooth over the quality that comes along with having to constantly untangle wires or having audio cut in and out from failing wires.
On top of that, universal adoption of noise cancellation has resulted in dramatically better quality in practice than what people were using in 2005. Yes, wired headphones with noise cancellation are even better, but not to a point that people are willing to sacrifice the convenience of going wireless.
> People ditched their digital cameras en masse when smartphones became popular. Not because the smartphone cameras were better, but because they were convenient.
The early 00's transition from CRT to LCD monitors was similar. The early desktop LCD panels were expensive, had worse refresh rates, worse contrast, and worse colour rendering. To this day, even very good modern displays struggle to match CRT motion rendering.
But LCDs are so much thinner and lighter, and that was enough to overcome the disadvantages.
Ha, my mid 90s 21" Nanao CRT cost more than my used car was worth. I went on to get some high-end CRTs with Trinitron tubes after that at work.
But, as soon as I could get an LCD with DVI-D input, I never wanted to go back to a CRT. I just got whatever high resolution Dell LCD monitors I could find. I was much happier with perfect pixel addressing and zero bleed for rendering my text terminals and source code. I didn't care about color rendition and hardly cared about ghosting from scrolling.
There’s also the depth. A crt monitor would have a depth at least equal to the diagonal measurement which meant a lot of desk space lost to the monitor. On the other hand that also meant some prime cat nesting space that was lost with the lcd transition.
I think this is a great explanation. To add to it, I believe there is something durability too. My basic Jabra wireless earbuds from 2020 are just now getting faulty (just battery stuff). In a similar time period from 2010 and 2015 I went through at least 6 pairs of wired headphones or earbuds, the jacks would fail or the wires would just stop working.
> I'm reminded of a quote: "the best camera is the one you have on you."
Yeah, I think about that often when deciding on what to buy. It's often "what would I actually use" rather than "have on me".
For example, a corded vacuum is better on every metric than a cordless, but my house will be cleaner with a cordless because I'll actually use it.
Or, I really wanted a fully analog hi-fi amp, but realistically I knew I'd use it a lot more if it has bluetooth and airplay built-in and I can control it remotely.
And obviously airpods: I much prefer sound from headphones, but I just wouldn't take them with me most of the time whereas my airpods live on my keyring.
> But I recently acquired a schiit vestri and I pair these with some old wired seinheisers (HD1). I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
These sound better because they're $500 full-size headphones, not because they lack Bluetooth.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today
The AirPods use 256kbps AAC. If you set up a true ABX test, you would not be able to tell the difference between 256kbps AAC and lossless using the same gear.
$19 iems sound better than airpods, the bar is that low, but normies don't care, most probably listen to spotify on auto and get 96kbps anyways. When the batteries invariably die after 2-3 years they'll send another $150 to Tim Apple while their old airpod finally become the e-waste they were destined to be
> $19 iems sound better than airpods, the bar is that low, but normies don't care,
I have several sets of high end headphones and have spent more on audio equipment than I probably should.
I enjoy my AirPods very much. They're great. They don't replace full-size headphones, but that's not what I bought them for.
I find all of this brand-bashing and talk about "normies" to be funny. The AirPods lineup is actually really enjoyed in the kinds of audiophile circles where they actually measure stuff and don't care which logo is on the box.
I don't get the comparison to the $19 IEMs because they're completely different product than the AirPods.
There's a surprisingly large number of people who have a negative opinion of AirPods (including their audio quality) while having never tried them. I've owned and tried some very high quality IEMs and still to this day impressed by the AirPods' audio quality and convenience. I've not found any wireless IEMs that come anywhere close.
To offer a counterpoint, Airpods Pro are a great product that significantly increased my quality of life. Depending on how sensitive you are to noise then having easily accessible/socially acceptable noise cancelling is incredible. Perhaps you are too much of a normie to get it ;)
I don't think I can adequately express how few fucks I give about my AirPods becoming e-waste. My god, the depressing mental state that some of you must live in...
You'd be much more brain dead to care about Airpods becoming waste once every few years than the far more plastic being chucked in a single 500ml bottle of Coke.
i wonder if you've ever tried them. I'm concerned about audio quality and never thought to use airpods since I assumed they'd fall out when i was hiking. My gf bought me the last version of the airpods pro and they sound excellent. and they've never fallen out of my ears during normal movement like i assumed they might.
>I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
Quality is governed by your subjective experience. The HD1s are tuned in a way that, paired with the Vestri and the files, creates the experience that you enjoy better. That's it. It's not about "better quality" and definitely not about "fidelity."
You also paid probably $99 for something that Apple perfected and sells for $10 -- that USB DAC. Which is fine! You should spend money on things that make you happy.
>The quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
This sentence doesn't have enough detail. What is quality supposed to mean here?
you're mistaken. Only proper blood diamond coated connectors increase the sound quality. lab grown with the same chemical and physical properties doesn't work.
You say that as if this wasn't completely to plan. The release of the first airpods and the first iPhone sans headphone jack were at the same time. It was brute-forced.
> where the default choice of headphones is Bluetooth.
Unfortunately not giving wired headphones away (with the phone purchase) and not including the standard 3.5 mm headphone jack, means that 'normal' people just put their phone calls and play their video on speaker, to the annoyance of everyone (on public transport).
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
Comparing Apples to Apples, AirPods are definitely sound better and are more useful than the pack-in iPod earphones that everyone used back then.
We've been over this for a couple decades now. The average consumer simply cannot tell the difference between lossless and compressed codecs. Even back 20-25 years ago when people carried around CD players, vanishingly few people batted an eye when those went the way of the dodo and devices started getting loaded up with shitty 128 kbps MP3s. The difference in quality mattered far less than the convenience.
There are many, many people who are even technically minded who would be surprised that their expensive AirPods Max cannot reproduce lossless audio from Apple Music when used wirelessly.
You can totally tell, at lower bitrates. People used to share songs as MP3 files using 128 kbps rates, and you could easily hear whooshy/chirpy artifacts in those at times.
Modern codec at a decent bitrate: inaudible.
Ironically, it could be the expensive DAC and headphones that helps the codec conceal itself.
That is to say, an audiophile who prefers gear that causes pleasant distortion might hear a difference through that gear, because the codec doesn't account for trying to mask its artifacts through equipment distortion (perhaps distortion in the ear itself only).
Say the codec removes something from the signal on the psycho-acoustic hypothesis that it is masked by something louder occurring close to before or after. That hypothesis is correct under hi-fi conditions, but suppose that the user's distorting tube power amp brings out that something, making it audible. Then removing it is potentially audible!
A lot of the time people were sharing transcodes because they didn't know any better. Same thing happens for video content today, e.g. most video on X looks like 240p because of it.
Different people want different things. Whenever I wore wired headphones, I was always catching the wire on things, and I found them really inconvenient - to the point where when I bought a new phone the headphones just went into my pile of unused headphones. AirPods were a complete change for me - I use them constantly. The sound quality difference is irrelevant - I just won't wear wired headphones - the hassle isn't worth it for me.
Man, I am the biggest curmudgeon in this regard. I wear my old wired headphones, wire under my shirt, to a BT-BA001 "low-latency BT transceiver" in my pants pocket.
The average Joe, via AirPods and the like, in 2026 has access to vastly better audio than in 2005.
In 2005, you had serious and expensive high end audio from the established brands (Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic etc.) and you had consumer audio for consumer prices that sounded pretty terrible: no bass extension, flat mids.
In 2026 you have:
- Serious and expensive high end audio from the established brands (maybe even some of the same models as 2005...)
- A new category of convenience driven "mid-fi" like all the Sony, Bose etc. ANC headphones and AirPods Pro - often with the "laid back, a lot of bass, slightly recessed mids" sound signature but still producing very acceptable sound
- Consumer audio for consumer prices, but now even the cheap earbuds and headphones (JBL, chinese brands etc.) sound by all means passable, are wireless, have good battery life
I would say there has never been a better time to be a "good sound enjoyer" than now.
The other day I needed something wired for reasons and plugged in some lightning EarPods (not AirPods!) and they sound crappy. These were the earbuds that came with iPhones and that most people used.
You can now get AirPods Pro 3 or Galaxy Buds4 Pro for under 200 Euro that will not only blow away those old earbuds, but more importantly (since 200 Euro open back Sennheisers sound even better), the transparency mode on these buds are extremely good, so it's much safer to use them while listening to music or a podcast when cycling or running.
"It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today."
I'm trying very hard to understand what you mean specifically here.
The AirPods Pro I use every day for casual listening are far and away better headphones than the wired earbuds I used in that context in 2005.
The regular Airpods I bought my wife 3 months ago were a categorical improvement over the ones she'd lost in a move this summer, and they barely have ANC.
Even the first iteration of Airpods exceeded the quality of equivalent wired in-ear buds available at the time. I recently came across my old Etymotic in-ear headphones, which were at one point a gold standard. The sound from my AirPods Pro is better, and the Apple option is FAR more comfortable in my ears.
I'd argue that cost per unit of fidelity is lower now, in 2026, than it's ever been before. The level of playback a person can enjoy for, say, $500 today is wildly better than what was available for an inflation-adjusted equivalent amount of money in 2016 or 2006 or 1996.
I also have Headphone Acquisition Disorder, for which there is no known cure. As a result I've had a number of fancy wired setups over the years, sometimes requiring a headphone amp.
Owing to a lot of air travel, I bought the AirPods Max soon after they were introduced. I intended them to be airplane accessories for the most part, but the fact of the matter is that my $500 Sennheiser setup that required cables and an amp wasn't obviously superior to the Maxes. Once you factor in convenience, the Apple over-hear setup won the comparison in a walk. In the runup to our x-country move last summer, I sold off or gave away nearly all of the rest of my headphone horde; now, if I'm using headphones, it's one of the Apple options.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I seem to recall most people being perfectly content with 128kbps MP3s on iPod earbuds back in the day. Only audiophiles/nerds (of which there seem to be more now) were into actual headphones and amp setups and there's never been greater market choice in this regard.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
This isn't really true in any applicable way though.
Firstly, most people in 2005 were ripping CDs onto their ipods at itunes' 128kbps default - you're still only getting 160kbps today if you're running the free ad-supported Spotify plan but more people are paying for full quality.
More importantly though, the biggest impact on sound quality is noise isolation. People listen to music on the street, in an office bullpen, or public transport: in 2005 your wired sennheissers would need to be overear to deal with that environment in any reasonable manner.The ANC in even the non-pro in-ear airpods is giving you a night-&-day improvement.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I don't believe this statement is true, as someone who cares about audio quality and has been making my own audio equipment and buying high end audio gear since well before 2005. The bar for the average has raised considerably in the last 21 years, even though it was always possible to have better. I use AirPods when I'm traveling on a plane or walking/commuting by public transit and to take phone calls, when I want to listen to music critically I have a >$10k headphone setup that obviously puts a pair of AirPods to shame. They're not the same device for the same use case, and that doesn't make them somehow "bad". Use the right tool for the job.
I got a pair of Bose qc-25 and a fiio q1 for about the price of a set of earbuds. (Bose were refurbs from bose's ebay store and fiio was closing out the q1 at the time.) That combo kicks the everloving shit out of any Bluetooth headphones I've tried.
I have a friend that was in the music industry for decades, and listening to music was a significant aspect of his job.
To this day (he’s retired), he won’t use wireless (even ones with bespoke connections), or ANC headphones.
I use AirPods when I take my morning walks. The shitty quality is actually a plus, because I can hear the cars that try to run me over (I walk at 5:30 AM, and people are not at the top of their game, at that time).
I have a couple of pairs of Bose QC headphones, for in-home listening. There’s nothing [wireless] that comes close, for ANC.
For many people, it's not just Bluetooth - it's streaming itself and the lower bit-rate.
i.e. Moving from wired headphones on a CD player in 2005 to AirPods (or knock-offs) and 96 kbps Spotify streams in 2026 is hurting you on 2 fronts.
But then again - the convenience of having vast amounts of music at your fingertips and complete freedom to move around, carry your headphones in your pocket, etc - I think most of us would still make that tradeoff most of the time.
I observed the same thing happening when we transitioned from analog land line telephones to everyone having mobile phones. The plain old telephone was crispy clean, and cellphone calls by comparison were just barely intelligible. It's so bad that I'm honestly surprised that texting didn't take over sooner. It wasn't until Apple FaceTime Audio that calls started to sound good again, and it still isn't the default.
Im used to listening to a staticy job site radio half way across the shop. I dont really care about the quality as long as its better than that. I feel most people are the same.
As someone with probably already a bit of hearing damage and who is generally not an Audiophile. I remember when i switched from Wired Headphones to Wireless and man I cannot hear the difference. Which I assume many people don't either. For me it is no difference in hearing pleasure and much more comfort.
I would venture to guess that the average user can’t tell. Most of the time, I’m just looking for some background noise, not a listening experience. The speaker on the iPhone is good enough for that.
I have a pair of wired Seinheisers, and they sound great, but 99% of the time, my priority is convenience, and anything that makes sound will do.
On my older android phone I always have problems watching anything with bluetooth headphones adding so much lag that the video gets very desynced with the audio. So I will continue to use wired headphones (now via usb-c adapter since the dedicated port is gone)
My 2016 Toyota Corolla has a 1.5 second audio lag and it’s my only issue with the vehicle. No clean way to update or upgrade just the Bluetooth component either.
I had the same feeling (coming from NAD Viso HP50 wired headphones) that Bluetooth options just sucked. I recently got a pair of Focal Bathys wireless headphones, and they sound amazing.
It is even worse in home theater. People went from legit sound systems with an amp and speaker wire runs to actual speakers, proper audio channels, to what at best a sound bar from walmart and zero dynamic range.
Not just audio quality. Playback and consumption quality. My Winamp setup c 2005 was worlds better than what’s possible now on a typical listening device. Eq. Crossfading. Visualizer.
I used to obsess over audio quality. But then I reached my 40s, and it started to become clear that my ageing ears were becoming the limiting factor.
Now I just embrace the convenience of Bluetooth and usefulness of noise cancelling.
(But then again, even my AirPods or Sony XM4s are high fidelity compared to what many of the kids these days are listening with, small mono bluetooth speakers or playing music out of their phone speakers)
This is so hilarious, apple selling volume up and down as it were some fantastical feature and not have been present in air pods pro since god nows when.
> Force sensor with volume swipe arrives on AirPods 5, a first for the open-ear form factor, adding the ability to quickly adjust volume by swiping up or down on the stem.
Only if "pure marketing juice" means "plainly telling people about a straightforward feature they're adding to one of their products." Which like, okay, that is what marketing is, but are you suggesting they don't tell people?
Two separate models from Huawei have swipe volume controls (freearc and freeclip). I’m not a earbud guru but my $25 anker buds have tap to hold volume controls (not swipe, I’m sure Apple is being specific for a reason), but no matter how you move the goalposts it’s a ridiculous claim.
No they don't. The two Huawei models mentioned are completely different form factors, that are much more open-ear and further from squishy silicone than any Airpods.
This is exactly the assumption that the carefully worded juice hopes you'll make. That Apple's claim to innovation precludes even a cursory glance at the competition
They don’t have the squishy silicone, but you sound so confident! Tim Apple or his replacement aren’t giving you any prizes for your shilling, it’s ok to like Apple products and see how stupid their marketing is.
can confirm my Huawei Freebud 4 have swipe volume controls, anc and do not have silicone tip. Which is one of the reasons I got them after my Gen 1 Airpods started to annoy me on Android.
Because they're being very awkwardly specific in order to make it sound like they're the first to do it.
For the average consumer who doesn't know that if you look outside of their disclaimer you'll find that it already exists and think that apple invented the feature
If memory serves, it’s only on the ones with the wireless charging case. They get a few quality of life upgrades over the base AirPods, without stepping all the way up to the Pros.
They make aftermarket tips that are a bit smaller. Still to big for my ears so I switched to the newer "cuff" style and am reasonably happy with them except when I want noise-cancelling.
The swipe controls are terrible on my Pro 2s and make me miss physical buttons like on my ancient Jabra 65t. It's easier to reach into a pocket and push the volume buttons on my phone without unlocking or looking at it.
Oh man, I loved the 65t! I remember Jabra making great true wireless headphones. They were small, sounded ok, had actual buttons but operating them didn't push the earbud against the brain.
Miss that a lot. Nowadays it's all touch and I hate it so much because for some reason I have a problem spatially locating them and always end up touching it the wrong way (and yes, I know... ;)
i still use their conference speaker for calling and music and is the primary sound for my computer. i like it and it has worked really well for the last 5 years.
The marketing kool-aid must flow. Many other earbuds have swipe volume, but because they aren't open-ear Apple gets to claim this amazing breakthrough.
> … apple selling volume up and down as it were some fantastical feature and not have been present in air pods pro since god nows when.
I’ve been having to throw away my earphones and getting new ones whenever I needed a new volume setting. Going up and down in the same device is truly a game changer.
I know it's silly but I enjoy listening for the "this is our X-est Y yet" during these events. It's incremental improvements I enjoy, but it's like a mini trope for me.
for those who were holding out from Gen1 or whatever, adding pro features at a non-pro price is definitely incentivising. I’m not sure why we’re pretending it’s not.
Would you rather have generation old Pros or brand new standard airpods which have the pro features you actually want.
apple has been quite good at treating their "economy" products with the same level of respect as their premium ones, as far as I've experienced. the Neo is significantly more powerful than the Pro I bought four years ago and $100 cheaper, pre-inflation accounting. A brand like Apple introducing a highly-capable "discount" product goes against all common sensibilities for a company whose branding is anchored on prestige. Plus the extended support window for older devices vs. their competitors in the smartphone space.
I think it’s nice and I think they covered it right in the video.
Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro).
Some people can’t stand having something in their ear. The volume control is a nice feature to have and now it’s available on the cheaper ones. I’ve missed it on my 4s.
Yeah the marketing copy is marketing copy and Apple never references competitors. But if you like the non-pros it’s a nice upgrade.
> Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro).
I'm holding out for the next Pro model as I genuinely benefit from closed headphones/earbuds. Open is nice in a controlled environment but I'd rather have that slight seal when I'm somewhere noisy.
My Pro 2s are genuinely very comfortable and still work great after 2+ years of moderate use, so haven't felt a need to upgrade to Pro 3 yet. I use aftermarket foam-like tips and find they seal great FWIW.
>Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro). Some people can’t stand having something in their ear.*
Both versions put something in your ear.
There are wireless earbuds that stay outside next to the ear, that are actually the ones legitimately called "open ear", but the AirPods aren't that type.
>for those who were holding out from Gen1 or whatever, adding pro features at a non-pro price is definitely incentivising. I’m not sure why we’re pretending it’s not.
Because it's a non-feature even the cheapest $30 wireless earbuds have had since forever, often even better, like with physical buttons.
So what are you saying? Because there are cheaper earbuds made by someone else with this feature, Apple _shouldn't_ add it to their earbuds? I'm not sure why that would be the case.
Where exactly do I say "Apple _shouldn't_ add it to their earbuds"?
I'm saying as an "incentive" to get to the new version of airpods 5, it's a lame one, since the feature existed in all kinds of cheaper earbuds for years, and Apple should have added it in already, not leave it for the Pro models all this time.
You seem to be saying contradictory things. You're saying it's not a good incentive, but you're also saying Apple should have added it already. Why should they have already added it if it's not a good incentive? Why should they add it now if it's not a good incentive?
My argument is that adding it makes their product better, so they should add it. And if they add something that makes their product better, that's an incentive to buy it.
As somebody w/ Celiac, you'd be surprised. Many a time I've been poisoned by normal gluten free things being tainted by poor manufacturing lines, or companies mixing in other product. Tortilla chips with gluten, Hashbrowns/Potatoes coated with wheat flour, so many things are made not-gluten-free for no reason.
There is always a reason and it usually has something to do with money. We really need to find a cure for Celiac 'cuz wheat is just too ingrained in our culture to be removed. (pun not intended, but also not removed so...)
Some brands use wheat to make the chips more crunchy. Just like IHOP puts wheat in their scrambled eggs. McDonald's uses wheat in their french fries. They stick wheat everywhere.
There are tortilla chips that do contain gluten, or are cross-contaminated with it. A gluten-free label means they guarantee <20ppm gluten in the product. That’s useful info!
I wonder if it's still the case that, if I buy expensive Apple AirPods to use with my expensive Apple computer, I'm denied the ability to add them to Find My unless I also buy an expensive Apple phone. And I also wonder whether the AirPods case is going to make an alarm noise whenever I move it, to punish me for having the audacity to think it would be a good idea to buy expensive Apple earbuds to use with my expensive Apple computer, while not owning an iPhone.
An iPhone is not sufficient. I had a perfectly working Find My with the AirPods Pro 1&2. I just bought the newest AirPods Pro 3 and they can’t be found with the iPhone unless I upgrade to the newest operating system. Fair enough they advertise a higher precision. But they don’t write that even for the previous low precision, you need now the newest operating system.
Ditto. I loved my Airpods Pro 2 but it was really clear Apple did not want me as a customer of their headphones. In a practical sense, the recent open source work would have mitigated most (all if it supports software updates) of my issues, but I still won't be buying any more Apple audio products out of principle.
Interesting on the pricing. You now get some of the best AirPod features all in $129. In Apple's pricing that is cheap.
On the other hand in the past few years I have noticed a lot of people wearing Sony's Wireless headset and Earphones. Apple used to dominate this category when they first launch AirPods. I am wondering what happened they people discovered they could use other brand and Apple's brand loyalty don't quite work.
Apple's product has never been near the top in ergonomics nor sound quality, there's no big mystery. The UX and the ANC were their differentiator but the competition has largely closed that gap.
I had to double check the site because I believed for a second that Apple was doing some pricing sleight of hand by saying "Look, it's cheaper!" and removing half the product...
But this isn't true at all, it's $129 for a normal case, $149 for a wireless charging case.
I assume the long stem increases the likelihood it will be dislodged from the ear because it increases torque at the point of contact when moving. The first AirPods were much less secure in the ear than current ones. Reducing stem length may lower the risk of them falling out.
The long stem may have been a necessary but suboptimal engineering tradeoff to get the first version out the door. A lot of design tweaks have gone into making AirPods less likely to fall out.
This must be a personal preference based on ear anatomy.
The first-gen Airpods fit my ears perfectly, and were secure. When I lost them and upgraded to the 2nd gen, I was initially upset - aside from the body being fatter (and so less comfortable in my ears) they were very insecure - I couldn't even walk around without them loosening and dislodging.
I was on the point of returning them when I saw the advice online to 'twist' them into a different position. I now use them with the stalks horizontal, and they're secure. Still a touch less comfortable than the v1s, but easily tolerable.
My experience is the exact opposite. The new shape fits less well in my ear, hopefully they've chosen the best shape for most people, but the shorter stem provides no third point of contact like the old ones!
The longer stem used to have a better chance at contacting your face for some staying power. The shorter stems don't.
I really miss the BeatsX headphones where it’s 2 earbuds attached to each other with a flexible cable that drapes over the back of your neck. It was nice to be able to take my headphones out without needing to hold them and they just fall over my shoulders like a necklace. Also means not having to keep track of a third item since there’s no charging case. And the whole thing is soft and flexible so you can put it more easily in your pocket without it bulging like the AirPods in a case do.
I find the “true wireless” form factor finnicky and comically easy to lose and easy to drop. I don’t really see much utility in it either aside from the cool technology flex. If they’d put the modern audio quality and noise cancelling on the BeatsX (and the more neutral AirPods response curve) I’d be first in line.
Apple are king of form over function. Have we already forgotten that hack Jony Ive and his fetish for removing usefulness in favor of a few mm of thinness? Or the stupid fucking Touch Bar keyboard?
I still have a touch bar MacBook and the keyboard is unusable now.
The touch bar was not a bad invention. Apple just neglected it and never gave it the software support it deserved. With some proper development it could have been great.
The touch bar was a terrible invention. Apple had no shortage of money to fix the software side, they just recognized that it wasn't a "Pro" feature.
Consider the most basic usage of the touch bar, displaying function keys. The tactile feedback of a physical function row enables most people to touch-type the function keys from home row. For IDEs, NLE/DAW workflows, UNIX terminal setups and cross-platform software, the touch bar had nothing to offer but downsides. And even in apps that supported it, there was no unified mnemonic standard that enabled you to use the touch bar strip without looking away from the monitor and losing sight of your content. Apps that copied the content into the touch bar were even more hilariously cornered into bad UX, displaying a postage stamp-sized status for whatever you're working on.
The common defense of the touch bar says it needed hardware reworks and greenfield HID architectures to succeed. But I think Apple realized it was a totally flawed concept, and iterated on it internally to the point that they realized it was a sunken cost fallacy.
I’m sure I’m not the only programmer that developed a habit of resting my finger on the F5 key at a certain point in my workflow, and then had to unlearn it just because of the stupid touch-bar (Still using my 2019 Intel MBP with stupid touch-bar).
It’s Apple so the answer is clear: shorter stems look nicer. Functionality be damned. You’re holding it wrong my dude. Nobody wants to look like they have q-tips in their ears.
Also each device has to be identifiably different by at least some small margin, so the people who care about measuring worth/value based on the latest devices and similar trash can reject people based on what they "wear", pushing up device sales.
I have extremely weird ear canals and no, I mean absolutely NO in-ear earbuds will stay in my ears for longer than 15 minutes, even with the christmas tree earplug-style tips on them. For that reason I am relegated to either my bulky but beloved Sennheiser WH1000XM4 headphones (or, even less practical: my wired planar magnetics) or... airpods 3. Somehow despite trying every brand of "not-in-ear-ear-bud" a-la Airpods/Earpods I have found absolutely nothing that has the frequency response of Apple's design. The fidelity is nothing to write home about but I'm not missing any of the music. Even well-regarded "flathead" earbuds, conversely, simply have no response whatsoever below 120hz.
Not trying to convince your anything, just putting it out there for those that are plagued by this, but I had similar issues and memory foam tips solved this for me with airpods. For me they'll stay in if i'm basically motionless, but as soon as I move they're on the run.. With the foam tips I'm able to do basically anything and not worry about losing an expensive earbud.
I'm afraid to try expensive over the ear headphones again after a pair of XM3's started making the most hideous screeching noise right after the warranty expired.
Like you, I have weird ear canals, and I've always struggled with fit; the Apple ones are the worst.
I have the Sony earbuds, and while I agree they fit a little better, I find the memory foam disgusting. It also degrades over time and becomes brittle. My solution was the Alza SednaEarfit Max, which are silicone earbud tips that fit the Sony. They are easy to clean and come with the tiny mesh that prevents ear wax from getting into the electronic part of the earbud. Of all the tips I've tried, these stay the best.
However, they still fall out too easily if I'm eating (from jaw movements) or lying on my side.
PS. You mean Sony WH1000MX4. Not Sennheiser. Although Sennheiser makes the Momentum True Wireless, which comes with silicone earbud tips.
Are there any competition ? There is cheaper TWS with comparable sound quality, but airpod comes with whole set of features, like transparent switching between devices, or Find My network, or charging case has buzzer for easy finding.
Which Chinese alternatives are available with similar quality in ANC, sound quality and fit? Like actual brands I can buy today, not the kind that has a brand name that was created by someone rolling their head on the keyboard and won't exist in 6 months.
Idk if soundcore is the same quality but it's pretty good and half the price of the base airpods. Hard to justify paying twice as much and not getting any ANC.
Wow looks very good. I will say I've been highly impressed by Chinese consumer electronics they are often high quality, have many features, and usually are cheap.
Saying the battery life is extended to 22 hours with the battery case is a bit absurd- you have to still take them out and charge them. I’m not sure why we can’t have wires that connect to the AirPods and charge while listening. The battery life will always be the biggest drawback of bt headphones.
> For users who want even more, AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case add longer battery life and on-stem volume control for $149
This is a weird product feature versioning. Would people pay an extra $20 for these two features specifically? With the AirPods 4 the upsell SKU was ANC which made exponentially more sense.
15% more price for 25% more battery is worth it alone. Add in that every time I adjust the volume without needing to dig out my phone, and I’ll feel even better.
$20 is a single meal at a fast food restaurant, which I’ll have forgotten about the very next day. This is a much better long term investment.
I prefer the regular AirPods to in-ear. But I still keep an old pair of Pro's around purely because the stem is so convenient for changing volume when I'm walking the dog or out for a run and I'd rather not get my phone out my pocket.
These things have usable lifespans of about 2-4 years before the batteries start to go (depending on how low a capacity you can tolerate). It’s more like you buy the one available at the time when your old ones wear out.
I don’t know if I just got lucky or what. But my AirPods Pro (1st gen) just finally crapped out last week. And the batteries are mostly fine: the speaker blew out in the right one, and it now sounds awful. But that’s ~6-7 good years that I got out of ‘em.
They are the actual VPs of different fields, not professional actors.
It's hard to bring out "genuine emotions" when you're on the fifteenth take of a meticulously choreographed production. You just smile and focus on not fucking it up this time around.
I hope they've made the metal contacts inside the case a bit sturdier, because I'm often getting one or both of my AirPods drained to 0% when I take them out of the case, due to contact issues (I assume).
Always do when this happens. I blow into it, and there's no visible dirt on the metal contacts either. Also, a friend of mine also reported the same for their AirPods Pro 2.
It is pretty hard to see in the case and what I found is even when it looked clean, when I used a tool to dig around a bit there was almost always some gunk in there causing the charging issues.
Honestly after a while my ears just can't stay earbuds anymore, it's just painful. For long haul flights (over 6hours) I also bring over-ear headphones regardless of battery life.
Back when BLE Audio was first announced, I thought Apple would champion it because it finally extends quality limitations making the microphone quality terrible. I guess they’re content with doing their proprietary thing.
I recently upgraded from my Airpods Pro to the Huawei Freebuds Pro 5. Audio quality, battery life, noice cancelling, and especially microphone quality is so much better! And they work nicely with Android, Windows and MacOS. I would 100% recommend them to anyone over any other Earbuds, at 160€ they are also not amongst the more expensive models.
If microphone quality matters a lot for your use-case, you might also want to checkout the Anker Soundcore Libery 5 Pro.
(I'm only sharing this because I know how difficult it is to find any information on earbuds with good microphones, Huawei Freebuds 4/5 were the best from my experiments until Anker released the ones above)
I want a pair of earphones that are as comfortable as the AirPods Pro but have a very solid mic quality.
Whenever I have a call on my AirPods I feel terrible for whoever’s on the other end of my call because the quality is so bad, even when they’re connected to an iPhone. I originally thought I had hardware issues until I heard from others that all AirPods Pro are like this.
I dunno, can someone tell me what I’m missing here?
I think the reason they are bringing the normal AirPods close to the features of the AirPods Pro is the next version of AirPods Pro will have tiny forward cameras on the tips allowing visual along with audio AI.
[holding two items at a store] "Siri.. which one of these should I buy"
god it feels inevitable but i hate wearable tech including innocuous cameras. first it was the sunglasses that ppl immediately jailbroke to remove the recording indicator. now the possibility of a person seemingly listening to music on the train potentially recording me?
The positioning of AirPods in the lineup doesn't really make sense to me. Noise canceling works way better with an in-ear fit anyway. Personally, I'd rather see ANC on the Beats Flex. That would create a clearer distinction from the AirPods Pro.
Im on my third pair of Airpods pro (replacement courtesy of Apple) and all of them had the ANC partially fail the longer i use them. I wonder why Apple still release new versions of these whem they cant even get the basics right.
Have you tried replacing your eartips? I find that radically improves performance - I think they must either get clogged or brittle in a way that causes problems.
Cheap foam eartips from Amazon are even better than stock for my AirPods Pro but they need to be replaced more often.
I tried everything. Cleaning out the vents, cleaning out the grilles. The failure is not in the reduction of the ANC, but outright amplifying ambient bass into my ear. This is why I got them replaced by Apple, which in their diagnostics confirm there were issues with the ANC.
In any case these workarounds are moot, because my $20 Chinese ANC earphones work (until today) without all these fussing around at all.
I had the exact same issue with it suddenly amplifying bass (my air conditioner and motor vehicles being big triggers) on my AirPods Pro 3, and the memory foam eartips did actually fix it. Kind of a surprising result.
I’ve had them for 3,5 years now and off the top of my head I can’t remember where the “charging leads” are. So it’s safe to say that mine definitely don’t get gunked up.
There's definitely versions that do not work with all wireless chargers like the watch charger. Whatever older pair I have do not work with the watch charger
Super annoyed they did not announce a new AirPods Pro or Apple TV. My NVIDIA Shield is getting a bit old (not really an issue unless I want to stream raw 90GB Blu-ray).
A bit strange for Apple to let fairly popular products just go so long without a refresh. Just the vision component of the new AirPods could have been delayed, not really a critical feature anyway.
Apple Watch seems to be getting pretty good, might finally switch away from Garmin if the Apple one is as durable.
I wonder if they have an automation system which releases these perfectly in time with the video, or if they have some blog boy that has to post them at the right time.
A manual operation wouldn't shock me at all. A friend used to work on Apple.com and as recently as 5 years ago the product pages were still hard coded. No CMS.
A worthy upgrade to a miracle product . Just a couple decades it was a sci-fi fantasy and we all can enjoy it . I get the bible in my ear all night at bed time and books while I work and walk around the property. Great to see the price cut .
Finally something that isn't outright overpriced. At this price I expected 1 earbud. Here you have TWO and the quality is still unmatched. Two at this price is a good deal.
Still, it seems like a good deal. Other high-end earbuds (such as the Sony WF-1000XM6, the Technics EAH-AZ100, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2. Gen) easily cost over $200. Whether the AirPods 5 actually match up to these is to be seen, but I'm optimistic.
Been using the new Siri since June. ChatGPT voice is still superior!
Please Apple let me easily swap out Siri for chatGPT voice! Work together .. buy them or something. Their voice conversation tech is superior and can help save lives when driving!
Yeah Im aware but it could lead to better integration and or an all out buy out.
If you have ever used chatGPT voice for directions you could forsee that super intelligent contextual directions are safer then looking at a screen. I.e. "That new mechanic is across the street from the McDonalds on Dorset," in a locale you are familiar with.
I still want them to bring the “tap” operation of the first two generations back. It’s so convenient, for example when wearing them under a beanie in winter. The squeezing and swiping controls aren’t an adequate replacement.
yeah I loved the tap controls. Would be nice to have both available. My guess is that for many people the "tap" wasn't as accurate as apple would like it to be as I had heard lots of complaints about that not working for people when I was available.
Not sure how the public has received them, but I cannot stand to wear the non-pro airpods for more than maybe 40 minutes. They used to give plastic earbuds away with the purchase of a device! I get it, bluetooth vs wired, extra features... but they are super uncomfortable to wear IMO.
The Pros, completely different story. Maybe a bit pricey but the ecosystem, battery life, comfort, ANC, all of that is great. The difference that little rubber piece makes is wild.
Side note - the "directional" audio (Sounds as if it's originating from your device rather than standard L/R audio), not sure if this is still a thing, but it was super weird the first time I tried it. I literally had to check that I was actually using the earbuds a few times, and refused to use it after. Maybe it was TOO good, super cool tech though.
They're just covering two ends of the market. I can't stand wearing Pros myself, I can feel the sweat building up in any isolating earbud, and it makes me feel itchy. Would hate for the non-isolating product to disappear.
AirPods won't stay in my ears at all (and an ear test practitioner who modeled my ears validated my experience -- he said my ear canals will never hold buds), so it's Shokz forever, for me.
Yes. That's alot of battery life for in-ears of that size.
Also you add hours more in a 10 min charge from the case.
If you have to wear headphones for more than 5 hours straight without a few min break, you have other issues than th technology.
I really hate silicone tip earbuds and the AirPods 4 with ANC were game changing. Having ANC without the silicone tips was just huge for me. It's obviously not as good as having the passive isolation of the silicone as well, but it's plenty good for airplanes and trains.
Are there non-Apple alternatives that also accomplish this?
Same here. And I was seriously impressed with how much noise cancelling the v4 can do. I will be seriously impressed again if the v5 is as much better as they claim.
I have searched far and wide and have found nothing. I haven't even found a basic-functionality wired earbud that matches the AirPods frequency reproduction.
try their own cheapo wired earbuds, i use those all the time, no battery, no silicone tip, no bt compression, happiness - they even come with usbc option so they work with the phone, too
Ah thats the one of the differences between standard and pro? The plastic ones literally fall/creep out of my ears… without even moving (losing a lot of sound/volume in the process)
Yup. They just works. So satisfying. Now, Apple, shut up and take my money! Actually that is satisfying part. And please make sure I need to pay that money again in a year or two. Thank you. Happy to be an Apple user. Best company.
Confusing enough that I see ads from major retailers mixing it up (or maybe it's on purpose?) listing "Airpods Pro 4" only to click the link and see it's the Airpods 4.
I worry about the safety element of this. I'm not sure that having people walking around completely oblivious to their environments is a good thing.
In a multiple of ways: you become disconnected from nature and closed off to environments, and you also reduce safety because you don't know what is going on around you (high % of population live in cities).
People drive cars every day, isolated in a box with windows rolled up, playing music or radio, not being able to hear what's going on around them. So I don't buy the safety argument of noise canceling headphones being dangerous.
If we’re going there, cars are a leading cause of death and the leading cause of death for children and young adults.
That said, the masses have had noise cancelling earbuds for years at this point and while there definitely are cases of people getting hurt or killed from being unaware of their surroundings, it’s not really been that big a deal.
I wonder if that stat is true if removing the kids in gangs from the data. One cause of death is relatively undiscerning and applicable to all, but the other cause of death might only apply to a few. But I don’t know, I’d like to see the actual stat.
Well, that’s exactly why I worry when walking around with noise canceling phones. Because all those people driving cars oblivious to their surroundings
Yeah, I get your point, I jusr don't think the solution is to police pedestrians. I'll stop wearing noise canceling headphones in the city the day cars stop being loud, and when the drivers of those cars drive with no music and their windows rolled down ;)
>In a multiple of ways: you become disconnected from nature and closed off to environments
I live in a city. Nature for me means the squealing breaks of cars and trucks + people trying to get my attention so I'll take their religious flyer. No thanks.
That's also why there are different designs, e.g. in ear, over ear, open over ear, bone conduction, and technologies, e.g. noise cancelling, active noise cancelling, non voice filtering.
Typically there are visuals though, e.g. crossing lights for pedestrian, so the risk from the lack of hearing in a city is quite low IMHO.
FWIW in Belgium you can even legally ride a bike with earphones, which shows the risk is estimated to be very low.
$49.99 a month, up to six family members (uses previous family sharing system), unlimited devices (with some carve outs for Vision Pro). Limit of six total claims a year seems low until you realize that's every 60 days.
What % of people replace a battery over the lifespan of an item? Does the increased complexity and size of the unit make up for the slightly longer lifespan? What makes it "better" for the environment, exactly when it all ends up in a landfill after 5 years anyway?
You want a replaceable battery because once the battery wears out if the repair is expensive people will throw the used air buds. Used airbuds creates electronic waste ewaste on landfills.
Not all electronic recycling ä works well some non working electronics are shipped to Africa . The "recycler" takes the profit in the pocket.
People have put airtags to track where such electronics to goods end up.
There is no proof that user-replaceable batteries meaningfully reduces e-waste. A lot of tech is upgraded due to obsolete CPUs, etc, not batteries. Plus, batteries last a long time now.
Also, landfills work really well. Most recycling doesn't work and pollutes more.
by the time the battery wears out on this one, the speakers are also busted anyway (infact it already is true for mine). So battery replacement isn't an issue for me, the device will be worthless by the time I am done with it.
True. Also heard one guy in gym was thinking of Apple releasing devices with things like replaceable batteries. He got a heart attack next day. It's very unhealthy what PC is suggesting and yes I agree with you.
Now's as good a time as ever to ask this question.
I have an iPhone logged in to my iCloud account.
My wife has her iPhone logged in to her own iCloud account.
Both of these iCloud accounts, plus a few more from my kids, make up our "Apple Family" thingy.
My wife bought AirPods. Paired them to her iPhone.
Why oh why every few weeks, when she gets the AirPods from their case, do they automatically connect to my iPhone and steal the audio from my (non-Apple) wireless earbuds I was using?
Do AirPods truly traverse devices based on the fact that separate devices/iCloud accounts are part of a family?
yes, this is annoying. On each device, you have to find the AirPods via the bluetooth settings and tell it to connect "when last connected" instead of "automatically"
I have exactly the same setup (two iPhones, a Moondrop Space Travel myself, wife has AirBuds, family account set up so we can buy apps only once). It never happened to us, but it happens frequently between my wife's iPhone and her iPad. I wonder if you have ever connected it to your phone even accidentally, it seems that this is remembered.
I'm always going to be furious at Apple about ceasing large-housing (flat-head) earbuds. My ear canals just don't take in-ear airpods, and there's nothing to be done about it. I've tried everything. What does work is large-housing buds with earclick technology, so they sit against the canal with a decent seal. I used to be able to have mobile ear listening in a way that integrated with apple tech, but there's nothing like airpods that do that anymore. It's just in-ear or big bulky on-ear or over-ear stuff. It's infuriating.
I found the auto translate thing very funny. Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".
Like yeah, obviously anyone would understand "Thanks" but come on. Was this part of the discussion of some long meeting? Like if she said a word in Spanish it would imply the Air Pods translate your words?
I'm obviously nitpicking but I just found it oddly funny.
Seems like everyone is doing this now... Sonicare, Norelco... I get the cost cutting + simplifying international packaging aspect. Just pass it on to customers. At least Apple has the other excuse that users might prefer wireless charging, so if users already have that or need to go out and buy it, the included charger just gets thrown in a drawer if it ever makes it out of the box.
What's a good naming convention? I draw a pretty big distinction between earbuds that seal and earbuds that just sit in front of my ear canal. I have AirPods Pro for when I really need isolation, and regular AirPods for when I need hours of comfortable wearing. "Open-ear earbuds" would make sense to me.
Earphones are the ones that sit in the ear, and in-ear headphones or canalphones are ones that go in the ear canal. Earbuds originally meant earphones but now means both kinds.
Open-ear is more general cause there are ear-hook and clip-on models now.
Another year of disappointment for me. Airpods gen 1 and 2 were the only buds I could find that fit in my funky ears perfectly. The new shapes just fall right out unless I'm constantly adjusting them. Apple may have found a more universal fit, but I'm not part of their universe.
im still bitter they rejected my airprods pro warranty claim because it was a month after they stopped accepting warranty for a known failure mode where the internal mic unglued itself and ruined the ANC.
the apple tech confirmed it had the issue but it was too long outside of their coverage. Like... if it has a known manufacturing defect with a defined timeline, that means i basically rented the damn things.
their only remediation was like 10% off the latest airpods. which is just a massive slap in the face.
My lone claim to fame, now harder to track down because Twitter decided my lack of activity was somehow suspicious and killed my account, was a brief exchange with Phil Schiller about pluralization of Apple devices.
> One need never pluralize Apple product names. Ex: Mr. Evans used two iPad Pro devices.
I'm saying that many people do it wrong in other cases, and stick an 's' on the end (or worse, also add an apostrophe). Like surgeon generals, attorney generals, court martials, etc. I'm impressed that people aren't doing it in the case of airpods.
> overengineered sound makers that breaks the moment you drop them.
Which ones are those? I've owned a couple of generations of airpods and dropped them probably hundreds of times (both in the case and out of it) and it has never had any detectable effect on their appearance or functionality. I even had a pair go through the wash and they still mostly worked afterwards (only issue was that the ANC performance was worse and slightly weird).
Yes, on mine (the OG Pros) the ANC would consistently fail. On my second pair the battery refused to charge when i left them in the drawer for too long. Apple replaced them a total of 3 times for all these failures, but i simply stopped wearing them because theyre too unreliable.
To be fair, I don't expect anything electronic to survive going through the wash unless it has hardcore waterproofing (eg a dive computer). I was pleasantly surprised by the way my airpods kept working.
I don't remember whether my first airpods were the gen1 pros or the gen2 pros, but you may have been a victim of early teething issues. I don't really have anything negative to say about the ones I've owned.
I don't usually defend Apple products, but my AirPods Pro 2nd gen have been rock solid and taken insane abuse. I use them working on cars, runs, hiking, rain, shine, sauna. I drop them. They land in puddles. They smack concrete every couple of months. Sample size 1, but they are probably one of my favorite accessories and things I lug around with me. I use them a lot and if not love /really/ like them and nothing else has come close to the frictionless experience of them.
Although that may be in part due to vendor lock in and not sharing some of their connection handling API / tech.
Not exaggerating. My daily drives are Apple products except for Airpods, and I will always single them out because (in my experience) they’re that bad.
Dunno man, I bought a cheap set once and they were abysmal, I hated them so much I just destroyed them in a rage when they started malfunctioning yet again. I got AirPods and haven’t looked back, they just work all the time. Granted I’ve never dropped them :)
You would be fine then, too. My daughter makes a sport out of how often she can drop airpods and even put them through the wash. She's on the hook for buying her own pair next time but the old ones keep on working.
One really interesting effect of the AirPods - is that its changed the paradigm - where the default choice of headphones is Bluetooth.
I personally own a pair of Beats fit pros - which are great for running, Zoom calls. But I recently acquired a schiit vestri and I pair these with some old wired seinheisers (HD1). I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I say this as someone with tens of thousands in audio equipment, as someone who can hear the compression warble in the hihats and the cymbals - audio quality with earbuds doesn't actually matter. It's like the argument for audio quality in cars - you're listening in a hostile environment, and convenience wins over fidelity. I remember walking to work one time with over-the-ear Sennheisers attached to my iPod and it felt ridiculous, and unsafe.
I finally capitulated to earbuds when they started giving them away with the Pixel phones. The "find my" feature basically justifies the pro-prices, to me, because my biggest complaint about bluetooth earbuds in my own use case was how easily they're lost. I've lost and recovered my Pixel Buds Pro 2 a couple of times now. When traveling a lot by train and plane, the convenience of pocket-sized noise-cancelling earbuds has become worth it for me.
But when I'm on meetings, I'm wired in. During the pandemic, I lost track of how many times my colleagues' Airpods would sputter out and die in the middle of a client meeting. Then they'd switch to wired headphones and their Macbook microphone. They sounded better, they could hear better, and there was no battery power sword of Damocles anymore.
Disagree slightly with audio quality for cars. I recently got a car with "good" speakers and the difference from regular car speakers is striking. Although I'm sure that the curve quickly flattens on spending more to get more quality, going above the base car speaker level has been awesome for me.
I think the point is that when you're driving (at least in a combustion engine car), the 60-70dB noise floor is so high that it almost doesn't matter how good the speakers are in an ideal silent, soundproof chamber.
I recommend ripping your car apart and putting sound insulation panels everywhere you can! Also replacing your sound system...
There's only so much you can do. A car is filled with funny angles, plastics, and a lot of glass. It's never going to be a particularly good acoustic environment even if you manage to shield 100% of the road noise.
You can make it so much better than stock with proper insulation and speaker elements. Car manufacturers often use 5€$ elements which sound like shit.
You can't have a proper soundstage in a car no matter your setup, which kinda degrades a lot of music that wasn't designed for clubs. In a car it's basically background music when you're driving because you can't really give the music your full attention anyway (passive listening), where the lack of focus also masks a lot of details you'd hear on a proper stereo system (active listening).
Edit: to answer your question below, I like both, active and passive listening. But I wouldn't try to optimize for active criteria like details in a passive evironment like a car, so I'd spend more money on fun things like buttkickers instead of high end detail.
Obviously a car isn't a dedicated listening room. Music can be enjoyed by just listening to it and not focusing on all the nuances. Or are you one of those hardcore audiophiles who can't listen to music without a ultra high end sound system?
Also soundstage can be greatly improved by placing speakers on non factory locations because manufacturers usually prioritize packaging above all else. A tweeter placed at the bottom of the A-pillar near the windshield is the worst possible location and sounds like it was put in a tin can.
Background noise in a car also has a solution, turning up the volume. Plus getting quiet tires.
> Or are you one of those hardcore audiophiles who can't listen to music without a ultra high end sound system?
Music lovers buy stereo systems to listen to their music.
Audiophiles buy music to listen to their stereo systems.
Sure is for bass. It's a sealed box that you're in, with shapes that stop anything from acting like a simple room shape, and surfaces that can soak up highs, and so small that this absorption is a huge percentage of surface area.
There's a reason mix engineers have always done 'check the mix in a car'. It might be way more revealing of what's happening in the bass, even when the speakers are relatively weak. Once you get anything decent, watch out. It's a bit like having your whole body inside headphones.
> I recommend ripping your car apart and putting sound insulation panels everywhere you can! Also replacing your sound system...
Ripping the car apart to install sound insulation might void your warranty.
I have a Bose sound system in my car with 11 or 13 speakers (they're everywhere), but the car is so poorly insulated that I have to turn up the volume quite a lot at highway speeds, or even after about ~ 35-40MPH.
> Ripping the car apart to install sound insulation might void your warranty.
On my Toyota it only involved basic removal of interior panels, I can't imagine that affecting warranty or resale
Or you can just embrace the 128kbps lifestyle. :D
What other effects does that have? Weight, heat, etc.
That's the point, isn't it? You'd have to spend a lot of money on related stuff before audio upgrades, otherwise those audio upgrades are just money wasted.
Is it that high? I know that in my Audis, there's actually a system that (in sport mode) pumps engine noise -into- the cabin because the sound damping was that good. And my partner's A4 is at the point where you hear only tire noise, not engine noise.
And I used to own a Jaguar XJ that (while the car itself I had to get rid of after the entire cooling system shit the bed for the second time) was the quietest car I've ever owned and not even close, despite being a 5L V8. (The Jaguar also had probably the best sound system I've heard in a vehicle - 1200W B&W 7.1 channel, 20 transducers).
I believe the disconnect is that the goal isn't to be as good quality as a controlled indoor environment; it's that there are car setups that sound dramatically better than other car setups. There is merit to your interlocutors stances, even though cars are a challenging audio environment as you point out.
You also need microphones to pick up ambient sound and play it back at 180 phase shift ..
There is a reason premium audio car packages cost over 2000$
Car's have it really tough in the audio department. SO many things work against it
In cars it’s also important how good it isolates you from the engine and external noise like wind and wheels on the road. Some cars even have noise cancellation for that.
Some cars have gone so far on the isolation and sound damping front that they pipe back in a little bit of engine noise (but only the part that sounds sporty) via the speakers.
Some cars isolate the noise with speakers in the head rest so everyone gets a optimal level of isolation.
Its interesting though because I have a car with excellent speakers and I am extremely glad that I can plug my phone into my car and play music through the Lightning port, it sounds drastically different between that and playing it through the Bluetooth connection.
I am looking to purchase a new car and through test driving it has a better sound system on paper with more speakers and a subwoofer and the sound is limited by the performance of the Bluetooth connection.
I agree. Hell, when I'm listening to music with my full-fat expensive setup, even the noise of the fans in my desktop computer is distracting and adversarial to the listening environment. Bringing those cans outside would be insane.
Sound quality is worse when transmitting and receiving over Bluetooth, when I use the AirPods for calls on the MacBook I switch to the microphone on the MacBook, they will hear me better and I will hear them better since the AirPods will use all the bandwidth for outputting audio only.
Are you sure this is a bandwidth issue?
I always assumed it was more about the position and size of the microphone.
When making a call and using headset mic+earphones the audio mode/profile drops back to HFP instead of A2DP used for music. The quality difference is huge. By using the computer mic you can keep using A2DP with better quality for your voice capture and listening experience.
And many of the mics built into good webcams and laptops are superior, so long as you aren't somewhere like a café.
>Are you sure this is a bandwidth issue?
It's technically not a bandwidth issue, AFAIK, it is a "profile" issue. When listening to audio only you are using a different bluetooth profile than when you are using it for two way mic+speakers.
Try playing some music on your computer and then start a video call. Even before I jump into the meeting, as soon as I hit the Google meet site and it opens up the meeting "camera preview" page, the music quality goes straight into the toilet.
This also happens to my "puck" speaker+mic array that is connected via USB.
> This also happens to my "puck" speaker+mic array that is connected via USB.
Argh. Isn’t this direct evidence that it is not the “Bluetooth profile”? Since it’s directly connected via USB?
As I understand it the codec used in Bluetooth headsets is from 2003 and doesn't use the bit rate effectively compared to a newer codec. Sometimes a device will support a newer codec especially with the aptX branding, and even rarer will both devices support it!
They mean that the audio quality you hear on the AirPods is better if you only listen to audio compared to listening and using the microphone. I don’t know if that happens on Macs too, but it’s certainly true when using AirPods on Linux because you have to switch the profile when you want to use the microphone and then the audio is really compressed for playback.
Yeah, it's the same on Mac/iphone but better codecs. Still lossy but better than the Android experience
Better than the iPods on Android experience. If you do Android-on-Android, the experience is on par. See e.g. Samsung Super Wide Band for voice.
I bought the top rated Sony's on Android and it was awful. Glad to hear there's better options!
This is certainly the opposite of my experience. The sound quality from someone speaking via their MacBook microphone is noticeably worse than someone speaking via their AirPods microphone.
> I finally capitulated to earbuds
I'm not audiophile, but I was prepared to do the same, despite the discomfort and obviously-lower sound quality... but the mic isn't even sufficient for meetings in a public place (e.g. a diner at lunch time), whereas my laptop's builtin mic is. How can they expect us to use these things??
> […] but the mic isn't even sufficient for meetings in a public place (e.g. a diner at lunch time), whereas my laptop's builtin mic is.
Exact opposite for me: other people can't hear anything if the meeting app uses my laptop's mic.
Convenience is close. IMO it’s all about accessibility, or more generally Good UX. Your coworkers AirPods died because they used it consistently and could just get up and walk around without having to take them out. They were always on because they were in ear and had no reason to be disconnected. They’ll turn off the moment you take them out on iPhones atleast. This is a small example of how the user experience in the Apple Ecosystem for AirPods has been kind of nuts. So if you’re on these devices, there is a palpable difference in ‘convenience’ that goes beyond what is carry-able or safe or consistent.
To further this concept, the reason why you tolerate variable quality isn’t just convenience or accessibility. It’s because you can’t carry your setup around, yes, but furthermore you don’t habitually listen to music because you have the best setup. You do it because you love music. In that regard, the user experiences do become interchangeable. Quality music is accessible on every device and you will listen to it with anything if you love music. The user experience enjoyment levels are ultimately similar with most devices for you, purely when it comes to music listening, just because you love music. It’s a consistently good UX for you.
I say all of this as someone who has also wasted money on expensive listening devices (and loves music) and also someone who isn’t like, crazy about the modern Apple UX. They just got earbuds right when it comes to the experience of an Apple ecosystem user.
> They’ll turn off the moment you take them out on iPhones atleast. This is a small example of how the user experience in the Apple Ecosystem for AirPods has been kind of nuts.
Every 'pod' type headphones I've used do this. It's odd you admit to only knowing Apple, then use it to support Apple being superior.
I use my Shokz headset for calls. The boom directional mic is excellent at suppressing background noise on its own and the connection is super reliable with the USB-C dongle (that works on phones as well as laptops)
Any good over ear headphones you’d recommend to someone who is generally skeptical but curious of the audiophile world? Cost being no issue, what would you recommend?
I'm not OP but:
- wired: Philips SHP9500; open-back, so not an "office" model. The single-sided 3.5mm jack is convenient and lets you plug in a 3rd party boom mic. I know these are priced way below any audiophile-grade stuff but the non-EQd frequency response rivals or is sometimes outright better than many "audiophile" specimens (looking at you, Sennheiser HD800 and your 6kHz ringing). Also exceptionally comfortable - but that's subjective, of course - and lightweight.
- wireless: I have a pair of Airpods Max and these are somewhat interesting (but nothing exceptional wrt audio quality). These are lagging behind AirPods feature-wise but the transparency mode is very clear and convenient, so I find them safe enough for walking outside. The ANC is also good.
HEDDphone D1 is my current happy place without going into the thousands. Compare it to an iBud on a spotify lossless track and it's kind of shocking.
> They sounded better, they could hear better
Only tangential, but man I really hate sitting in zoom meetings with bad audio. It could be one person with a bad mic. But the worst is when you’re talking to people in a room somewhere and they simply don’t have the equipment. Combine that with a weekly dose of feedback…
The connection type has nothing to do with it though. Modern bluetooth is basically transparent with 256kbps AAC, like you'd have to be an omega-expert listening in a silent room to identify it vs lossless. Certainly the difference you're noticing is just the headphone quality.
Honestly for me the Airpods 4 with ANC are one of the greatest feats of audio engineering ever. For such a tiny form factor they reproduce really great sound, big soundstage, AND they have good ANC without needing a closed earbud seal. They also have internal mics that listen to the response of your ear to adjust the sound profile, which you can hear happen in real time after bumping the earbuds. Obviously you can get better sound if you make different tradeoffs and wear over-ears, but they are absolutely cutting edge for what they are.
> Modern bluetooth is basically transparent with 256kbps AAC, like you'd have to be an omega-expert listening in a silent room to identify it vs lossless.
Sure, unless you want to do something rare and exotic like, say, have a microphone on your headset. Then you get the HFP/HSP profile, which makes two tin cans linked by a string seem high quality by comparison.
Wait is that why my airpods (playing via my Mac) sound like crap as soon as somebody calls me? Cause the microphone turns on?
Yes it is
I am now curious how much you can optimize the quality of a tin cans and a string. You could encode the sound digitally over the string perhaps. I wonder what bitrate (also bandwidth) you can achieve.
Well, you can do 3.5 Mbps ADSL over wet string[0], which is about 5 channels of uncompressed 16-bit PCM at 44.1 KHz.
[0]: https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet...
Using acoustic data transmission because it is easy and I am lazy, I'd guess comparable to copper wire broadband based on the short distances involved in an average tin-can + string operation.
If you’re outside with a smartphone, why do you actually need that though? If you call someone, their audio will be bad anyways, and when do you need playback and microphone at the same time? Outside multiplayer gaming, I don’t really know any application where high quality audio playback and microphone is needed at the same time.
I can understand people just fine with the voice profiles provided by Bluetooth. Strictly speaking, I don't need anything better than that.
But it sure is nice to be able to make phone calls where people don't sound worse than they did with digitally-switched analog landline telephones in 1995. Bluetooth doesn't get there at all.
The losses of Bluetooth even compound generationally: The inescapable tin-can audio of Bluetooth at one end first gets transmogrified by at least one intermediate lossy codec for transmission across/betwixt the network(s), and then gets tin-canned harder when the far end of the connection is also using Bluetooth.
For perspective: 1995's phone calls were ultimately limited by the G.711 codec, which itself dates to 1972. I'm not setting the bar very high here at all.
Calls on AirPods don’t sound worse to me than on the phone speakers, I don’t think the AirPods noticeably decrease the quality compared to the stuff happening on the phone network.
"The phone network"? As in the usually 8 kHz to 16 kHz quality call typically encoding at ~a quarter the rate of dial-up?
Of course that sounds like a tin can either way, it's coming in encoded with the quality of a tin can! People here are talking about modern VoIP calls (Teams/Slack/Discord/Zoom/etc) which have a snowball's chance in hell of sounding decent in the first place. HSP/HFP will often crank that right back down to traditional phone network quality again. You also lose stereo, which isn't so bad if the only thing you're doing is having a 1:1 call but kind of sucks for a background group call.
The "phone network" nowadays offer high quality sound. Things improved drastically with VoLTE and other technologies which allows much more bandwidth for calls than the old networks could support.
EVS is typically not horrendous, I just wouldn't describe it as the usual VoLTE quality yet. That's still most commonly AMR-WB at 16 kHz, though it'd depend largely on who you're dialing from what where I suppose. One person who dials local cell users on a 5G network will probably tend to get EVS, one who doesn't probably won't.
I mean: I, for one, was definitely talking about telephone calls. :)
But now that you mention it: Yeah, the state of common VoIP (Teams/Slack/Zoom/whatever) is also usually not very good. It's like there's some huge bandwidth crunch here in 2026 that is driven by the strenuous demands of VoIP, except: There isn't.
When I was doing some live streaming with others in a studio a couple of years ago, we worked with some of that. It never sounded very good. (It doesn't sound very good when the big-time acts at CBS or NPR or Fox News do it, either.)
But! When we occasionally had remote co-hosts who had enough technical competence to make it work properly on their end, we were able to use SonoBus[1]. That audio was positively pristine, like they were sitting unseen in the same room as everyone else.
[1]: https://www.sonobus.net/
I think it's fairly obvious why one would want two-way audio on a telephone :)
As I mentioned in my comment, I don’t notice the worse Bluetooth quality on calls because the audio itself is already bad, so making calls isn’t really a reason to not use Bluetooth.
Your comment frustrates me! With that said, how about Discord? I have high speed internet 90% of my waking life, high enough for Discord to be high fidelity. I actively avoid using discord to join calls on my phone- because Bluetooth absolutely destroys quality. I use the same pair of headphones to use discord on my PC, with a separate mic, no problemo.
Need? A committee of the dumbest software on your pc/phone will get together to tell you what you need, and they have decided you need tin-can audio quality so that the microphone can be active so that AT&T spyware embedded in the Taco Bell app can listen for off-hand comments about refreshing your phone to opportunistically target you with the spam-cannon.
Why hasn't this been fixed? It seems like something that would be a high priority issue. And maybe it has? I noticed iPhone + AirPods doesn't suffer from this.
Oh my god, TIL -- thank you, brother, I've apparently been doing this incorrectly for years.
Surely it would be very rare to want to listen to music at its highest quality while simultaneously recording your voice. It’s perhaps conceivable for some sort of niche mode of music or audio production, I suppose.
I'm frequently listening to music or a video in the background. Join a zoom call early because I don't want to be late, instant AM radio. You can argue I shouldn't do this, I'll argue that it shouldn't matter and should just work. It's 2026, not 1926.
I often play games while on discord voice chat. The audio quality of my game suffers. Unless I use a separate mike. (Which is how I solve it)
Modern pocket supercomputers don't divulge anything useful about the kind of connection that is being used for Bluetooth audio so we don't know if it's using 256kbps AAC or something else instead, and it cuts out in some areas of [insert city], and when it comes back it sounds demonstrably worse.
It's an inscrutable mess.
Wires don't have these problems. Plug them in. Use them. Clean the contacts every now and then if/when they get crudded up.
> 256kbps AAC
That only works with A2DP one-way audio. The two-way HFP mode still uses the horrible classic BT compression unless the new BLE-based LE Audio is used(but IIUC Apple still don't support it). Besides there are still many devices that only supports BT's own 2000s-optimal SBC codec.
Connection type means the sound quality drops significantly when headphones are used for speaking, though. Maybe don't notice as much in normal calls / only speech, but using Bluetooth when gaming and some kinda of voice chat makes all game music / ambient sounds sound so crunchy.
For some reason my iphone sporadically won't go back to "music quality" mode after cutting a call on a wireless speaker or car play, and it's incredible how bad music sounds with telephone quality.
The trick is to switch input to the laptop/external mic. Audio quality stays great. It’s kind of ridiculous that Bluetooth still needs the shitty lo-fi mode when the mic is on - I was recently surprised that this is still the case with modern headphones like it was a decade ago.
Isn't the main issue that the audio you're compressing over bluetooth, like spotify streams, is already compressed? As far as I know, compressing already compressed audio compounds artifacts in the same way re-saving a JPEG does.
Nah put on some quality headphones and the sound stage will blow your head off.
Comparison is the thief of joy. I remember when I first got a 1080p display, comparing it to my previous 480p one the difference was amazing, but before I got the 1080p display I had no problem with my old one.
All that to say.. what's best, cheap, no wires, no headaches and happy or expensive, wires, having to download music and make a library etc and always looking for the next high, the next minor improvement?
One of the happiest days of my life was when I listened to my music on a 10$ mp3 player with 2$ earphones after 3 months of not listening to it.
So yeah, you may be right, even though I've tried 3000$ open-ear audiophile headphones, with an amazing amplifier, listening on tidal and it didn't blow me away but even if it did, I'd be stupid to even try, then I'd know what I'm missing and craving a 5000$ setup when I'm already happy with the 1 inch box I can easily carry wherever I go.
> what's best, cheap, no wires, no headaches and happy or expensive, wires
You can get great sounding wired iems for very little money, while wireless earbuds are usually pretty pricey for anything not crummy. Cables are indeed annoying, but so is your earbuds being dead because you forgot to charge them. The battery problem gets worse too as they age. If you want reliable, cheap, good sounding music it is pretty hard to beat chi-fi iems.
Beyerdynamic has ruined me. And it's not even the best out there.
I'm reminded of a quote: "the best camera is the one you have on you." People ditched their digital cameras en masse when smartphones became popular. Not because the smartphone cameras were better, but because they were convenient.
The market has spoken. People drastically prefer the convenience of Bluetooth over the quality that comes along with having to constantly untangle wires or having audio cut in and out from failing wires.
On top of that, universal adoption of noise cancellation has resulted in dramatically better quality in practice than what people were using in 2005. Yes, wired headphones with noise cancellation are even better, but not to a point that people are willing to sacrifice the convenience of going wireless.
> People ditched their digital cameras en masse when smartphones became popular. Not because the smartphone cameras were better, but because they were convenient.
The early 00's transition from CRT to LCD monitors was similar. The early desktop LCD panels were expensive, had worse refresh rates, worse contrast, and worse colour rendering. To this day, even very good modern displays struggle to match CRT motion rendering.
But LCDs are so much thinner and lighter, and that was enough to overcome the disadvantages.
CRTs were also small at any reasonable price.
A 20" viewable area, 1920 x 1440 CRT in the late 1990s? $800 [1] and that was the king of monitors.
A 22", 1920 x 1080 flat screen today? $65 [2] and considered the most basic, mundane screen out there.
And inflation-adjusted? That $800 monitor was $1500 in today's money.
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/comparison,497.html [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CVM2GJCN
Ha, my mid 90s 21" Nanao CRT cost more than my used car was worth. I went on to get some high-end CRTs with Trinitron tubes after that at work.
But, as soon as I could get an LCD with DVI-D input, I never wanted to go back to a CRT. I just got whatever high resolution Dell LCD monitors I could find. I was much happier with perfect pixel addressing and zero bleed for rendering my text terminals and source code. I didn't care about color rendition and hardly cared about ghosting from scrolling.
There’s also the depth. A crt monitor would have a depth at least equal to the diagonal measurement which meant a lot of desk space lost to the monitor. On the other hand that also meant some prime cat nesting space that was lost with the lcd transition.
I think this is a great explanation. To add to it, I believe there is something durability too. My basic Jabra wireless earbuds from 2020 are just now getting faulty (just battery stuff). In a similar time period from 2010 and 2015 I went through at least 6 pairs of wired headphones or earbuds, the jacks would fail or the wires would just stop working.
> I'm reminded of a quote: "the best camera is the one you have on you."
Yeah, I think about that often when deciding on what to buy. It's often "what would I actually use" rather than "have on me".
For example, a corded vacuum is better on every metric than a cordless, but my house will be cleaner with a cordless because I'll actually use it.
Or, I really wanted a fully analog hi-fi amp, but realistically I knew I'd use it a lot more if it has bluetooth and airplay built-in and I can control it remotely.
And obviously airpods: I much prefer sound from headphones, but I just wouldn't take them with me most of the time whereas my airpods live on my keyring.
Yes, but my bluetooth headphones are not used often and are usually not charged and often lost.
Err, phones removed the headphone port, largely to sell more accessories.
> But I recently acquired a schiit vestri and I pair these with some old wired seinheisers (HD1). I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
These sound better because they're $500 full-size headphones, not because they lack Bluetooth.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today
The AirPods use 256kbps AAC. If you set up a true ABX test, you would not be able to tell the difference between 256kbps AAC and lossless using the same gear.
$19 iems sound better than airpods, the bar is that low, but normies don't care, most probably listen to spotify on auto and get 96kbps anyways. When the batteries invariably die after 2-3 years they'll send another $150 to Tim Apple while their old airpod finally become the e-waste they were destined to be
> $19 iems sound better than airpods, the bar is that low, but normies don't care,
I have several sets of high end headphones and have spent more on audio equipment than I probably should.
I enjoy my AirPods very much. They're great. They don't replace full-size headphones, but that's not what I bought them for.
I find all of this brand-bashing and talk about "normies" to be funny. The AirPods lineup is actually really enjoyed in the kinds of audiophile circles where they actually measure stuff and don't care which logo is on the box.
I don't get the comparison to the $19 IEMs because they're completely different product than the AirPods.
There's a surprisingly large number of people who have a negative opinion of AirPods (including their audio quality) while having never tried them. I've owned and tried some very high quality IEMs and still to this day impressed by the AirPods' audio quality and convenience. I've not found any wireless IEMs that come anywhere close.
To offer a counterpoint, Airpods Pro are a great product that significantly increased my quality of life. Depending on how sensitive you are to noise then having easily accessible/socially acceptable noise cancelling is incredible. Perhaps you are too much of a normie to get it ;)
Tim Apple stepped down. It's John Apple now
Young Johnny Appleseed
Turnips
I don't think I can adequately express how few fucks I give about my AirPods becoming e-waste. My god, the depressing mental state that some of you must live in...
The only thing depressing is the current state of the world, especially in regard to pollution and resources usage.
You're free to be an egoistic brain dead consumer, most people are, so go for it! Ignorance is bliss as they say
You'd be much more brain dead to care about Airpods becoming waste once every few years than the far more plastic being chucked in a single 500ml bottle of Coke.
For real. I can take a walk around the block and guarantee you I'll find at least two discarded vapes.
Meanwhile, I'm still using the AirPods Pro I bought 3 years ago.
You sound so self centered and miserable dude. Ewaste is definitely something to care about and try to avoid
Now John Apple.
i wonder if you've ever tried them. I'm concerned about audio quality and never thought to use airpods since I assumed they'd fall out when i was hiking. My gf bought me the last version of the airpods pro and they sound excellent. and they've never fallen out of my ears during normal movement like i assumed they might.
My AirPods 3 just won't quit and they sound awesome for what they are. My only issue is that they’re a pain to find if they drop in the snow.
Well no you get up to 256kbps and I've had my Airpods for over 4 years now with now issue in battery.
Relax.
To be clear, Truthear Gates cost almost $23 with the microphone option when they are not on sale... but yes.
Hey, I have those :) To be fair the microphones on cheap IEMs always suck, and you're probably better off using the mic on your device.
this is not even remotely true. I have plenty of headphones, Airpod Pros are quite good sound quality.
>I cannot overstate the drastic difference in quality.
Quality is governed by your subjective experience. The HD1s are tuned in a way that, paired with the Vestri and the files, creates the experience that you enjoy better. That's it. It's not about "better quality" and definitely not about "fidelity."
You also paid probably $99 for something that Apple perfected and sells for $10 -- that USB DAC. Which is fine! You should spend money on things that make you happy.
>The quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
This sentence doesn't have enough detail. What is quality supposed to mean here?
Upgrading to solid gold connectors with platinum wires will increase the audio "fidelity" noticeably (/s)
You plebs use Gold I only use Diamond Coated Connectors. For CRYSTAL Clear Sound and fidelity.
you're mistaken. Only proper blood diamond coated connectors increase the sound quality. lab grown with the same chemical and physical properties doesn't work.
You say that as if this wasn't completely to plan. The release of the first airpods and the first iPhone sans headphone jack were at the same time. It was brute-forced.
> where the default choice of headphones is Bluetooth.
Unfortunately not giving wired headphones away (with the phone purchase) and not including the standard 3.5 mm headphone jack, means that 'normal' people just put their phone calls and play their video on speaker, to the annoyance of everyone (on public transport).
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
Comparing Apples to Apples, AirPods are definitely sound better and are more useful than the pack-in iPod earphones that everyone used back then.
We've been over this for a couple decades now. The average consumer simply cannot tell the difference between lossless and compressed codecs. Even back 20-25 years ago when people carried around CD players, vanishingly few people batted an eye when those went the way of the dodo and devices started getting loaded up with shitty 128 kbps MP3s. The difference in quality mattered far less than the convenience.
There are many, many people who are even technically minded who would be surprised that their expensive AirPods Max cannot reproduce lossless audio from Apple Music when used wirelessly.
>The average consumer simply cannot tell the difference between lossless and compressed codecs.
The average audiophile can't either.
Don't believe me? Try it for yourself, bust out your most expensive DAC and headphones, but be careful, you can't unexperience this
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx
You can totally tell, at lower bitrates. People used to share songs as MP3 files using 128 kbps rates, and you could easily hear whooshy/chirpy artifacts in those at times.
Modern codec at a decent bitrate: inaudible.
Ironically, it could be the expensive DAC and headphones that helps the codec conceal itself.
That is to say, an audiophile who prefers gear that causes pleasant distortion might hear a difference through that gear, because the codec doesn't account for trying to mask its artifacts through equipment distortion (perhaps distortion in the ear itself only).
Say the codec removes something from the signal on the psycho-acoustic hypothesis that it is masked by something louder occurring close to before or after. That hypothesis is correct under hi-fi conditions, but suppose that the user's distorting tube power amp brings out that something, making it audible. Then removing it is potentially audible!
A lot of the time people were sharing transcodes because they didn't know any better. Same thing happens for video content today, e.g. most video on X looks like 240p because of it.
Different people want different things. Whenever I wore wired headphones, I was always catching the wire on things, and I found them really inconvenient - to the point where when I bought a new phone the headphones just went into my pile of unused headphones. AirPods were a complete change for me - I use them constantly. The sound quality difference is irrelevant - I just won't wear wired headphones - the hassle isn't worth it for me.
Man, I am the biggest curmudgeon in this regard. I wear my old wired headphones, wire under my shirt, to a BT-BA001 "low-latency BT transceiver" in my pants pocket.
The average Joe, via AirPods and the like, in 2026 has access to vastly better audio than in 2005.
In 2005, you had serious and expensive high end audio from the established brands (Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic etc.) and you had consumer audio for consumer prices that sounded pretty terrible: no bass extension, flat mids.
In 2026 you have:
- Serious and expensive high end audio from the established brands (maybe even some of the same models as 2005...)
- A new category of convenience driven "mid-fi" like all the Sony, Bose etc. ANC headphones and AirPods Pro - often with the "laid back, a lot of bass, slightly recessed mids" sound signature but still producing very acceptable sound
- Consumer audio for consumer prices, but now even the cheap earbuds and headphones (JBL, chinese brands etc.) sound by all means passable, are wireless, have good battery life
I would say there has never been a better time to be a "good sound enjoyer" than now.
The other day I needed something wired for reasons and plugged in some lightning EarPods (not AirPods!) and they sound crappy. These were the earbuds that came with iPhones and that most people used.
You can now get AirPods Pro 3 or Galaxy Buds4 Pro for under 200 Euro that will not only blow away those old earbuds, but more importantly (since 200 Euro open back Sennheisers sound even better), the transparency mode on these buds are extremely good, so it's much safer to use them while listening to music or a podcast when cycling or running.
This is, in my experience, absolutely true.
"It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today."
I'm trying very hard to understand what you mean specifically here.
The AirPods Pro I use every day for casual listening are far and away better headphones than the wired earbuds I used in that context in 2005.
The regular Airpods I bought my wife 3 months ago were a categorical improvement over the ones she'd lost in a move this summer, and they barely have ANC.
Even the first iteration of Airpods exceeded the quality of equivalent wired in-ear buds available at the time. I recently came across my old Etymotic in-ear headphones, which were at one point a gold standard. The sound from my AirPods Pro is better, and the Apple option is FAR more comfortable in my ears.
I'd argue that cost per unit of fidelity is lower now, in 2026, than it's ever been before. The level of playback a person can enjoy for, say, $500 today is wildly better than what was available for an inflation-adjusted equivalent amount of money in 2016 or 2006 or 1996.
I also have Headphone Acquisition Disorder, for which there is no known cure. As a result I've had a number of fancy wired setups over the years, sometimes requiring a headphone amp.
Owing to a lot of air travel, I bought the AirPods Max soon after they were introduced. I intended them to be airplane accessories for the most part, but the fact of the matter is that my $500 Sennheiser setup that required cables and an amp wasn't obviously superior to the Maxes. Once you factor in convenience, the Apple over-hear setup won the comparison in a walk. In the runup to our x-country move last summer, I sold off or gave away nearly all of the rest of my headphone horde; now, if I'm using headphones, it's one of the Apple options.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I seem to recall most people being perfectly content with 128kbps MP3s on iPod earbuds back in the day. Only audiophiles/nerds (of which there seem to be more now) were into actual headphones and amp setups and there's never been greater market choice in this regard.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
This isn't really true in any applicable way though.
Firstly, most people in 2005 were ripping CDs onto their ipods at itunes' 128kbps default - you're still only getting 160kbps today if you're running the free ad-supported Spotify plan but more people are paying for full quality.
More importantly though, the biggest impact on sound quality is noise isolation. People listen to music on the street, in an office bullpen, or public transport: in 2005 your wired sennheissers would need to be overear to deal with that environment in any reasonable manner.The ANC in even the non-pro in-ear airpods is giving you a night-&-day improvement.
> It is quite absurd (but categorically true) that the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today.
I don't believe this statement is true, as someone who cares about audio quality and has been making my own audio equipment and buying high end audio gear since well before 2005. The bar for the average has raised considerably in the last 21 years, even though it was always possible to have better. I use AirPods when I'm traveling on a plane or walking/commuting by public transit and to take phone calls, when I want to listen to music critically I have a >$10k headphone setup that obviously puts a pair of AirPods to shame. They're not the same device for the same use case, and that doesn't make them somehow "bad". Use the right tool for the job.
I got a pair of Bose qc-25 and a fiio q1 for about the price of a set of earbuds. (Bose were refurbs from bose's ebay store and fiio was closing out the q1 at the time.) That combo kicks the everloving shit out of any Bluetooth headphones I've tried.
Wait until you upgrade to a set of grados :}
I have a friend that was in the music industry for decades, and listening to music was a significant aspect of his job.
To this day (he’s retired), he won’t use wireless (even ones with bespoke connections), or ANC headphones.
I use AirPods when I take my morning walks. The shitty quality is actually a plus, because I can hear the cars that try to run me over (I walk at 5:30 AM, and people are not at the top of their game, at that time).
I have a couple of pairs of Bose QC headphones, for in-home listening. There’s nothing [wireless] that comes close, for ANC.
The new regular AirPods are interesting to me.
For many people, it's not just Bluetooth - it's streaming itself and the lower bit-rate.
i.e. Moving from wired headphones on a CD player in 2005 to AirPods (or knock-offs) and 96 kbps Spotify streams in 2026 is hurting you on 2 fronts.
But then again - the convenience of having vast amounts of music at your fingertips and complete freedom to move around, carry your headphones in your pocket, etc - I think most of us would still make that tradeoff most of the time.
I observed the same thing happening when we transitioned from analog land line telephones to everyone having mobile phones. The plain old telephone was crispy clean, and cellphone calls by comparison were just barely intelligible. It's so bad that I'm honestly surprised that texting didn't take over sooner. It wasn't until Apple FaceTime Audio that calls started to sound good again, and it still isn't the default.
Im used to listening to a staticy job site radio half way across the shop. I dont really care about the quality as long as its better than that. I feel most people are the same.
As someone with probably already a bit of hearing damage and who is generally not an Audiophile. I remember when i switched from Wired Headphones to Wireless and man I cannot hear the difference. Which I assume many people don't either. For me it is no difference in hearing pleasure and much more comfort.
I would venture to guess that the average user can’t tell. Most of the time, I’m just looking for some background noise, not a listening experience. The speaker on the iPhone is good enough for that.
I have a pair of wired Seinheisers, and they sound great, but 99% of the time, my priority is convenience, and anything that makes sound will do.
On my older android phone I always have problems watching anything with bluetooth headphones adding so much lag that the video gets very desynced with the audio. So I will continue to use wired headphones (now via usb-c adapter since the dedicated port is gone)
My 2016 Toyota Corolla has a 1.5 second audio lag and it’s my only issue with the vehicle. No clean way to update or upgrade just the Bluetooth component either.
I had the same feeling (coming from NAD Viso HP50 wired headphones) that Bluetooth options just sucked. I recently got a pair of Focal Bathys wireless headphones, and they sound amazing.
>the quality of audio that folks were generally listening to in 2005 was better than what we are doing today
Is it tho ? I remember back in the day, most of my music collection is in 128kbps mp3, well under the bandwidth of bluetooth
But did you notice at the time that it sounded chronically awful? Cymbals and hihats sound like someone eating with their mouth open.
I often use wired $10 Sony ZX headphones and for audio even those are vastly superior to any earbuds, including my AirPod Pros.
The AirPods were the most convenient piece of electronics I’ve ever owned, but the sound is earbud quality.
It is even worse in home theater. People went from legit sound systems with an amp and speaker wire runs to actual speakers, proper audio channels, to what at best a sound bar from walmart and zero dynamic range.
I've intentionally killed the dynamic range of my system because sound engineers can't mix dialog for shit nowadays.
Are you streaming or are these blu ray? Streaming is trash ime.
Precisely, it's a feature nowadays.
Looking at you Christopher Nolan
Not just audio quality. Playback and consumption quality. My Winamp setup c 2005 was worlds better than what’s possible now on a typical listening device. Eq. Crossfading. Visualizer.
All possible but not common
FYI: There are now lossless Bluetooth codecs if you care to find them.
Talking about sound quality: I'm surprised at how good the Apple event sounded, even on your average (wired) headphones
Sounds much better than some 80% of YT videos
The average person was not listening to music with multi-hundred-dollar headphones in 2005. They were using cheap earbuds.
I used to obsess over audio quality. But then I reached my 40s, and it started to become clear that my ageing ears were becoming the limiting factor.
Now I just embrace the convenience of Bluetooth and usefulness of noise cancelling.
(But then again, even my AirPods or Sony XM4s are high fidelity compared to what many of the kids these days are listening with, small mono bluetooth speakers or playing music out of their phone speakers)
If you are using apple then its AAC from your phone directly to your headphones… so not seeing where the quality drop would come from.
Can you get anc with wired ones?
[dead]
This is so hilarious, apple selling volume up and down as it were some fantastical feature and not have been present in air pods pro since god nows when.
> Force sensor with volume swipe arrives on AirPods 5, a first for the open-ear form factor, adding the ability to quickly adjust volume by swiping up or down on the stem.
Pure apple marketing juice this one.
Only if "pure marketing juice" means "plainly telling people about a straightforward feature they're adding to one of their products." Which like, okay, that is what marketing is, but are you suggesting they don't tell people?
I think it's the:
> a first for the open-ear form factor
That is being called out as comical.
But it is? At least for AirPods. The AirPods Pro are not open-ear form factor. I do not know about other open-ear airbuds.
Two separate models from Huawei have swipe volume controls (freearc and freeclip). I’m not a earbud guru but my $25 anker buds have tap to hold volume controls (not swipe, I’m sure Apple is being specific for a reason), but no matter how you move the goalposts it’s a ridiculous claim.
They all have the squishy silicone part that goes in your ear. The claim on the apple page is it's for the ones that don't have that. Which is true.
It's not a particularly crazy innovation but the statement is true.
No they don't. The two Huawei models mentioned are completely different form factors, that are much more open-ear and further from squishy silicone than any Airpods.
This is exactly the assumption that the carefully worded juice hopes you'll make. That Apple's claim to innovation precludes even a cursory glance at the competition
They don’t have the squishy silicone, but you sound so confident! Tim Apple or his replacement aren’t giving you any prizes for your shilling, it’s ok to like Apple products and see how stupid their marketing is.
can confirm my Huawei Freebud 4 have swipe volume controls, anc and do not have silicone tip. Which is one of the reasons I got them after my Gen 1 Airpods started to annoy me on Android.
Are they open ear?
Wouldn't a more traditionally appropriate question be: "but are those Apple"?
They are both ear wrap around so apples to oranges.
That is why I mentioned them, yes.
Because they're being very awkwardly specific in order to make it sound like they're the first to do it.
For the average consumer who doesn't know that if you look outside of their disclaimer you'll find that it already exists and think that apple invented the feature
Wait, they added this feature that was only on pro models to the non pro ones, seems reasonable to mention?
If memory serves, it’s only on the ones with the wireless charging case. They get a few quality of life upgrades over the base AirPods, without stepping all the way up to the Pros.
The Pros don't fit my ears even with the smallest ear tips. I definitely welcome bringing that feature to the regular model.
They make aftermarket tips that are a bit smaller. Still to big for my ears so I switched to the newer "cuff" style and am reasonably happy with them except when I want noise-cancelling.
The swipe controls are terrible on my Pro 2s and make me miss physical buttons like on my ancient Jabra 65t. It's easier to reach into a pocket and push the volume buttons on my phone without unlocking or looking at it.
Oh man, I loved the 65t! I remember Jabra making great true wireless headphones. They were small, sounded ok, had actual buttons but operating them didn't push the earbud against the brain.
Miss that a lot. Nowadays it's all touch and I hate it so much because for some reason I have a problem spatially locating them and always end up touching it the wrong way (and yes, I know... ;)
i still use their conference speaker for calling and music and is the primary sound for my computer. i like it and it has worked really well for the last 5 years.
Agreed. The swipe stuff has a horrible implementation.
They brought a Pro feature to the base model and dropped the price. I don't want Pros because I prefer hard plastic tips.
They're not doing anything deceptive or clever.
Cheaper than last gen too.
Actually in the event they presented it exactly like that.
why not? lets not talk about it, people like this gonna say we are highlighting a new feature on a non-pro model
My freebud 5's do that now.
Pretty sure I had something like that on galaxy buds 6+ years ago
Been a feature on Bose QC earbuds for a long time too
But is that an Apple? If not, then how is that good?
Uh they're literally just saying they brought it down from the Pro to the regular line. I don't know why you're reading too much into it.
The marketing kool-aid must flow. Many other earbuds have swipe volume, but because they aren't open-ear Apple gets to claim this amazing breakthrough.
"For users who want even more"
> … apple selling volume up and down as it were some fantastical feature and not have been present in air pods pro since god nows when.
I’ve been having to throw away my earphones and getting new ones whenever I needed a new volume setting. Going up and down in the same device is truly a game changer.
/s
Come on, it's their best AirPod yet!
I know it's silly but I enjoy listening for the "this is our X-est Y yet" during these events. It's incremental improvements I enjoy, but it's like a mini trope for me.
Translation: “We took a pro thing and put it on the non-pros. Money please.”
for those who were holding out from Gen1 or whatever, adding pro features at a non-pro price is definitely incentivising. I’m not sure why we’re pretending it’s not.
Would you rather have generation old Pros or brand new standard airpods which have the pro features you actually want.
apple has been quite good at treating their "economy" products with the same level of respect as their premium ones, as far as I've experienced. the Neo is significantly more powerful than the Pro I bought four years ago and $100 cheaper, pre-inflation accounting. A brand like Apple introducing a highly-capable "discount" product goes against all common sensibilities for a company whose branding is anchored on prestige. Plus the extended support window for older devices vs. their competitors in the smartphone space.
Apples budget stuff is weirdly good right now. Other brands would have released the neo as a plastic frame bit of ewaste loaded with adware.
I think it’s nice and I think they covered it right in the video.
Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro).
Some people can’t stand having something in their ear. The volume control is a nice feature to have and now it’s available on the cheaper ones. I’ve missed it on my 4s.
Yeah the marketing copy is marketing copy and Apple never references competitors. But if you like the non-pros it’s a nice upgrade.
> Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro).
I'm holding out for the next Pro model as I genuinely benefit from closed headphones/earbuds. Open is nice in a controlled environment but I'd rather have that slight seal when I'm somewhere noisy.
My Pro 2s are genuinely very comfortable and still work great after 2+ years of moderate use, so haven't felt a need to upgrade to Pro 3 yet. I use aftermarket foam-like tips and find they seal great FWIW.
>Do you want open ear (AirPods) or closed (AirPods Pro). Some people can’t stand having something in their ear.*
Both versions put something in your ear.
There are wireless earbuds that stay outside next to the ear, that are actually the ones legitimately called "open ear", but the AirPods aren't that type.
They mean isolating vs non-isolating.
Airpods Pro are isolating, Airpods are not.
It’s confined to the assumption you already want AirPods.
Apple isn’t going to mention things they don’t sell.
>for those who were holding out from Gen1 or whatever, adding pro features at a non-pro price is definitely incentivising. I’m not sure why we’re pretending it’s not.
Because it's a non-feature even the cheapest $30 wireless earbuds have had since forever, often even better, like with physical buttons.
So what are you saying? Because there are cheaper earbuds made by someone else with this feature, Apple _shouldn't_ add it to their earbuds? I'm not sure why that would be the case.
Where exactly do I say "Apple _shouldn't_ add it to their earbuds"?
I'm saying as an "incentive" to get to the new version of airpods 5, it's a lame one, since the feature existed in all kinds of cheaper earbuds for years, and Apple should have added it in already, not leave it for the Pro models all this time.
You seem to be saying contradictory things. You're saying it's not a good incentive, but you're also saying Apple should have added it already. Why should they have already added it if it's not a good incentive? Why should they add it now if it's not a good incentive?
My argument is that adding it makes their product better, so they should add it. And if they add something that makes their product better, that's an incentive to buy it.
See also:
Power steering
Jet engines
Anesthetics
Rubber tires
Flat screen TVs
How grubby of them to take a high end feature and make it more affordable.
*Less money please.
Of all the marketing to complain about, this seems super tame. Wait until you see "gluten-free tortilla chips" at the supermarket. :D
As somebody w/ Celiac, you'd be surprised. Many a time I've been poisoned by normal gluten free things being tainted by poor manufacturing lines, or companies mixing in other product. Tortilla chips with gluten, Hashbrowns/Potatoes coated with wheat flour, so many things are made not-gluten-free for no reason.
There is always a reason and it usually has something to do with money. We really need to find a cure for Celiac 'cuz wheat is just too ingrained in our culture to be removed. (pun not intended, but also not removed so...)
Some brands use wheat to make the chips more crunchy. Just like IHOP puts wheat in their scrambled eggs. McDonald's uses wheat in their french fries. They stick wheat everywhere.
There are tortilla chips that do contain gluten, or are cross-contaminated with it. A gluten-free label means they guarantee <20ppm gluten in the product. That’s useful info!
I wonder if it's still the case that, if I buy expensive Apple AirPods to use with my expensive Apple computer, I'm denied the ability to add them to Find My unless I also buy an expensive Apple phone. And I also wonder whether the AirPods case is going to make an alarm noise whenever I move it, to punish me for having the audacity to think it would be a good idea to buy expensive Apple earbuds to use with my expensive Apple computer, while not owning an iPhone.
An iPhone is not sufficient. I had a perfectly working Find My with the AirPods Pro 1&2. I just bought the newest AirPods Pro 3 and they can’t be found with the iPhone unless I upgrade to the newest operating system. Fair enough they advertise a higher precision. But they don’t write that even for the previous low precision, you need now the newest operating system.
> Fair enough they advertise a higher precisio
This is, for me, a game changer.
The new AirPods have both:
- the ability for the CASE to send a sound using Find My
- have sub-foot accuracy when using a kind of "radar" via the phone
If the "play a sound on my iphone" from my watch has saved my weeks of time looking for my phone, this just brings the feature to my Air Pods.
Ditto. I loved my Airpods Pro 2 but it was really clear Apple did not want me as a customer of their headphones. In a practical sense, the recent open source work would have mitigated most (all if it supports software updates) of my issues, but I still won't be buying any more Apple audio products out of principle.
Interesting on the pricing. You now get some of the best AirPod features all in $129. In Apple's pricing that is cheap.
On the other hand in the past few years I have noticed a lot of people wearing Sony's Wireless headset and Earphones. Apple used to dominate this category when they first launch AirPods. I am wondering what happened they people discovered they could use other brand and Apple's brand loyalty don't quite work.
Apple's product has never been near the top in ergonomics nor sound quality, there's no big mystery. The UX and the ANC were their differentiator but the competition has largely closed that gap.
$129*
*without a case
I had to double check the site because I believed for a second that Apple was doing some pricing sleight of hand by saying "Look, it's cheaper!" and removing half the product...
But this isn't true at all, it's $129 for a normal case, $149 for a wireless charging case.
They did a terrible job explaining it, but I think it's just that the case doesn't have magsafe
Extend the Stem!!
I have no idea why Apple has made AirPods harder to handle, impaired mic placement, and limited the battery capacity with shorter stems.
The longer stems offered more room for battery, got the mic closer to your mouth, and were so much easier to handle, manipulate etc.
Can't really fathom why they shortened the stem and made it harder for everyone, themselves and users alike.
I assume the long stem increases the likelihood it will be dislodged from the ear because it increases torque at the point of contact when moving. The first AirPods were much less secure in the ear than current ones. Reducing stem length may lower the risk of them falling out.
The long stem may have been a necessary but suboptimal engineering tradeoff to get the first version out the door. A lot of design tweaks have gone into making AirPods less likely to fall out.
The first airprods were so loose in the ear I thought the entire world was playing a prank on me when I tried them out.
This must be a personal preference based on ear anatomy.
The first-gen Airpods fit my ears perfectly, and were secure. When I lost them and upgraded to the 2nd gen, I was initially upset - aside from the body being fatter (and so less comfortable in my ears) they were very insecure - I couldn't even walk around without them loosening and dislodging.
I was on the point of returning them when I saw the advice online to 'twist' them into a different position. I now use them with the stalks horizontal, and they're secure. Still a touch less comfortable than the v1s, but easily tolerable.
My experience is the exact opposite. The new shape fits less well in my ear, hopefully they've chosen the best shape for most people, but the shorter stem provides no third point of contact like the old ones!
The longer stem used to have a better chance at contacting your face for some staying power. The shorter stems don't.
The long stems were literally the same length as on their wired headphones. They encased a bluetooth antenna and battery inside their existing design.
Personally I prefer it. Less chance of accidentally knocking them out.
I really miss the BeatsX headphones where it’s 2 earbuds attached to each other with a flexible cable that drapes over the back of your neck. It was nice to be able to take my headphones out without needing to hold them and they just fall over my shoulders like a necklace. Also means not having to keep track of a third item since there’s no charging case. And the whole thing is soft and flexible so you can put it more easily in your pocket without it bulging like the AirPods in a case do.
I find the “true wireless” form factor finnicky and comically easy to lose and easy to drop. I don’t really see much utility in it either aside from the cool technology flex. If they’d put the modern audio quality and noise cancelling on the BeatsX (and the more neutral AirPods response curve) I’d be first in line.
Aesthetics. Short stem looks sleeker.
Form vs. function
Do they? I don't think so. Makes them look stubby and more like a hearing assistive device (not particularly fashionable).
They looked sleeker and more balanced with the longer stem and in the ear more like jewelry.
Honestly the stems always looked kinda dorky to me
Or, you know, design trade-offs like every other hardware ever made.
I don't want to feel like I'm wearing one of those customer support head mics. I'm ok with shorter stem, and never had a problem.
Apple are king of form over function. Have we already forgotten that hack Jony Ive and his fetish for removing usefulness in favor of a few mm of thinness? Or the stupid fucking Touch Bar keyboard?
I still have a touch bar MacBook and the keyboard is unusable now.
The touch bar was not a bad invention. Apple just neglected it and never gave it the software support it deserved. With some proper development it could have been great.
The real problem is that they tried to replace the function keys (and especially the esc key) instead of supplementing them.
The touch bar was a terrible invention. Apple had no shortage of money to fix the software side, they just recognized that it wasn't a "Pro" feature.
Consider the most basic usage of the touch bar, displaying function keys. The tactile feedback of a physical function row enables most people to touch-type the function keys from home row. For IDEs, NLE/DAW workflows, UNIX terminal setups and cross-platform software, the touch bar had nothing to offer but downsides. And even in apps that supported it, there was no unified mnemonic standard that enabled you to use the touch bar strip without looking away from the monitor and losing sight of your content. Apps that copied the content into the touch bar were even more hilariously cornered into bad UX, displaying a postage stamp-sized status for whatever you're working on.
The common defense of the touch bar says it needed hardware reworks and greenfield HID architectures to succeed. But I think Apple realized it was a totally flawed concept, and iterated on it internally to the point that they realized it was a sunken cost fallacy.
I’m sure I’m not the only programmer that developed a habit of resting my finger on the F5 key at a certain point in my workflow, and then had to unlearn it just because of the stupid touch-bar (Still using my 2019 Intel MBP with stupid touch-bar).
> Or, you know, design trade-offs like every other hardware ever made.
Or different SKUs. Just saying.
Not that hard for the most profitable trillion dollar company on the planet.
You want there to be separate lines for "how long do you want your stems"?
Looking forward to your 18 SKU product matrix of decisions people have to make that they don't know what answer to choose.
>Extend the Stem!!
Same thought as well. It doesn't have to be much bigger, but even 10% longer would be much more useful from mic placement and battery perspective.
Longer stem means bigger case. The case on the Pro is nice, the regular one not so much.
Ew no. Long stem AirPods look goofy
It’s Apple so the answer is clear: shorter stems look nicer. Functionality be damned. You’re holding it wrong my dude. Nobody wants to look like they have q-tips in their ears.
So fade the stem to dark grey already.
Dirty q tips? Eww :)
The smaller the form factor, the closer they are to functional implants.
Also each device has to be identifiably different by at least some small margin, so the people who care about measuring worth/value based on the latest devices and similar trash can reject people based on what they "wear", pushing up device sales.
Invisible stems then?
I have extremely weird ear canals and no, I mean absolutely NO in-ear earbuds will stay in my ears for longer than 15 minutes, even with the christmas tree earplug-style tips on them. For that reason I am relegated to either my bulky but beloved Sennheiser WH1000XM4 headphones (or, even less practical: my wired planar magnetics) or... airpods 3. Somehow despite trying every brand of "not-in-ear-ear-bud" a-la Airpods/Earpods I have found absolutely nothing that has the frequency response of Apple's design. The fidelity is nothing to write home about but I'm not missing any of the music. Even well-regarded "flathead" earbuds, conversely, simply have no response whatsoever below 120hz.
Not trying to convince your anything, just putting it out there for those that are plagued by this, but I had similar issues and memory foam tips solved this for me with airpods. For me they'll stay in if i'm basically motionless, but as soon as I move they're on the run.. With the foam tips I'm able to do basically anything and not worry about losing an expensive earbud.
I'm afraid to try expensive over the ear headphones again after a pair of XM3's started making the most hideous screeching noise right after the warranty expired.
The memory foam tips I've tried in the past get destroyed by the absurd amount of ear wax my ears generate when something is in them.
Yes, same. But these ones don't have eartips, so we are going to have to wait for the Pro version if we want these.
oh IDK how I didn't notice that.
Are the memory foam tips first party? Which ones did you get?
Not first party. the ones I get are "foam masters" brand on amazon.
Sony.
Sony LinkBuds Fit
The comment you're replying to means that Sony made the XM4, not Sennheiser like the parent said.
Like you, I have weird ear canals, and I've always struggled with fit; the Apple ones are the worst.
I have the Sony earbuds, and while I agree they fit a little better, I find the memory foam disgusting. It also degrades over time and becomes brittle. My solution was the Alza SednaEarfit Max, which are silicone earbud tips that fit the Sony. They are easy to clean and come with the tiny mesh that prevents ear wax from getting into the electronic part of the earbud. Of all the tips I've tried, these stay the best.
However, they still fall out too easily if I'm eating (from jaw movements) or lying on my side.
PS. You mean Sony WH1000MX4. Not Sennheiser. Although Sennheiser makes the Momentum True Wireless, which comes with silicone earbud tips.
What about IEMs with custom earmolds?
$30 cheaper is a surprise for sure. Especially in this economy.
Too much competition from China. They would have bumped the price if it wasn't for the cheap alternatives from every Chinese manufacturer.
Are there any competition ? There is cheaper TWS with comparable sound quality, but airpod comes with whole set of features, like transparent switching between devices, or Find My network, or charging case has buzzer for easy finding.
Which Chinese alternatives are available with similar quality in ANC, sound quality and fit? Like actual brands I can buy today, not the kind that has a brand name that was created by someone rolling their head on the keyboard and won't exist in 6 months.
Idk if soundcore is the same quality but it's pretty good and half the price of the base airpods. Hard to justify paying twice as much and not getting any ANC.
Sony's WF-C510s are $70. The APPs are one thing but the base airpods I never really found to be that amazing quality-wise.
The linkbud S's are comparable in pricing tho
Moondrop pudding
Wow looks very good. I will say I've been highly impressed by Chinese consumer electronics they are often high quality, have many features, and usually are cheap.
That shape will sadly never stay in my ears. The Airpods Pro barely stay in, unless I eat, talk or sweat and they're less protruding from my ear.
dam I'll have to try that one
Saying the battery life is extended to 22 hours with the battery case is a bit absurd- you have to still take them out and charge them. I’m not sure why we can’t have wires that connect to the AirPods and charge while listening. The battery life will always be the biggest drawback of bt headphones.
When they get down to 10% put one in the case, by the time your other bug gets to 1% you changed the first one. No gaps
It's really not that hard. The Galaxy Buds Plus from 2020 get 11 hours of battery on a single charge. Same for the Sony WF-C510 that are $70
Really?
> Powered by Apple Intelligence, Live Translation on AirPods 5 breaks down barriers by letting users communicate across languages.
Thing that only happens in the minds of SV marketing gurus.
> For users who want even more, AirPods 5 with Wireless Charging Case add longer battery life and on-stem volume control for $149
This is a weird product feature versioning. Would people pay an extra $20 for these two features specifically? With the AirPods 4 the upsell SKU was ANC which made exponentially more sense.
15% more price for 25% more battery is worth it alone. Add in that every time I adjust the volume without needing to dig out my phone, and I’ll feel even better.
$20 is a single meal at a fast food restaurant, which I’ll have forgotten about the very next day. This is a much better long term investment.
I would pay for the stem volume controls alone.
I prefer the regular AirPods to in-ear. But I still keep an old pair of Pro's around purely because the stem is so convenient for changing volume when I'm walking the dog or out for a run and I'd rather not get my phone out my pocket.
FWIW being able to effortlessly change volume with the watch dial is like 20% of my reason for wearing one.
These things have usable lifespans of about 2-4 years before the batteries start to go (depending on how low a capacity you can tolerate). It’s more like you buy the one available at the time when your old ones wear out.
I don’t know if I just got lucky or what. But my AirPods Pro (1st gen) just finally crapped out last week. And the batteries are mostly fine: the speaker blew out in the right one, and it now sounds awful. But that’s ~6-7 good years that I got out of ‘em.
NICE! You should buy a lottery ticket!
The differentiating feature is the Wireless Charging case, which they've had a separate SKU for forever.
I'd happily buy the older versions for less. Which is why they don't allow that.
I bought the AirPods 4 with ANC in large part due to the Wireless Charging Case.
^ knocking it before anyone on earth tried it- minus apple
Both of these features have been on existing models (which I've used) for quite awhile and are not unknown quantities.
Why do they all sound robotic and sterile? :-/
Let's feel some excitement in your voices!
For real. I almost think they shouldn't practice, script it, or focus-group it. Just get up there and wing it. Would honestly sound better.
I'm stating to think everyone hands are actually AI CGI.
Because most people outside of the US find fake excitement off-putting and borderline creepy.
I am outside the US.
Agree on fake enthusiam.
How about genuine emotions?
They are the actual VPs of different fields, not professional actors.
It's hard to bring out "genuine emotions" when you're on the fifteenth take of a meticulously choreographed production. You just smile and focus on not fucking it up this time around.
I hope they've made the metal contacts inside the case a bit sturdier, because I'm often getting one or both of my AirPods drained to 0% when I take them out of the case, due to contact issues (I assume).
mostly likely you need to clean your case
Always do when this happens. I blow into it, and there's no visible dirt on the metal contacts either. Also, a friend of mine also reported the same for their AirPods Pro 2.
It is pretty hard to see in the case and what I found is even when it looked clean, when I used a tool to dig around a bit there was almost always some gunk in there causing the charging issues.
Honestly the most frustrating thing about the pros tbh.
The only thing I really want is significantly improved battery life (that could last for an entire flight).
But in the end, it'll be the desire to eradicate the lightning port from my life that forces my hand on the upgrade
Honestly after a while my ears just can't stay earbuds anymore, it's just painful. For long haul flights (over 6hours) I also bring over-ear headphones regardless of battery life.
I don't understand why Apple won't support Aura Cast already.
That might send wrong signals that Apple has started following standard/common specs.
Back when BLE Audio was first announced, I thought Apple would champion it because it finally extends quality limitations making the microphone quality terrible. I guess they’re content with doing their proprietary thing.
I would like that. I wonder if its something a software update can enable or not
I’d expect their chips to support it by now, but LE Audio, which Auracast is a feature of, requires isochronous streams, a feature of Bluetooth 5.2.
I recently upgraded from my Airpods Pro to the Huawei Freebuds Pro 5. Audio quality, battery life, noice cancelling, and especially microphone quality is so much better! And they work nicely with Android, Windows and MacOS. I would 100% recommend them to anyone over any other Earbuds, at 160€ they are also not amongst the more expensive models.
If microphone quality matters a lot for your use-case, you might also want to checkout the Anker Soundcore Libery 5 Pro.
(I'm only sharing this because I know how difficult it is to find any information on earbuds with good microphones, Huawei Freebuds 4/5 were the best from my experiments until Anker released the ones above)
I want a pair of earphones that are as comfortable as the AirPods Pro but have a very solid mic quality.
Whenever I have a call on my AirPods I feel terrible for whoever’s on the other end of my call because the quality is so bad, even when they’re connected to an iPhone. I originally thought I had hardware issues until I heard from others that all AirPods Pro are like this.
I dunno, can someone tell me what I’m missing here?
I think the reason they are bringing the normal AirPods close to the features of the AirPods Pro is the next version of AirPods Pro will have tiny forward cameras on the tips allowing visual along with audio AI.
[holding two items at a store] "Siri.. which one of these should I buy"
god it feels inevitable but i hate wearable tech including innocuous cameras. first it was the sunglasses that ppl immediately jailbroke to remove the recording indicator. now the possibility of a person seemingly listening to music on the train potentially recording me?
im just so tired.
I hope, not I will never buy airpods with cameras.
The positioning of AirPods in the lineup doesn't really make sense to me. Noise canceling works way better with an in-ear fit anyway. Personally, I'd rather see ANC on the Beats Flex. That would create a clearer distinction from the AirPods Pro.
have they ever improved the charging system so the charging leads dont get gunked up?
I have a pair of airpod pro 2 and i have to scrape the leads almost every day
would be amazing if they did it thru induction charging (tho i guess thats really slow)
Im on my third pair of Airpods pro (replacement courtesy of Apple) and all of them had the ANC partially fail the longer i use them. I wonder why Apple still release new versions of these whem they cant even get the basics right.
Have you tried replacing your eartips? I find that radically improves performance - I think they must either get clogged or brittle in a way that causes problems.
Cheap foam eartips from Amazon are even better than stock for my AirPods Pro but they need to be replaced more often.
I tried everything. Cleaning out the vents, cleaning out the grilles. The failure is not in the reduction of the ANC, but outright amplifying ambient bass into my ear. This is why I got them replaced by Apple, which in their diagnostics confirm there were issues with the ANC.
In any case these workarounds are moot, because my $20 Chinese ANC earphones work (until today) without all these fussing around at all.
I had the exact same issue with it suddenly amplifying bass (my air conditioner and motor vehicles being big triggers) on my AirPods Pro 3, and the memory foam eartips did actually fix it. Kind of a surprising result.
I hesitate to share an Amazon link but it might help rescue your investment if you still have them: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0G16F5VVP
Yep, I wonder why the ANC socialt is so fragile. Turns me off from buying new ones.
I’ve had them for 3,5 years now and off the top of my head I can’t remember where the “charging leads” are. So it’s safe to say that mine definitely don’t get gunked up.
Is that you, Shrek?
They already do have inductive charging. Both MagSafe, Qi. They even work on the watch charger.
That’s for all AirPod Pros, and definitely the AirPod 4 with ANC, not sure about other non pros.
There's definitely versions that do not work with all wireless chargers like the watch charger. Whatever older pair I have do not work with the watch charger
Super annoyed they did not announce a new AirPods Pro or Apple TV. My NVIDIA Shield is getting a bit old (not really an issue unless I want to stream raw 90GB Blu-ray).
A bit strange for Apple to let fairly popular products just go so long without a refresh. Just the vision component of the new AirPods could have been delayed, not really a critical feature anyway.
Apple Watch seems to be getting pretty good, might finally switch away from Garmin if the Apple one is as durable.
I wonder if they have an automation system which releases these perfectly in time with the video, or if they have some blog boy that has to post them at the right time.
They have multiple fake product "labs" with which to use as sets simply for filming these videos. I am sure one or two FTEs is plausible.
A manual operation wouldn't shock me at all. A friend used to work on Apple.com and as recently as 5 years ago the product pages were still hard coded. No CMS.
This is dirt cheap for Apple. Am I missing something?
The $100 iPhone price rises, the $20-40/yr Apple Care for iPhone price rise?
How do these compare to the AirPods 4 ANC, I wonder? Hopefully not too much better given that I bought a pair of those about a month ago... :-/
I wish they would expand their live translation support more rapidly for other languages. Waiting patiently for Thai support
Isn’t Apple expected to release AirPods with cameras in them? Or may be the rumor is they are working on it?
A worthy upgrade to a miracle product . Just a couple decades it was a sci-fi fantasy and we all can enjoy it . I get the bible in my ear all night at bed time and books while I work and walk around the property. Great to see the price cut .
Plus fewer distractions.
Finally something that isn't outright overpriced. At this price I expected 1 earbud. Here you have TWO and the quality is still unmatched. Two at this price is a good deal.
You can get cheap wireless earbuds with ANC for 10€.
Apples cost 130€.
How much of that difference is in the BoM? Probably not that much.
Granted, Apple does a lot of expensive R&D. But they also sell a ton of Airpods, so the R&D cost per unit is small.
Apple is making a lot of money on Airpods.
I'm sure Apple comes out ahead.
Still, it seems like a good deal. Other high-end earbuds (such as the Sony WF-1000XM6, the Technics EAH-AZ100, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2. Gen) easily cost over $200. Whether the AirPods 5 actually match up to these is to be seen, but I'm optimistic.
Writing out all these names made me realize just how poor the naming schemes of many companies' earbuds are.
Been using the new Siri since June. ChatGPT voice is still superior!
Please Apple let me easily swap out Siri for chatGPT voice! Work together .. buy them or something. Their voice conversation tech is superior and can help save lives when driving!
They’re currently embroiled in a technology theft lawsuit.
Don’t expect it any time soon.
Yeah Im aware but it could lead to better integration and or an all out buy out.
If you have ever used chatGPT voice for directions you could forsee that super intelligent contextual directions are safer then looking at a screen. I.e. "That new mechanic is across the street from the McDonalds on Dorset," in a locale you are familiar with.
I still want them to bring the “tap” operation of the first two generations back. It’s so convenient, for example when wearing them under a beanie in winter. The squeezing and swiping controls aren’t an adequate replacement.
yeah I loved the tap controls. Would be nice to have both available. My guess is that for many people the "tap" wasn't as accurate as apple would like it to be as I had heard lots of complaints about that not working for people when I was available.
Seems weird theyd not use the soft tipped pro style design going forward when its obviously much better.
they intentionally handicapped the non-pro version so you might as well wait.
All soft tips fall out of my ears, so I'm happy there's something that doesn't.
Not sure how the public has received them, but I cannot stand to wear the non-pro airpods for more than maybe 40 minutes. They used to give plastic earbuds away with the purchase of a device! I get it, bluetooth vs wired, extra features... but they are super uncomfortable to wear IMO.
The Pros, completely different story. Maybe a bit pricey but the ecosystem, battery life, comfort, ANC, all of that is great. The difference that little rubber piece makes is wild.
Side note - the "directional" audio (Sounds as if it's originating from your device rather than standard L/R audio), not sure if this is still a thing, but it was super weird the first time I tried it. I literally had to check that I was actually using the earbuds a few times, and refused to use it after. Maybe it was TOO good, super cool tech though.
Different strokes.
I'm the opposite, the rubber ones are annoying and give me headaches. Love the open ear feel.
> I cannot stand to wear the non-pro airpods
> The Pros, completely different story
You think this is accidental?
They're just covering two ends of the market. I can't stand wearing Pros myself, I can feel the sweat building up in any isolating earbud, and it makes me feel itchy. Would hate for the non-isolating product to disappear.
AirPods won't stay in my ears at all (and an ear test practitioner who modeled my ears validated my experience -- he said my ear canals will never hold buds), so it's Shokz forever, for me.
5 hours of battery life... is a feature they're proud of?
Yes. That's alot of battery life for in-ears of that size. Also you add hours more in a 10 min charge from the case. If you have to wear headphones for more than 5 hours straight without a few min break, you have other issues than th technology.
Trying to sleep straight through a long haul flight; what’s the issue with that?
I really hate silicone tip earbuds and the AirPods 4 with ANC were game changing. Having ANC without the silicone tips was just huge for me. It's obviously not as good as having the passive isolation of the silicone as well, but it's plenty good for airplanes and trains.
Are there non-Apple alternatives that also accomplish this?
Same here. And I was seriously impressed with how much noise cancelling the v4 can do. I will be seriously impressed again if the v5 is as much better as they claim.
I have searched far and wide and have found nothing. I haven't even found a basic-functionality wired earbud that matches the AirPods frequency reproduction.
try their own cheapo wired earbuds, i use those all the time, no battery, no silicone tip, no bt compression, happiness - they even come with usbc option so they work with the phone, too
I knew this was going to happen when I purchased my AirPod3s a couple of weeks ago. The only feature I really miss is the touch volume control.
No new Pros. They probably saw all the blowback about meta glasses and thought that maybe now's not the time for cameras on things.
The Dyson toothbrush seems to think … different
I think I'll stick with my pros. Definitely prefer the rubber tips for ear comfort over the plastic on the standard ones.
Ah thats the one of the differences between standard and pro? The plastic ones literally fall/creep out of my ears… without even moving (losing a lot of sound/volume in the process)
With ANC and volume control now available on the basic AirPods what’s the story for the AirPod Pros now? An obsolete product line?
I suspect the story is that next year when the AirPods Pro 4s come out it'll be more clear.
Until they solve the ~250ms latency, which would require replacing bluetooth with a lower latency option, I'm not interested.
Just to mention, saw some people saying Apple was working on AirPods with little cameras in them. Not this time, at least.
I want a simple USB-C earpods with noise active cancellation. How is that hard for Apple?
A lot of hate for Apple as usual. I love my AirPods. They just works, that's what I need.
Yup. They just works. So satisfying. Now, Apple, shut up and take my money! Actually that is satisfying part. And please make sure I need to pay that money again in a year or two. Thank you. Happy to be an Apple user. Best company.
The naming and numbering system for these are now getting annoying. AirPod 3 has the last pro model I guess?
Confusing enough that I see ads from major retailers mixing it up (or maybe it's on purpose?) listing "Airpods Pro 4" only to click the link and see it's the Airpods 4.
I worry about the safety element of this. I'm not sure that having people walking around completely oblivious to their environments is a good thing.
In a multiple of ways: you become disconnected from nature and closed off to environments, and you also reduce safety because you don't know what is going on around you (high % of population live in cities).
Not a uniquely Apple problem though, I suppose.
People drive cars every day, isolated in a box with windows rolled up, playing music or radio, not being able to hear what's going on around them. So I don't buy the safety argument of noise canceling headphones being dangerous.
If we’re going there, cars are a leading cause of death and the leading cause of death for children and young adults.
That said, the masses have had noise cancelling earbuds for years at this point and while there definitely are cases of people getting hurt or killed from being unaware of their surroundings, it’s not really been that big a deal.
>cars are a leading cause of death and the leading cause of death for children and young adults.
Firearms have been the leading cause of death for people ages 1-19 since 2020.
[0]https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
I wonder if that stat is true if removing the kids in gangs from the data. One cause of death is relatively undiscerning and applicable to all, but the other cause of death might only apply to a few. But I don’t know, I’d like to see the actual stat.
In the USA.
How utterly depressing.
Well, that’s exactly why I worry when walking around with noise canceling phones. Because all those people driving cars oblivious to their surroundings
Yeah, I get your point, I jusr don't think the solution is to police pedestrians. I'll stop wearing noise canceling headphones in the city the day cars stop being loud, and when the drivers of those cars drive with no music and their windows rolled down ;)
>In a multiple of ways: you become disconnected from nature and closed off to environments
I live in a city. Nature for me means the squealing breaks of cars and trucks + people trying to get my attention so I'll take their religious flyer. No thanks.
Indeed not Apple specific.
That's also why there are different designs, e.g. in ear, over ear, open over ear, bone conduction, and technologies, e.g. noise cancelling, active noise cancelling, non voice filtering.
Typically there are visuals though, e.g. crossing lights for pedestrian, so the risk from the lack of hearing in a city is quite low IMHO.
FWIW in Belgium you can even legally ride a bike with earphones, which shows the risk is estimated to be very low.
AirPods and other ANC earphones have been around for ages, nothing new.
Listening to music while out and about doesn't equate to "completely oblivious".
I've seen people with no earbuds be completely oblivious and almost walk into traffic...
I wish they would support lossless audio. Like the Sony earbuds do with my Pixel.
> best-in-class open‑ear Active Noise Cancellation
Devialet Gemini earbuds are superior: https://www.devialet.com/en-us/true-wireless-earbuds/
Also, they’re French acoustic experts, so cooler and deeper knowledge.
Apples, oranges. Those Devialet look interesting, but aren't "open ear" (they're plugs) and cost twice as much. edit: almost four times as much.
Do they pair with Apple devices as easily? If I lose them, can I find them with Find My? Can I use them as hearing aids?
how can you say that without having tried both?
source? have you tried airpods 5?
They don’t look open ear.
Interesting they’re adding ANC, what’s the use case for the Pro now I wonder?
The AirPods 4 has an ANC option which is weaker than the Pro; this new version just has it baseline and cheaper (and better).
Looks like it’s better than AirPod Pro, but cheaper. That’s surprising
They teased an AppleCare One Family plan and never explained it. wtf
$49.99 a month, up to six family members (uses previous family sharing system), unlimited devices (with some carve outs for Vision Pro). Limit of six total claims a year seems low until you realize that's every 60 days.
Available starting September 14th, 2026.
Sennheiser Momentum 5 has user replacable battery which is better for the environment
https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Sennheiser_Momentum_5
Why are you comparing in-ear earbuds to over-ear headphones?
The battery on the AirPods is 10 times smaller. So you would have to replace it 10 times to break even.
Not if the response to the AirPods losing capacity is to replace them altogether.
What % of people replace a battery over the lifespan of an item? Does the increased complexity and size of the unit make up for the slightly longer lifespan? What makes it "better" for the environment, exactly when it all ends up in a landfill after 5 years anyway?
Those are some weird looking in ear earphones
why would I want a replaceable battery? My airpods have been working fine for 6 years now. Isn't THAT better for the environment?
You want a replaceable battery because once the battery wears out if the repair is expensive people will throw the used air buds. Used airbuds creates electronic waste ewaste on landfills.
Not all electronic recycling ä works well some non working electronics are shipped to Africa . The "recycler" takes the profit in the pocket. People have put airtags to track where such electronics to goods end up.
There is no proof that user-replaceable batteries meaningfully reduces e-waste. A lot of tech is upgraded due to obsolete CPUs, etc, not batteries. Plus, batteries last a long time now.
Also, landfills work really well. Most recycling doesn't work and pollutes more.
It is illegal to send e-waste to landfills in California and 22 other states
by the time the battery wears out on this one, the speakers are also busted anyway (infact it already is true for mine). So battery replacement isn't an issue for me, the device will be worthless by the time I am done with it.
True. Also heard one guy in gym was thinking of Apple releasing devices with things like replaceable batteries. He got a heart attack next day. It's very unhealthy what PC is suggesting and yes I agree with you.
given the trend, the next airpods pro has to be remarkably different or only 30 usd over the wireless option for the base 5.
Now's as good a time as ever to ask this question.
I have an iPhone logged in to my iCloud account.
My wife has her iPhone logged in to her own iCloud account.
Both of these iCloud accounts, plus a few more from my kids, make up our "Apple Family" thingy.
My wife bought AirPods. Paired them to her iPhone.
Why oh why every few weeks, when she gets the AirPods from their case, do they automatically connect to my iPhone and steal the audio from my (non-Apple) wireless earbuds I was using?
Do AirPods truly traverse devices based on the fact that separate devices/iCloud accounts are part of a family?
yes, this is annoying. On each device, you have to find the AirPods via the bluetooth settings and tell it to connect "when last connected" instead of "automatically"
I have exactly the same setup (two iPhones, a Moondrop Space Travel myself, wife has AirBuds, family account set up so we can buy apps only once). It never happened to us, but it happens frequently between my wife's iPhone and her iPad. I wonder if you have ever connected it to your phone even accidentally, it seems that this is remembered.
Chinese Clones are great and cost $20
I'm always going to be furious at Apple about ceasing large-housing (flat-head) earbuds. My ear canals just don't take in-ear airpods, and there's nothing to be done about it. I've tried everything. What does work is large-housing buds with earclick technology, so they sit against the canal with a decent seal. I used to be able to have mobile ear listening in a way that integrated with apple tech, but there's nothing like airpods that do that anymore. It's just in-ear or big bulky on-ear or over-ear stuff. It's infuriating.
I have the 4s can’t get them to pair with any other device accept my phone. Oh it pairs but with no sound. No idea why
I found the auto translate thing very funny. Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".
Like yeah, obviously anyone would understand "Thanks" but come on. Was this part of the discussion of some long meeting? Like if she said a word in Spanish it would imply the Air Pods translate your words?
I'm obviously nitpicking but I just found it oddly funny.
Like this woman is some train station in Mexico and after getting an invitation in Spanish to some music event she doesn't even try to say "Gracias".
It was Union Station in Los Angeles, one of the busiest and most iconic train stations in the country.
>The new AirPods 5 were built with the environment in mind
A masterstroke of corporate gaslighting for their disposable product.
They're so expensive you won't be buying many and that's great for the environment.
We won't sell you phone with the charger because of... Reasons... I mean...
Environment
Seems like everyone is doing this now... Sonicare, Norelco... I get the cost cutting + simplifying international packaging aspect. Just pass it on to customers. At least Apple has the other excuse that users might prefer wireless charging, so if users already have that or need to go out and buy it, the included charger just gets thrown in a drawer if it ever makes it out of the box.
Tbh every phone in my home is reused so I never have a spare charger left from the previous device. I either give it to kids or use it as a router
So weird they keep saying "Open-ear" and not ear buds. I kept thinking open air headphones which are not the same category.
What's a good naming convention? I draw a pretty big distinction between earbuds that seal and earbuds that just sit in front of my ear canal. I have AirPods Pro for when I really need isolation, and regular AirPods for when I need hours of comfortable wearing. "Open-ear earbuds" would make sense to me.
Earphones are the ones that sit in the ear, and in-ear headphones or canalphones are ones that go in the ear canal. Earbuds originally meant earphones but now means both kinds.
Open-ear is more general cause there are ear-hook and clip-on models now.
Oh! These aren't the pro, clearly the naming convention falls short. They do have ANC though. Interesting.
Another year of disappointment for me. Airpods gen 1 and 2 were the only buds I could find that fit in my funky ears perfectly. The new shapes just fall right out unless I'm constantly adjusting them. Apple may have found a more universal fit, but I'm not part of their universe.
As a huge Apple fan i hate to say this but $20 iems sound better
wrong title, should be AirPods 4
im still bitter they rejected my airprods pro warranty claim because it was a month after they stopped accepting warranty for a known failure mode where the internal mic unglued itself and ruined the ANC.
the apple tech confirmed it had the issue but it was too long outside of their coverage. Like... if it has a known manufacturing defect with a defined timeline, that means i basically rented the damn things.
their only remediation was like 10% off the latest airpods. which is just a massive slap in the face.
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are these the airpods with the ai cameras? if so no thanks.
On Hacker News it's generally good form to read the article before making an informed comment.
Article reads like an ad.
It’s a press release. Press releases are ads.
The question is why post ads to Hacker News.
That was not the question.
> Article reads like an ad.
You've mistaken a press release for an article. This is Apple's own site and announcement of Apple's own product. Of course it's an ad.
It is an ad...
I can't get over how Apple is getting everyone to refer to them with proper pluralization, ie AirPods 5 vs AirPod 5's.
My lone claim to fame, now harder to track down because Twitter decided my lack of activity was somehow suspicious and killed my account, was a brief exchange with Phil Schiller about pluralization of Apple devices.
> One need never pluralize Apple product names. Ex: Mr. Evans used two iPad Pro devices.
https://www.iphoneantidote.com/blog/dont-pluralize/
I would never have considered 5's. Are you implying the five is in possession of something?
I'm saying that many people do it wrong in other cases, and stick an 's' on the end (or worse, also add an apostrophe). Like surgeon generals, attorney generals, court martials, etc. I'm impressed that people aren't doing it in the case of airpods.
The first version was "Apple AirPods", there's two of them so it makes sense.
I rock a Redmi ANC earphones because.. they work and theyre like $20. Unlike these overengineered sound makers that breaks the moment you drop them.
> overengineered sound makers that breaks the moment you drop them.
Which ones are those? I've owned a couple of generations of airpods and dropped them probably hundreds of times (both in the case and out of it) and it has never had any detectable effect on their appearance or functionality. I even had a pair go through the wash and they still mostly worked afterwards (only issue was that the ANC performance was worse and slightly weird).
Yes, on mine (the OG Pros) the ANC would consistently fail. On my second pair the battery refused to charge when i left them in the drawer for too long. Apple replaced them a total of 3 times for all these failures, but i simply stopped wearing them because theyre too unreliable.
To be fair, I don't expect anything electronic to survive going through the wash unless it has hardcore waterproofing (eg a dive computer). I was pleasantly surprised by the way my airpods kept working.
I don't remember whether my first airpods were the gen1 pros or the gen2 pros, but you may have been a victim of early teething issues. I don't really have anything negative to say about the ones I've owned.
The OG pros honestly sucked and had horrible reliability. The other models have treated me well
I don't usually defend Apple products, but my AirPods Pro 2nd gen have been rock solid and taken insane abuse. I use them working on cars, runs, hiking, rain, shine, sauna. I drop them. They land in puddles. They smack concrete every couple of months. Sample size 1, but they are probably one of my favorite accessories and things I lug around with me. I use them a lot and if not love /really/ like them and nothing else has come close to the frictionless experience of them.
Although that may be in part due to vendor lock in and not sharing some of their connection handling API / tech.
> Unlike these overengineered sound makers that breaks the moment you drop them.
You’d do your case favours by not exaggerating. My AirPods have proven perfectly rugged, I’ve dropped them plenty of times.
Not exaggerating. My daily drives are Apple products except for Airpods, and I will always single them out because (in my experience) they’re that bad.
Dunno man, I bought a cheap set once and they were abysmal, I hated them so much I just destroyed them in a rage when they started malfunctioning yet again. I got AirPods and haven’t looked back, they just work all the time. Granted I’ve never dropped them :)
> Granted I’ve never dropped them :)
You would be fine then, too. My daughter makes a sport out of how often she can drop airpods and even put them through the wash. She's on the hook for buying her own pair next time but the old ones keep on working.
I guess i lucked out with Redmi (specifically a Redmi Bud 6 lite). They just wont fail.
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