I'm all for higher resolution for music, but I don't find the AAC lacking when listening on earphones as I mostly use them on the go in environments where good noise cancellation makes a bigger difference than resolution.
According to measurements, the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 and Sony WF-1000MX5 are both more bass-heavy than the Apple AirPods Pro.
View attachment 381045
View attachment 381044
Below are the measurements of Apple AirPods 3 (
cyan) vs. Apple AirPods 2 (
yellow) vs. Apple AirPods Pro (white).
Maybe you just prefer the elevated high-frequency response of the Airpods 3 and how they dive under 50 Hz, nothing wrong with that. Another reason could be that the Airpods have more bass leakage as they probably don't seal as well as the soft tips of the others.
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All the above measurements are borrowed from
https://www.soundguys.com/
The Sony WF-1000MX5 has an equalizer with the adjustment values stuck to certain frequencies and there is just a slider for the bass adjustment. Maybe you can still use that to make them sound like you want them, but it would have been better if the user could set the values in frequency and Q.
View attachment 381048
Anyway, I hope you find some earphones that will satisfy your personal sound prefereces. The different between ear canals is more at play when it comes to listening to headphones than loudspeakers, so it's likely a larger span of what people prefer when it comes to frequency curves.