New Apple Airpods Pro and The State of Bluetooth Sound

https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro

So is Bluetooth sound rivaling wired sound yet?

My friend got these so I'll let you all know what I think when I try them out.

 

Tried a pair of the new ones , they’re not. You can get a pair of $50 wired earbuds that sound better. AirPods by design are a convenience tool and that’s all they will be. You can get a $50 wired pie that will blow them away. I love my AirPods for their purpose but do not think the new ones are a crazy advancement in fidelity

 

I have been waiting for this product for a long time and was about to buy the Sony’s and decided on the Apples because they are about $100 cheaper. I bought the AirPod Pro yesterday and have been wearing them all day walking around listening to Led Zeppelin, Manic Street Preachers and the Pet Shop Boys. I also own the regular AirPods and got the Pro for the noise cancelling which is very important to my hearing. With regular earbuds I need to crank the volume to overcome ambient noise if I want to wear them outside and that’s not very good to the ears. I have been enjoy my music at a modest volume thanks to noise cancelling so mission accomplished.

The AirPod Pro is not perfect. For noise cancelling to work right it is important for the buds to get a good seal in your ears. I can only manage to get a good seal in one ear and not the other. The pods come with 3 different sized buds but none fit exactly right and I am as apprehensive with these as I am with the regular AirPods because by merely touching it while they are resting on the ears they feel like they are about to fall out but they never do.

 

Still look like tiny hair dryers stuck in ears!

 

AirPods use AAC to stream the music to the headphones vs SBC, so you’re getting a better bandwidth with them. Still you’re listening to everything compressed down to iTunes quality, so no they are not better than wired but AAC sets are a big step up from cheap BT headphones.

Years ago Apple made a pretty decent set of wired buds with dual drivers for $100 which at the time was a unique bargain for dual driver earbuds. I’d be surprised if the AirPods Pro could match up to those with all the streaming tech jammed inside driving up cost.

 

Better wait too see how well it matches the Harman curve. So far I've seen one measurement here:

Apple AirPods Pro review

If this is an uncompensated curve, it has some similarities to the Harman curve.

 

I would loose those in a week... or at least one of them.

 

Well I got to hear them. They sound good. The high end sounds a lot more accurate than other Bluetooth headphones I've heard (though I haven't heard many and I suppose there may be other BT headphones out there that sound just as good). It was pretty cool how you can open the noise-cancelling system to hear stuff around you when you don't have music on. They probably could have gotten a little louder at max volume, maybe that's to force you to preserve the battery life, which I guess is only three to four hours, but they charge while they're in the case (I'm guessing this is how all BT earbuds are).

 

Bluetooth may be getting better but I'd still rather use wired connections. Got a new DAC with Bluetooth LDAC feature, doubt I'll use that particular feature much though. I also won't buy a phone without a headphone jack.

 

OK, i just picked up a pair and now trying them for the first time. At first listen, I am impressed! Much better than most reviews had me prepared for. Certainly not better than my bi cans, but i also have a set of Sennheiser Momentum TW which are generally considered the best wireless. After a very short listen, i think i like the APP better. Soooo much more comfy. I find that most reviewers online confuse big overdone bass with sound quality. The bass on the Airpods seem very well balanced and fast.

So far, so good. I like them much better that the Gen1. Not for critical listening, my TH900’s fill that role, but more than good enough for everyday listening.

 

The new ones are good, IMO. Neutral with a slight midrange focus, detailed. Gives another presentation compared to my over ears (modified DT150, Bose SC-25).

 

yep, this. I'm tired of the cord getting in my way at the gym. Getting some pods this week.

 

Can I get that a la mode?

 

Do these at long last directly use the Apple Music 256k AAC stream? Or is that downcoded to a lesser AAC stream which is then sent to the headphones?

My kid loves the Airpods, so probably get the Pro for Christmas.

 

Bluetooth 5.0 can pass data up to 2Mbps (16mbps; CD is 1.411mbps). This is supposedly what the AirPods Pro use. Where is the spec for how iPhones XR, XS, 11, etc actually transmit the music data?

 

According to the Apple website, iPhones X and 11 use Bluetooth 5.0 for audio (as well as natively supporting FLAC)

 

Do you mean 2MBps and 16Mbps? "m" I think of as "milli-" so I'm a bit confused though I think you are distinguishing bits vs bytes? Now I'm wondering is it only those 2 iPhones that use BT 5.0? And I still wonder if the 256k AAC Apple Music stream is passed directly without re-encoding...gotta ask my friend at the Apple Store...

 

2Mbps = 16mbps (approximately); this is the speed at which Bluetooth 5.0 can transmit data

 

I think he needs to be changing the "B" rather than the "M".

 

True, sorry

 

Theoretical bandwidth doesn't really matter all that much in this case as they're likely using the same AAC codec that the AirPods 1 used, with the extra bandwidth being used for the other features. Apple doesn't want to get into AptX due to Qualcomm's patents. Everything getting sent to these AirPods is getting compressed down to a lossy AAC file. Still it will be much more optimized on an iOS and Mac OS devices than standard SBC Bluetooth. I have a set of Bose QC35s that I use at work that support both SBC and AAC. One time they had a glitch where they defaulted to SBC instead of AAC and the difference was very noticeable on my Mac and iPhone, enough to keep me away from any BT sets that don't support AAC. Also keep in mind any noise cancelling sets have all sorts of internal DSP stuff going on to the signal anyhow. Stuff like this best used for convenience and features not for audiophile enjoyment.

 

I don't think any wireless headphones lend themselves to "critical listening". But then I don't really know what that term means since I put music on to enjoy and relax. If I am at my desk at home, I am usually on my wired cans. If I am kicked back on the couch and have headphones on since the wife is sleeping, I will either be wireless or plug the dragonfly into the iPad and use the wired. The wireless is for travelling for the most part.

 

Won't rival wired ever, and that's with Apt-X on both ends. Apt-X on both ends fine for most.

 

I dunno. I'm a Mac guy for over two decades, and I'd never get these.

First of all, I like having a cord connecting the two buds, so I can hang them around my neck when not using them, and reduce the chance of losing one or both. Second, I'm OK with the sound of my Taotronics TT-BH07's, which cost me a whopping $25 on Amazon. And when they break, or I lose them, I get another pair without feeling too bad.

 

No, but you can have it a la carte!