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It’s Official: Apple NERFED AirPods Max Noise Cancellation via Firmware Update

zakarhino

zakarhino

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Original poster
Sep 13, 2014
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It’s official, rtings has confirmed via their tests that Apple made AirPods Max noise cancellation worse via the 4E71 update. So no, you’re not crazy. Prior to the Max many suspected a similar nerf update to the Pro gen 1 but that theory was seemingly unconfirmed; however in light of these new tests I think it’s safe to say Apple nerfed the Pro too.

Thoughts? My theory is Apple push their noise cancellation systems to the max (pun intended) for launch to get the best performance and ratings but pull back the noise cancellation intensity to prevent driver damage (I think this was especially the case with APP gen 1). Disappointing no matter what way you spin it though…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1583711316497248256
 
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Problem with anything that has firmware sadly. Software locked to hell and back…look at Tesla’s for an extreme case as they just do whatever they want with thousand dollar features.
 
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I don’t believe theses conspiracy theories, anc works by having microphones placed around the device behind little holes and these will inevitably get dirty and block some of the sound captation then making anc less effective. Imo this play the biggest role behind most downgrade complains, the updates Apple makes to the anc algorithm are barely noticeable.
 
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It’s the same case as with AirPods Pro 1Gen. But in their case Apple nerfed and told that they do that to prevent headaches and nursea.
But I also have a feeling that ANC is little nerfed in them just around the time new Pro were introduced. I could not hear as many things with them passing through ANC.

Edit: + sound quality is little more flat than it was previously (started month, two ago) maybe ear adapted but I had my AirPods buds replaced once so I hear difference.

My solution is to make sure Apple is forced to let us downgrade SW of accessories or at least let us disable updates of those.
 
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Thanks for sharing the post. This should best be on the home page.
It is anything but fair to make such decisions without informing the customer in advance.
I myself use the AirPods Pro 1 generation and notice a distinct difference as I use them every day in the office and suddenly I can hear my fellow humans talking.
I wish I can just go back to the old firmware and use the better version.
 
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evertjr said:
I don’t believe theses conspiracy theories, anc works by having microphones placed around the device behind little holes and these will inevitably get dirty and block some of the sound captation then making anc less effective. Imo this play the biggest role behind most downgrade complains, the updates Apple makes to the anc algorithm are barely noticeable.
Click to expand...
You should choose your words better, especially when you use terms like "conspiracy theory".
The data was measured and not invented. Apart from that, your claim that ANC is only hardware-based and this is simply wrong.
 
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It’s Tim Cook’s strategy, apple products were lasting too long so he had to introduce something to make the ‘new’ device seem better
 
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evertjr said:
I don’t believe theses conspiracy theories, anc works by having microphones placed around the device behind little holes and these will inevitably get dirty and block some of the sound captation then making anc less effective. Imo this play the biggest role behind most downgrade complains, the updates Apple makes to the anc algorithm are barely noticeable.
Click to expand...
I've owned a couple of different sets of AirPods Max over the last 18 months. My most recent set I updated to the latest firmware within a day of buying them and the ANC was noticeably less effective. Still fine by my standards but noticeable.
 
zakarhino said:
It’s official, rtings has confirmed via their tests that Apple made AirPods Max noise cancellation worse via the 4E71 update.
Click to expand...

First we'd need to know why the ANC off / passive results are different. A firmware update won't magically change the physical properties of the headphones (responsible for their passive isolation).
If you analyse the delta between ANC on and off results across the two firmwares the difference is a lot lower than what the absolute results suggest.
 
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I noticed the Airpods 2 sound worse too in the last months, maybe is because they are aging a bit, but after this, i don´t know if its intentional to make the Airpods 3 more attractive. It´s infuriating that i spent around 450€ on the Airpods Max (which is not exactly a little amount) to have them nerfed for no reason now. I chose them over the XM4 or QC2 because of the superior ANC, which is now not really superior.

The thing is, this behavior is not making me want to upgrade to another Apple alternative of these products, it´s making me go to their competition in the sound department.
 
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My Airpods Pro is noticeably less effective at noise-canceling over the recent few weeks.

I hope Apple fixes this.
 
zakarhino said:
It’s official, rtings has confirmed via their tests that Apple made AirPods Max noise cancellation worse via the 4E71 update. So no, you’re not crazy. Prior to the Max many suspected a similar nerf update to the Pro gen 1 but that theory was seemingly unconfirmed; however in light of these new tests I think it’s safe to say Apple nerfed the Pro too.

Thoughts? My theory is Apple push their noise cancellation systems to the max (pun intended) for launch to get the best performance and ratings but pull back the noise cancellation intensity to prevent driver damage (I think this was especially the case with APP gen 1). Disappointing no matter what way you spin it though…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1583711316497248256
Click to expand...
I'm not in the US, but people that are there should intent a legal action against Apple to bring more transparency about that matters and/or a setting to keep the old ANC. I'm sure it's against the law to have a product that does less than what it did when you bought it just via a software update...
 
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RTINGS is not reliable.

They claim in their review of the QC35 II that firmware reduced ANC but Bose's extremely extensive investigation confirmed there was no change to the firmware's ANC functionality whatsoever. It was damaged and aftermarket earcups.

Bose went to customer's homes to test on top of hiring a 3rd party to confirm results, testing dozens of headphones in situ and laboratory settings.

Meanwhile, after Bose published their findings, RTINGS retested their single pair of headphones on their single commercial dummy head, and still couldn't get the right results.

There you have it in black and white, RTINGS posting bad data.

Their charts look fancy but that doesn't mean their methodology is sound. ANC is just a hard thing to measure.

For context, let the record show that users have now complained that firmware nerfed ANC for:

-Bose QC35 II in 2018
-Apple Airpods Pro in Nov. 2019
-Apple Airpods Pro in Dec. 2019
-Sony WF-1000XM3 in 2019
-Apple Airpods Pro in 2020
-Apple Airpods Max in 2021
-Sony WF-1000XM4 in 2022

And it will continue to happen for pretty much every ANC device, because psychological adaptation makes people disappointed in ANC after a while. It's the equivalent of your eyes adjusting to the dark and then realizing the pitch black room is actually lit. That, and a few physical flaws in a few of these devices have muddied the waters.

But it's not firmware.
 
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I’ve noticed this and it’s so depressing.

I have a set of Bose QC2 earbuds coming from their sale this week.

Looking forward to testing them.

My APM’s might be on the way out
 
I wonder if you have the same feeling.
Does they changed something with Spatial Audio “Fixed” when “Head Tracking” sounds very close to previous?
It’s really sounds more flat not like surrounding audio :/
 
evertjr said:
I don’t believe theses conspiracy theories, anc works by having microphones placed around the device behind little holes and these will inevitably get dirty and block some of the sound captation then making anc less effective. Imo this play the biggest role behind most downgrade complains, the updates Apple makes to the anc algorithm are barely noticeable.
Click to expand...

I agree with your point.

This means that the best thing to do is buy a brand a new AirPods Max with the pre-4E71 firmware out of the box (and do not hook to charger yet, so that the auto update won't initialize) and do some ANC tests with some road noise, restaurant noise, airplane noise recordings from YouTube, playing in the background on a home theatre surround sound system starting from 0 volume and increasing volume level to the point in which you start to hear sounds for each noise scenario. Repeat a few times just to make sure you get the same volume level for each test for reproducibility.

Then plug the AirPods Max to charger, get the latest 5B58 update, and redo the ANC test and see if the the volume level for each noise scenario changes.

For example, in pre-4E71 firmware ANC test, you heard airplane noise at volume level 5 consistently. In latest 5B58 firmware ANC tests, you now hear airplane noise at volume level 3 or 4 consistently, which means that 5B58 made the ANC worse.

Hopefully someone can try this out!
 
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