Disappointed in AirPods Pro (gen 2)

[higgalls]

Just got my first pair of AirPods (the AirPods Pro gen 2), and I must admit that so far I’mrewlly disappointed in them.
Most days I’m using my Jabra Elite Active 75t earbuds, and I really like them (and then gaming on Audeze Penrose), and out of them all, the AirPods Pro sound quality seems dull and bad (with transparency off). With Spacial audio turned off, it sounds like they are in a cardboard box. Then when you enable Spacial audio, it seems much trebly/brighter but not as much depth of sound.

I also just did a short walk with them with transparency mode on and the wind nose was so distracting… just walking with a small breeze.
Since I only received them today it hasn’t updated to latest firmware yet, but it’s already making me think I should get rid of them and stick with what I have (was hoping the APP was going to be more for exercise and my Jabra’s relegated to just when I’m working outdoors as I don’t care if they get dirty).

I’ve done all the spacial setup and head/ear scans and tried listening with and without all the things turned on.

Any suggestions to improve sound, and stop the wind noise with transparency on (I’d hate to think how bad the wind noise will be when running….)? Or does your experience also resonate?

 

[usagora]

Apple buries this for some reason, but try:

Settings > Accessibility > AirPods > [select your AirPods] > Audio Accessibility Settings > Headphone Accommodations

and play around with those settings

 

[pingaddict]

I also own a pair of AirPods Pro gen 2 and noticed a degradation in audio quality, updating iOS 15.7 to 16.x. Narrower soundstage, lower dynamics, both in Spatial Audio and classic stereo. Those earbuds are excellent but there is, in my opinion, a software issue with iOS 16.x.

 

[higgalls]

I also own a pair of AirPods Pro gen 2 and noticed a degradation in audio quality, updating iOS 15.7 to 16.x. Narrower soundstage, lower dynamics, both in Spatial Audio and classic stereo. Those earbuds are excellent but there is, in my opinion, a software issue with iOS 16.x.

Ah this is really helpful to hear. Hopefully a fix will come then.

Also interesting the extra settings that @usagora pointed out. This means there are 3 different sets of settings for AirPods which are all found in different places. So weird, and poorly designed. Just put all the settings in the same place...

 

[usagora]

Ah this is really helpful to hear. Hopefully a fix will come then.

Also interesting the extra settings that @usagora pointed out. This means there are 3 different sets of settings for AirPods which are all found in different places. So weird, and poorly designed. Just put all the settings in the same place...

Agreed. My main gripe through the years is how they also bury the auto-brightness setting under Settings > Accommodations > Display & Text Size. Any time you manually adjust the screen brightness (whether purposefully or accidentally), you have toggle auto-brighness off and on again to get it to reactivate. So annoying how they design some things!

 

[pingaddict]

I hope a fix will come soon, since I can't go back to iOS 15.7, having an Apple Watch running WatchOS 9 (only compatible with iOS 16). Until then, I'm using that Apple Watch as a source : it is better sounding despite only being only stereo.

 

[pingaddict]

I had the opportunity to listen to my AirPods Pro 2 with a iPhone SE (2020) running iOS 16.03. Sound is great. So the audio quality issue does not seem to affect all iPhones. iPhone 13 Pro Max has Bluetooth audio quality running iOS 16.x, but not iPhone SE (2020).