Airpods Pro 2

[goat76]

Is the AirPod pro 2 considered the best AirPod when only considering listening to music?

I find the Airpod Pro 2 to sound natural and tonally "right" compared to many other earphones, as long as the personalized room simulation thing is turned off. More often than not there are some aspects of the sound that I find distracting with most earphones, like bloated bass, piercing highs, or lack of mids. With the Airpod Pro 2, I don't find anything to complain about, everything is there like deep clean bass, full "body" to the instruments, and natural non-piercing well-balanced sounding highs that are not screaming for attention.

These are the only Apple Airpods I've had so I can't compare them with the other Airpods, but compared with the Sennheiser Momentum TW2, I find the Pro 2 has a much more natural and balanced sound.

 

[mmi]

Does anyone use the Headphone Accomodations settings, and in particular “Tune audio for: Balanced Tone”? I can’t find any info on what this does exactly, but find it makes all audio much clearer.

 

[MayaTlab]

Does anyone use the Headphone Accomodations settings, and in particular “Tune audio for: Balanced Tone”? I can’t find any info on what this does exactly, but find it makes all audio much clearer.

Changes the FR for certain.
This is for the APM but also applies to the APP2 : https://forum.headphones.com/t/apple-airpods-max-new-over-ear-headphones-from-apple/9536/59
Oratory measured similar changes.
Probably also introduces some form of compression, but I haven't bothered to measure it as I don't like this setting's effect anyway.

 

[mmi]

Changes the FR for certain.
This is for the APM but also applies to the APP2 : https://forum.headphones.com/t/apple-airpods-max-new-over-ear-headphones-from-apple/9536/59
Oratory measured similar changes.
Probably also introduces some form of compression, but I haven't bothered to measure it as I don't like this setting's effect anyway.

Yeah on second play it seems to raise the volume quite a lot, making on/off tests hard to rationalise. I just tried Mimi audiogram, the effect from my result was much more subtle and doesn’t seem to affect volume as much.

 

[williamr]

Is the AirPod pro 2 considered the best AirPod when only considering listening to music?

I'm very satisfied listening to music with my AirPods Max with EQ (Crinacle). But I also enjoy the SQ of the Airpods Pro 2.

 

[dontpokethebear]

Does anyone use the Headphone Accomodations settings, and in particular “Tune audio for: Balanced Tone”? I can’t find any info on what this does exactly, but find it makes all audio much clearer.

I do this. Balanced Tone - moderate is the best setting by far. Turns them from meh to amazing.

 

[shuppatsu]

I do this. Balanced Tone - moderate is the best setting by far. Turns them from meh to amazing.

Hmm, definitely not with the gen 1 AirPods Pro’s. Sibilance city with some distortion on top. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gen 2s were way more capable though.

 

[dontpokethebear]

Hmm, definitely not with the gen 1 AirPods Pro’s. Sibilance city with some distortion on top. I wouldn’t be surprised if the gen 2s were way more capable though.

Yes! I am referring to the Gen 2s in that post.

 

[abdo123]

I’m bumping this thread cause i just purchased ones.

Spatial audio is so awesome that listening to plain stereo is really boring now.

The earphones have exellent noise cancelling but are boosted from 10KHz to 20 KHz and a little bit in the mids.

The accoustic filter on Apple Music’s EQ works perfectly for that. For those who are curious.

You can’t really turn the custom HRTF (spatial audio customisation) and do an A/B test or something but i really like that feature on + the accoustic EQ.

 

[staticV3]

You can’t really turn the custom HRTF (spatial audio customisation) and do an A/B test or something but i really like that feature on + the accoustic EQ.

You can A/B the different HRTFs in Logic Pro: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-for-films.48163/post-1755985

 

[abdo123]

You can A/B the different HRTFs in Logic Pro: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/headphones-for-films.48163/post-1755985

Is the HRTF applied to everything or just to spatial audio tracks btw?

What was your personal experience in general?

 

[staticV3]

Is the HRTF applied to everything or just to spatial audio tracks btw?

What was your personal experience in general?

I'm staying far away from Apple's ecosystem, so cannot give you any personal experience.

 

[MayaTlab]

Is the HRTF applied to everything or just to spatial audio tracks btw?

In Apple's ecosystem, your (partly ?) personalised HRTF profile will apply any time you use the system-wide Spatial Audio engine (whether it's to spatialise stereo or Dolby Atmos content), when using either compatible AirPods or Beats HPs.

In Logic, you can use the personalised HRTF profile with any pair of headphones, but head-tracking is limited to compatible AirPods or Beats.

What was your personal experience in general?

This is entirely subjective so take it with a grain of salt obviously - and since it's entirely possible that a) you own HRTF matches better Dolby's or Apple's generic HRTF profiles and b) the personalised profile is less successful in your case than in mine's, your impressions may differ.

The first thing that I found quite fascinating was to compare the Dolby Atmos renderer with Apple's own renderer with a generic profile. Dolby's renderer seemed to me to produce an "exaggerated" localisation impression, with a really clear front / back discrimination, but did so while altering the timbre of the sound quite significantly. It also seems to have poor transitions with panning sounds, such as a sound panning overhead from front to back and vice-versa - there is a rather jarring change in timbre as the object passes just above your head. Apple's generic renderer felt less successful in helping me localise sounds, but kept the timbre mostly intact and did not have such transitions issues.

For me the personalised profile is a significant improvement over both : I get both a fairly constant "natural" timbre regardless of localisation, and pretty good discrimination. It seems to personalise the profile across all axis (front / back, elevation, left / right), so I don't think that it's just an ITD adjustment. I feel that it's good enough with objects that the main issue right now rather is the AirPods' head-tracking system, and problems related to the actual content in the first place.

 

[Compact_D]

This must be the weirdest headphone ever.
I had Aipods Pro 1 and they were fine, just missing a bit of bass, and noise reduction sucked.

After reading some praising reports, I got Airpods Pro 2. While noise reduction worked great, the sound was as if I was listening under water or something. I immediately thought I got a broken copy and replaced them, no questions asked. Of course, replacement sounded exactly the same.

I tried to equalize (at the moment I was using foobar2000 for iOS) and had to remove at least 6-8 dB of anything below 300Hz. Could listen now but still, it was not great.
Only after I discovered accommodations and set it to "vocal range", Pro 2 started to sound remotely acceptable, still with too much bass. "Balanced" still sounded as if I had ear wax at the accute stage.
Then, after buying a Neutron player and applying Crinacle's 51dB correction (while still keeping accomodations at vocal range!!), it somehow sounds great now. I suspect that it still has a strong V-shaped FR but that is somewhat good for outdoors and I do not listen them indoors except occasionally Youtube for which it is fine.

I have not tried any personal tunings by Apple because I think spatial audio must go away. I do not want to listen to music from inside the band or orchestra.

As a conclusion, even it sounds absolutely great now, I would prefer if I hadn't bought this thing, as even something like Bose or Sony would have sounded way better out of the box.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

This must be the weirdest headphone ever.
I had Aipods Pro 1 and they were fine, just missing a bit of bass, and noise reduction sucked.

After reading some praising reports, I got Airpods Pro 2. While noise reduction worked great, the sound was as if I was listening under water or something. I immediately thought I got a broken copy and replaced them, no questions asked. Of course, replacement sounded exactly the same.

I tried to equalize (at the moment I was using foobar2000 for iOS) and had to remove at least 6-8 dB of anything below 300Hz. Could listen now but still, it was not great.
Only after I discovered accommodations and set it to "vocal range", Pro 2 started to sound remotely acceptable, still with too much bass. "Balanced" still sounded as if I had ear wax at the accute stage.
Then, after buying a Neutron player and applying Crinacle's 51dB correction (while still keeping accomodations at vocal range!!), it somehow sounds great now. I suspect that it still has a strong V-shaped FR but that is somewhat good for outdoors and I do not listen them indoors except occasionally Youtube for which it is fine.

I have not tried any personal tunings by Apple because I think spatial audio must go away. I do not want to listen to music from inside the band or orchestra.

As a conclusion, even it sounds absolutely great now, I would prefer if I hadn't bought this thing, as even something like Bose or Sony would have sounded way better out of the box.

Well, that's an outlier experience I think. I had the 180 ° version of your experience. I would go as far to say that with my personal audiogram applied it's probably close to the best sound I've ever heard in my life.

Weird, huh?

 

[Compact_D]

Well, that's an outlier experience I think. I had the 180 ° version of your experience. I would go as far to say that with my personal audiogram applied it's probably close to the best sound I've ever heard in my life.

Weird, huh?

Yes, very.
But please do not misunderstand, if I said it "sounds great", it is almost equivalent to what you said. My issue is that I had to apply these weird corrections, which I did not enjoy doing at all.
This is EQ, supposed to bring it to Harman curve at 51dB, PLUS "Vocal Range". I am hearing a huge improvement because of correction at ~150Hz.
As a result, sound is very similar to AK371 which is a close to ideal sound for rock and similar, probably too much bass for symphonic music. I would like to measure what I am hearing but I do not have any tools to do that.

 

[Peluvius]

Well, that's an outlier experience I think. I had the 180 ° version of your experience. I would go as far to say that with my personal audiogram applied it's probably close to the best sound I've ever heard in my life.

Weird, huh?

Same experience here in terms of an excellent experience. I am sure there is some variables in terms of the way the system "assess your ear holes" maybe it works better for some than others.

 

[Scott_Williams]

Is the Gen2 significantly improved compared to the first generation?

 

[MayaTlab]

Is the Gen2 significantly improved compared to the first generation?

The most significant improvement in my view is the relocation of the vent facing the concha on the APP1. If it gets clogged up too much with skin wax / oil (and it does eventually for a lot of people), the frequency response and the ANC performance are affected. Apple introduced a hardware revision to mitigate that issue among others, but it didn't fully solve it.

Sound-wise, can you try them and compare directly ?

 

[shuppatsu]

Is the Gen2 significantly improved compared to the first generation?

I've had the Gen2 for about a week after 3 years with the Gen1. It's significantly different. I'm a bit surprised because with both generations I use the same auto eq based on my audiogram. Still, it feels like way more v-shaped, but it seems like it does it without affecting the vocal quality. I'm enjoying the difference, but it feels less neutral. But maybe I just associate the old sound signature with neutral.

There's tremendous boost in low bass. The treble boost helps with imaging and soundstage, but don't expect miracles. Still the weakest part of the package. I don't currently have a subscription to anything with Atmos. I was really happy with the HRTF on the Gen1s, but I don't know if it's improved with Gen 2.

The QoL improvements are generally good, with some caveats. ANC is better, though still not mind blowing. Pretty great for plane rides, though. The adaptive mode works well, as does the setting where it lowers the volume when you're talking. On the downside, the microphones are extra sensitive to contact with pillow or hood, and it's more susceptible to wind noise. In most cases where that's an issue, I don't want ANC anyway, but it's still occasionally annoying. Also, sometimes the volume can vary noticeably as it tries to compensate for imperfect seal.

One last thing that should be taken with an extreme grain of salt. The Gen1 ANC tended to exacerbate my tinnitus. I feared that the improved ANC would make my tinnitus worse, but it's actually been much better. But it's only been a week and tinnitus can be affected by lots of different things. So who knows? Also, my experience might not translate to someone else.