AirPods Pro - Bass Response Great with ANC or Transparency, Terrible on "Off"??

[amphibious]

I did a quick demo of the AirPods Pro at the Apple Store yesterday. The iPad I carry my music on had completely run out of battery, so my source was my iPhone 8 and YouTube, unfortunately.

Overall, I was very impressed. I typically hate ANC, but whatever magic Apple is employing here actually worked pretty well.

One strange thing that stood out to me though is that the bass in "Off" mode was garbage. Worse than standard AirPods. But when I switched to ANC or Transparency, the low end filled out to an impressive degree. I spent several minutes switching between modes, between songs, and A/Bing with my AirPods 2 and it was consistent across.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Any ideas as to why this would happen?

 

[mppn]

I experienced this when there was a failing in the internal mics, in a really odd way, and apple replaced the AirPods and it fixed it. Transparency was also feeling as if I was a bit clogged and not light as it should

 

[perezr10]

Yes, using noise cancellation makes my music bassier. I like it.

 

[augustya]

I did a quick demo of the AirPods Pro at the Apple Store yesterday. The iPad I carry my music on had completely run out of battery, so my source was my iPhone 8 and YouTube, unfortunately.

Overall, I was very impressed. I typically hate ANC, but whatever magic Apple is employing here actually worked pretty well.

One strange thing that stood out to me though is that the bass in "Off" mode was garbage. Worse than standard AirPods. But when I switched to ANC or Transparency, the low end filled out to an impressive degree. I spent several minutes switching between modes, between songs, and A/Bing with my AirPods 2 and it was consistent across.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Any ideas as to why this would happen?

But did you feel the BASS was punchier and tighter ? Or it was just about ok just managing ?

 

[amphibious]

But did you feel the BASS was punchier and tighter ? Or it was just about ok just managing ?

It sounded like “Off” mode was missing like the bottom 30Hz, that was present with ANC/Transparency.

I tried a bunch of tracks to see if “Off” was playing those tones at lower volumes, but my conclusion was that they weren’t present at all. Sort of like “Off” was acting as a hard high pass filter.

 

[Cryates]

My experience is the opposite? I don’t know. I feel like the sound gets tinny with ANC on, and I prefer the bass response in ‘Off’ mode. For me, ‘Off’ seemed to be the sweet spot between noise-isolation, transparency and audio quality.

 

[Bromeo]

I believe there is active EQ that shapes the sound based on what the internal mics pick up. In Off mode, all active EQ is disabled. The results will be subjective. You can always try playing with the EQ options is Settings->Music.

 

[Otflyer]

I believe there is active EQ that shapes the sound based on what the internal mics pick up. In Off mode, all active EQ is disabled. The results will be subjective. You can always try playing with the EQ options is Settings->Music.

The eq in settings doesn’t have an effect on sound in my experience.