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AirPods Pro impressions thread

Chittagong

Chittagong

Gold Member
Sharing the first impressions I shared on SBAF. These things are pretty damn good. I am second hour in now listening to stuff. Just for fun.

Got my pair today. I have to admire Apple's supply chain - these things were announced on Monday evening, and by Wednesday mid-day I have mine, with a personal laser engraving of my choice, delivered. That's just nuts.

I haven't liked to listen to music via the OG AirPods or the standard Apple earbuds, but at first listen these seem like a whole another thing.

General impressions:

- Unlike previous Apple in-ear headphones, these doesn't give that unease sense of pressure in your ear, so I actually don't mind them at all
- The fit is ok, bit tighter than AirPods but not a magical fit to my ear shape. I think they will stay in ok.
- Noise cancellation is pretty magical. I'd say it's around par with Bose QuietComforts

Then music impressions. I have my trusted go-to-songs I listen with all my headphones:

BASS - Royksopp - Skulls: This is my track to listen to thumping base, from 0:40 onwards. The AirPods Pro have a surprisingly potent slam. It's about as subtle as a slap in the face, Beats style.

SOUNDSTAGE - Coldplay - Magic (Live at the Enmore Theatre, Sydney) - surprisingly wide soundstage. Definitely above Oppo PM-3s, but below Fostex TH-600s. The thing that tells me most is the position of the "What's happening!!" girl at 0:12. Also details from the live gig microphone imperfections are always an interesting thing to listen to, they are pretty harsh here.

DETAIL - Paco de Lucia - Entre Dos Aguas. I listen to this track for the subtlety of the taps and guitar strings, which gives me a feel of the level of detail. Not subtle or detailed at all, which is just about what I'd expect from earpods.

TREBLE - Jean Sibelius - Finlandia, Op.26. Some tough, congested, high pitch orchestral sections, as well as deep bass. Treble is pretty fatiguing, I wouldn't endure it for fun on AirPods Pro.

Overall

- These are the first headphones I can actually imagine listening music from
- The sound has that initial Beats style easy wow, with super charged bass and mids, but can get fatiguing
- Noise cancellation works surprisingly well
- Soundstage is impressive for earpods, in my opinion

I will have to do an airplane test to see how these do against my travel Oppo PM-3 / HA-2SE combo. They are more exciting, even if less detailed - but might get tiring quick.

Overall, my impressions might sound a bit harsh and critical for consumer grade wireless earbuds - but the truth is that these are fun enough for me to want to try different songs to hear what they sound like, and I am actually judging them on criteria which I would use normally for a headphone / amp / dac combo, which is unusual.

EDIT - 'Bubbles' by Yosi Harikawa sounds pretty impressive on AirPods Pro. Certainly a soundstage thing.
 
Are they actually good, or just good for wireless headphones? Massive quality loss over Bluetooth generally.
 
DanteFox said:
Are they actually good, or just good for wireless headphones? Massive quality loss over Bluetooth generally.
Click to expand...

These are surprisingly actually really f'ing good.

I actually can't bear earbuds usually, my go-to headphones are Hifiman HE-1000, E-Mu Teaks, Fostex TH-600, Oppo PM-3, AKG K712.

Third hour in listening to these just for fun is shocking
 
How is transparent mode? I was hoping they'd be legit transparent like nothing was in your ear as someone is talking to you, which should be more than possible since the noise cancelling requires a mic on the outside anyway.

I'm still not cool with the batteries' lifetime and lack of replacement ability.
 
Trojita said:
How is transparent mode? I was hoping they'd be legit transparent like nothing was in your ear as someone is talking to you, which should be more than possible since the noise cancelling requires a mic on the outside anyway.

I'm still not cool with the batteries' lifetime and lack of replacement ability.
Click to expand...

It's like what I'd imagine a hearing aid feels like. You can definitely have a conversation
 
An earphone that actually goes into your ear can't really have any kind of "soundstage" because it doesn't interact with your pinna. Simple physics, so let's not get too fluffy with the language here unless you mean something completely different than the professional definition of that term.

I'm surprised you haven't tried the originals or EarPods, as that would make a good comparison. (Those two sound smilar, but not identical.) You didn't get EarPods with your phone?
 
V2Tommy said:
An earphone that actually goes into your ear can't really have any kind of "soundstage" because it doesn't interact with your pinna. Simple physics, so let's not get too fluffy with the language here unless you mean something completely different than the professional definition of that term.

I'm surprised you haven't tried the originals or EarPods, as that would make a good comparison. (Those two sound smilar, but not identical.) You didn't get EarPods with your phone?
Click to expand...

I have tried the Apple Earpods and AirPods for music but concluded that they aren't good for that, so never really used them for that.

Soundstage, meaning the impression of space around you. Being able to get a sense of how the different sounds are located in the space, or whether there is a sense of space. I suspect Apple is doing EQ to simulate sound stage effects.
 
DanteFox said:
Are they actually good, or just good for wireless headphones? Massive quality loss over Bluetooth generally.
Click to expand...

I actually did not know this at all. I don't want that style of head phone anyways because I don't like have to keep track of 2 pieces, but if the audio quality is shit then I definitely will never buy something like that.
 
Impressions:

1: holy shit it took like 8 weeks to get them
2: holy shit the noise canceling is insanely good
3: sound quality seems only marginally better than the og AirPods but the noise canceling combined with that is amazing
4: glad they came with a usb-c to lightning cable, so now I have two!
5: probably overpriced but my original pair don't hold a charge much anymore
 
No way in hell am I paying $160 for ear buds that Apple tried to force on us by removing the audio jack. Yea I know I do have the extension but it's still a scummy move anyway and not consumer friendly in the slightest.
 
I have been using them this semester. Nothing to write home about sound quality wise but ease of use for everyday activity away from my home audio setup they are absolutely brilliant.
 
They're nice, but why no colors apple? I don't like white buds. To me the Powerbeats are the best because they are low key, subdued colors, not like little white antenna lol.

Plus all these dudes resisting Bluetooth, it really is game changing, particularly if you are active.
 
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More listening today: sound quality might be better than I thought, perhaps the source material earlier wasn't too hot.

But yeah for phone calls and when you have a kid that has grabby hands...and even mundane tasks...I was one of those "wtf is you doing baby" People when Apple eliminated the headphone jack, then we had a kid and wireless was the only option, then I had a morning where I needed to go do some snow blowing and shoveling when my old ones were dead and realized how retarded it felt to go back to wired...

I was happy with my old pair, but my left one doesn't have equal volume to the right anymore and they die very quickly. I was driving with the pros in earlier and my unfortunately loud HEMI disappeared. I kept trying to pop my ears because it felt so weird that everything was so quiet. I've had noise canceling headphones before but this is some good shit
 
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The only thing stopping me getting these to replace my OG AirPods is the lack of tap to pause etc. I understand it isn't feasible with noise cancelling headphones, but the replacement stem squeeze sounds less user-friendly. How is it in practise?
 
Just f
holygeesus said:
The only thing stopping me getting these to replace my OG AirPods is the lack of tap to pause etc. I understand it isn't feasible with noise cancelling headphones, but the replacement stem squeeze sounds less user-friendly. How is it in practise?
Click to expand...

It is indeed the worst part of the pro's. The noise canceling is worth it, but I do find myself annoyed at the pinch feature. It's much harder to quickly do it.

On a positive note though, I used my air pod pro's for the first time on a plane yesterday. My god they worked perfectly. The engine noise just disappeared.
 
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When I tried them I wasn't impressed, the sound quality which surly should be the most important feature of headphones is only slightly better than the original Airpods (which sound shit) and for £250 you can get far better headphones.
 
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The original AirPods don't sound shit. They might not be audiophile quality but they are fine considering their practicality.
 
holygeesus said:
The original AirPods don't sound shit. They might not be audiophile quality but they are fine considering their practicality.
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Never got them. Went ahead and got 2 instead

Not planning to get the new ones because I hate earphones that has pointy heads and you must push them inside your ears
 
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