Anyone notice sound panning around?

[BIGSHOTT]

It isn't a software issue if it happens on both his iPad and his iPhone. Those are two different players. Does anyone know if head tracking panning is accomplished in the AirPods or in the iPhone or iPad? If it's happening on both his phone and pad, it's clearly a fault in the AirPods. If it was me, I wouldn't waste time. I'd head straight over to the Apple Store and ask for a replacement since they're so new. If there's no store near, call Apple and arrange an exchange by mail. Exchange them and the problem should be solved. Wait for someone to confirm and you may be waiting forever.

The people who are saying they have experienced it too are describing spacial audio head tracking. They have it turned on while they're walking around the house. That isn't a bug.

 

[teh_hunterer]

It isn't a software issue if it happens on both his iPad and his iPhone. Those are two different players. Does anyone know if head tracking panning is accomplished in the AirPods or in the iPhone or iPad? If it's happening on both his phone and pad, it's clearly a fault in the AirPods.

There is not enough information yet to know that for sure. It is entirely possible that this gets fixed via software or firmware updates.

There are a lot of moving parts, so to say, in the entire tech stack of the AirPods Pro, even more so with the 2nd generation. You can't be so confident that it isn't software or that people definitely have spatial audio on.

You just don't know that.

 

[BIGSHOTT]

No point trying to help you. You’re just arguing for the sake of it.

 

[chabig]

Exactly, it seems like a software issue. As if I'm going to waste my time going to the Apple Store for an issue that rarely happens, is likely a software issue, and something they haven't acknowledged yet. There is essentially no point (yet). Hence, we can discuss in the meantime.

What is the rate in hertz that the sound moves from left to right?

 

[teh_hunterer]

What is the rate in hertz that the sound moves from left to right?

The same hertz the 14 Pro Max camera vibrated at. You must have asked anyone talking about that as well so you tell me.

 

[teh_hunterer]

No point trying to help you. You’re just arguing for the sake of it.

The thread isn't asking you to help me. The thread is asking if anyone else has the issue with the new AirPods Pro 2.

You're the one arguing and trying to shut down discussion. You know Apple isn't paying you, right? You don't have to run damage control for them. If it's not a widespread issue then nobody is going to reply to the thread. Chill.

 

[evertjr]

It isn't a software issue if it happens on both his iPad and his iPhone. Those are two different players. Does anyone know if head tracking panning is accomplished in the AirPods or in the iPhone or iPad? If it's happening on both his phone and pad, it's clearly a fault in the AirPods. If it was me, I wouldn't waste time. I'd head straight over to the Apple Store and ask for a replacement since they're so new. If there's no store near, call Apple and arrange an exchange by mail. Exchange them and the problem should be solved. Wait for someone to confirm and you may be waiting forever.

The people who are saying they have experienced it too are describing spacial audio head tracking. They have it turned on while they're walking around the house. That isn't a bug.

You know there's software running in the AirPods itself right? The first gen AirPods Pro received almost as much firmware updates as iOS 15. This is such an obvious software bug since it seems to be triggered in specific moments like on music track changes and YouTube video changes. I'll be very surprised if it ends up being a massive batch with manufacturing defects. Yesterday I watched a reviewer saying that one song sounded weird and umbalanced while others were great which is clearly this bug.

 

[SammyNad]

Holy crap Apple fans are defensive. Chill out - the issue is with a piece of tech, OP is not insulting your mother.

I'm having the exact same problem. It is NOT due to spatial settings or anything else. It happens randomly - often when I'm riding my bike and listening to music or podcast - where the audio (mostly vocals) moves from right to left. It corrects itself in time. Never happened with my AirPod Pro 1.

 

[ghostface147]

I'm having the same issue. I turned off spatial audio by long pressing the volume and turning it off. Gen 2. 13 Pro Max.

 

[xsmett]

Same problem here. No problems with my Gen1. If its not fixed in the next two weeks im gonna return them and try a new pair.

 

[SammyNad]

Same problem here. No problems with my Gen1. If its not fixed in the next two weeks im gonna return them and try a new pair.

This issue combined with my APP2s disconnecting from my iphone 11… back they go. Trying my luck with Sony Linkbuds next v

 

[thirdeyeopen666]

The thread isn't asking you to help me. The thread is asking if anyone else has the issue with the new AirPods Pro 2.

You're the one arguing and trying to shut down discussion. You know Apple isn't paying you, right? You don't have to run damage control for them. If it's not a widespread issue then nobody is going to reply to the thread. Chill.

It’s happening to me with both fixed spatial and with spatial off. It’s very very sporadic. Maybe once or twice a day. Not a huge problem for me but it is weird. Also: I’m a former “Genius” and I think it would be a total waste of your time to go to the store for this.

A replacement won’t resolve it. You’ll end up waiting and they’ll tell you they couldn’t replicate it. They’ll then either swap it out of convenience for you, or tell you to come back if it gets worse.

Anyway, you’re not crazy and some of the responses in this thread are mind boggling.

 

[teh_hunterer]

It’s happening to me with both fixed spatial and with spatial off. It’s very very sporadic. Maybe once or twice a day. Not a huge problem for me but it is weird. Also: I’m a former “Genius” and I think it would be a total waste of your time to go to the store for this.

A replacement won’t resolve it. You’ll end up waiting and they’ll tell you they couldn’t replicate it. They’ll then either swap it out of convenience for you, or tell you to come back if it gets worse.

Anyway, you’re not crazy and some of the responses in this thread are mind boggling.

Thanks for the reply! Yes, it is sporadic and happening to me at about the same rate as it is you. I haven't been able to reliably reproduce it.

It seems very likely that it's something that will be fixed by a software/firmware update rather than being a hardware issue. That combined with the fact that the issue hasn't been acknowledged yet by Apple, means that there is almost no chance a visit to the Apple Store would yield anything. The likely outcome is some future firmware update will unceremoniously acknowledge and fix this issue and life will go on.

And as most people reading this thread would have picked up, I'm just curious to see if anyone else has the issue and waiting for some info or news about what might happen next. It's sporadic and it's not like it's completely ruining my experience with the AirPods, nor was I bitterly complaining about it. I don't know what their problem is. And if it's not a real issue, the thread will die naturally anyway.

 

[xsmett]

Im watching movies and tv shows with airpods and it happens quite often. It never happens with my gen1 and my airpods max, so it must be something with gen2. i will return them today and get a new pair. If the problem is still there i stuck with my other airpods.

 

[FatimusPrime]

I have the same issue. Out running with my Apple Watch Ultra (no spatialize audio) and AirPods Pro gen 2s and it seems like the sound stage is shifted to the left. Taking both pods out of my ears and putting them back in fixes it for a few moments before happening again. At times the left and right pods become desynced from each other too. Happens less often on the phone but still there, spatial audio is disabled. You’re not crazy OP, .

 

[Casiotone]

I confirm that I have the same issue. It also happens with spatial audio completely turned off. To me it feels like the ANC gets slightly out of phase between left and right, causing some weird panning. It doesn't seem to happen when ANC and Transparency mode are off.

Sometimes it's subtle and gradual, but other times it gets wild and quickly pans some frequencies between the left and right channel every few seconds. I found that if you put them in the case for a few seconds allowing them to sleep (and reboot?) the issue seems to stop (until it starts again). Hopefully that indicates that it could be fixed by a firmware update.

It does sometimes seem to be initially triggered by some rapid quick head movements (again, that's with spatial audio completely off!) which I theorize could cause a very slight time distortion between L & R signals, and a bug in the firmware makes it oscillate in a wild fashion instead of fixing the delay instantly. Once it starts happening the head movements don't seem to affect the drifting, which continues to happen by itself.

 

[matthewadams]

Could this be related to Phased Stereo - YouTube Issues ?
I noticed sometimes one Airpod is off by ~10ms compared to the other causing the sound to appear "from behind" or in other weird locations.
Takes a lot of skipping and/or disabling/enabling Spatial audio or ANC until it recalibrated back to phase-accurated playback.

 

[SammyNad]

I confirm that I have the same issue. It also happens with spatial audio completely turned off. To me it feels like the ANC gets slightly out of phase between left and right, causing some weird panning. It doesn't seem to happen when ANC and Transparency mode are off […]
It does sometimes seem to be initially triggered by some rapid quick head movements (again, that's with spatial audio completely off!)…

Exactly my experience!!

Whats your plan? Return or hope for software fix..

 

[Casiotone]

Could this be related to Phased Stereo - YouTube Issues ?
I noticed sometimes one Airpod is off by ~10ms compared to the other causing the sound to appear "from behind" or in other weird locations.
Takes a lot of skipping and/or disabling/enabling Spatial audio or ANC until it recalibrated back to phase-accurated playback.

There's this bug where the left & right Airpods get out of synch after a glitch, making it sound like your head is in a metallic can, but it stays that way until it gets fixed (by disconnecting and reconnecting them). This out-of-synch issue also happened in the APP1, and with ANC off. And it was much less frequent (in my experience, less than once a month from daily usage?).

The issue we're describing in this thread is intermittent, random and is not uniform like the other problem. When it starts to do this the sound will randomly pan left and right. I theorize that it's also due to a delay between L & R though a much shorter one, and that the delay is happening somewhere in the ANC process (microphones?) since it only seem to affect the ANC and Transparency mode.

Exactly my experience!!

Whats your plan? Return or hope for software fix..

I will wait some more for a software fix.

 

[converge]

I believe I've experienced this issue several times now when listening to music. At random, the audio on one side seems to "jump out" for a few seconds, like certain frequencies get louder. It seems to happen on the right side the most but I've definitely heard it on the left side as well. At first I thought it was the music but every time I skip back, I can't reproduce it, so it's definitely happening in real time

 

[Lee_Mac]

Could this be related to Phased Stereo - YouTube Issues ?
I noticed sometimes one Airpod is off by ~10ms compared to the other causing the sound to appear "from behind" or in other weird locations.
Takes a lot of skipping and/or disabling/enabling Spatial audio or ANC until it recalibrated back to phase-accurated playback.

Having read this thread it seems they are the same problem. I have noticed head tracking and Special audio issue at the same time, on when off etc. along with sporadic connection problem it seem Apple needs to fix things asap.

 

[RedcapK7]

I experienced the same problem, so I exchanged them to the Apple Store this week-end: the new pair behaves exactly like the last one ! I'm now wondering if the issue might be related to my phone more than the airpods themselves, even though I never had problems with my previous non-pro airpods and my Sony WH4.

 

[evertjr]

I experienced the same problem, so I exchanged them to the Apple Store this week-end: the new pair behaves exactly like the last one ! I'm now wondering if the issue might be related to my phone more than the airpods themselves, even though I never had problems with my previous non-pro airpods and my Sony WH4.

This is definitely a bug in the AirPods firmware, all we can do is wait for a fix. Using spatial audio fixed seems stable for now.

 

[Lee_Mac]

This is definitely a bug in the AirPods firmware, all we can do is wait for a fix. Using spatial audio fixed seems stable for now.

This has also helped with the odd sound behaviour. Fixed has fixed it 🤨 Regardless of device I’ve had the same issues when using tracked.

 

[TwoBytes]

Apple is testing beta APP firmware. I haven't read any user reports but I suspect this will be the fix.
It's only happening with APP2's as my APP1's don't exhibit this feature.