Apple AirPodsPro (Generation 2)
[Tl;dr: I really like the AirPodsPro Gen 2. I didn't want to. But damn, Apple figured some things out.]
Scores:
Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis.
[Update 1/20/24: after more than a year, I thought it was worth briefly revisiting the AirPods Pro 2. They're ... still great. They more or less live in my pants pocket, and when I recently thought that I'd finally misplaced them, I immediately went to Costco and bought another pair (in my defense, they were like $80 off on sale). I found my original pair, but I'm holding on to the second as a backup. The new version is identical in almost every way to the version that I originally reviewed, with the exception of having swapped the Lightning charging port on the case to a USB-C port to match the new generation of iPhones (and apparently they added some support for the new Apple VR device which will mean nothing to me).
Scores:
Cost-agnostic: 10 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis.
[Update 1/20/24: after more than a year, I thought it was worth briefly revisiting the AirPods Pro 2. They're ... still great. They more or less live in my pants pocket, and when I recently thought that I'd finally misplaced them, I immediately went to Costco and bought another pair (in my defense, they were like $80 off on sale). I found my original pair, but I'm holding on to the second as a backup. The new version is identical in almost every way to the version that I originally reviewed, with the exception of having swapped the Lightning charging port on the case to a USB-C port to match the new generation of iPhones (and apparently they added some support for the new Apple VR device which will mean nothing to me).
The sound is still really, really good. To the point where I've stopped carrying wired headphones to my office, and I haven't plugged into the headphone amp on my desk in probably six months. These are so well-designed, and both the ANC and pass-through systems so well adapted to an office environment, that they've become my go-to for work. Also, to my great surprise, I used them for part of a flight to Europe in December and the ANC is just damned impressive.
No change to the scoring; they continue to be a damned near perfect device, and while the price is a lot lower now on sale ($180), I just can't give a $180 pair of earbuds a price-sensitive 10/10 Denalis). I still don't particularly want to like them, but I just can't help it. I do. I really do.]
I ... have a lot of headphones. These are the ones I found in my house in a five minute sweep, and doesn't include the dozen pairs at my office or all the ones scattered throughout various backpacks and bags in my house, or the drawer full of the free headphones that have come with various devices over the years.
Like most people who take music pretty seriously, I have spent a lot of time trying out new makes, models, styles, etc., and have upgraded a lot over the years. Over the years, my tastes have changed and I've moved from valuing convenience to valuing transparency and feel, and as such I've mostly left behind wireless (especially Bluetooth) headphones. As anyone who has talked to me about this knows, I've been pretty down on Bluetooth as a protocol for music (can't run lossless signals, can't run stereo and use a microphone at the same time, etc.), and have been pretty contempuous of Apple headphones in particular (except the original, white wired headphones with the old 1/8" jack, which remain one of my all-time favorite cheap headphones and I wish I could buy a half-dozen to stash).
Well, things have changed. I'd watched a couple of reviews of the Airpods Pro Gen. 2 from serious audio reviewers, and I'd found the Beats Studio Buds (another Apple product) on super sale and had been enjoying them for a few weeks, so I decided to give the Airpods Pro a shot. And holy hell, Apple has figured true wireless out.
*Sound.* The sound is great, both listening to music and taking calls. The sound on earbuds is probably never going to really compete with a pair of serious open-backed cans (the entire top row), particularly when driven by a decent DAC/amp, but honestly these beat all of my other Bluetooth-based headphones pretty handily. The bass is surprisingly good and nimble, even on tracks like "Teardrop" by Massive Attack or "Got 'Til its Gone" by Janet Jackson, and even manages to really get the almost-nauseating sub-bass wobble on "Limit to your Love" by James Blake. "Wow" by Post Malone absolutely pops. Treble is crisp, and vocals hold up. The dynamics are a bit compressed compared to most of my other headphones; you don't get the same incredible build up and crescendo in "It's All So Incredibly Loud" by Glass Animals as you do on a more transparent system, but it's still quite servicable.
It's still Bluetooth, and it's locked to Apple's proprietary AAC file format so you're always getting a lossy signal, but Apple designed the system from the ground-up and the on-board chip is pretty impressive, so you're getting probably the best version of Bluetooth possible.
*Noise canceling.* The noise cancelling is about as good as you're going to get in an earbud, which is to say no where near as good as the Bose 700s (second row, far left) or even Beats Studio Wireless (second row, fourth from left), but they crush the Bragi Dash (third row, far left) and the Jabra Elite 65t (third row, second from the left). Transparency mode is also pretty well done; the sound feels a little more natural and you're able to hear everything around you (like right now, for instance, I can hear Denali scratching in my living room and my keyboard taps) which is nice when you're in an environment where you need to be aware of your surroundings. I live alone and don't really need ANC most of the time, and I'd want a better system for airplanes, but I'm sure it will be convenient in the office when I don't want to take the time to set up my dongle DAC.
*Spatial audio.* This was the part that most surprised me. ATMOS/spatial audio is different for music than for movies, and different on headphones than on speakers (you don't get the same sense of things moving in space around you, for example), but you do get a pretty impressive soundstage, both horizontally and vertically. I might turn off the auto adjusting that shifts sounds when you move your head around; while it's entertaining, I mostly want to hear things the way they were mastered. It's pretty cool to hear the synths/organ on "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors sitting waaaay to the left, and the guitar riffs far to the right, and the way the storm moves around is an interesting experience. And if you haven't heard Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album or "Tusk" mastered in ATMOS, they're a treat and worth finding someone who's made the investment. I don't think any headphone setup is ever going to match a real speaker-based ATMOS system (and certainly earbuds won't), but it's a really clever and interesting implementation and the ATMOS catalog is only growing. (And it's free for anyone who subscribes to Apple Music; lossless and ATMOS are free on any track they have mastered in that format!)
*Connectivity.* If you're an Apple person, these will just work. They seamlessly connect to both of my iPhones (work and personal), it's really easy to connect them to my MacBook and iMac, and it's trivial to connect any of my AppleTVs to them. In fact, one of my favorite use cases right now is using them for music or YouTube while I'm cooking, as the HomePod mini in my kitchen is a little hit or miss these days. I haven't tried connecting them to a Windows machine yet, but everything I've read makes me think it's not particularly difficult. And I don't own any Android devices to test them on.
*Value.* It's Apple. They're expensive. They're always expensive. Costco has them for $239, but that's more than MSRP on all but maybe five or six of the headphones I own (to be fair, I haven't payed MSRP for most of this collection). That said, as almost anyone with other Apple products knows, you do mostly get what you pay for with Apple stuff.
*Overall.* I'll throw these in my pocket on my way out of my house most days, along with my wallet/keys/pocketknife/etc. I'm sure I'll get a chance to test out the integrated "Find my X" and noise-making system soon enough, as the earpieces are slippery little buggers and I've already dropped them four or five times. I think I'm going to get out one of my extra watch chargers and rig it by the door so I can just drop them on it when I come in (they accept standard Apple Lightning charging cables, Apple Watch charging fobs, and Qi near-field magnetic charging).
This is the first time I've liked an Apple headphone since that original, cheap wired freebie, and I really didn't want to like them. They're just THAT good.
#reviews #headphones #apple #anc #bluetooth #spatialaudio #earbuds #iem #damnit
Like most people who take music pretty seriously, I have spent a lot of time trying out new makes, models, styles, etc., and have upgraded a lot over the years. Over the years, my tastes have changed and I've moved from valuing convenience to valuing transparency and feel, and as such I've mostly left behind wireless (especially Bluetooth) headphones. As anyone who has talked to me about this knows, I've been pretty down on Bluetooth as a protocol for music (can't run lossless signals, can't run stereo and use a microphone at the same time, etc.), and have been pretty contempuous of Apple headphones in particular (except the original, white wired headphones with the old 1/8" jack, which remain one of my all-time favorite cheap headphones and I wish I could buy a half-dozen to stash).
Well, things have changed. I'd watched a couple of reviews of the Airpods Pro Gen. 2 from serious audio reviewers, and I'd found the Beats Studio Buds (another Apple product) on super sale and had been enjoying them for a few weeks, so I decided to give the Airpods Pro a shot. And holy hell, Apple has figured true wireless out.
*Sound.* The sound is great, both listening to music and taking calls. The sound on earbuds is probably never going to really compete with a pair of serious open-backed cans (the entire top row), particularly when driven by a decent DAC/amp, but honestly these beat all of my other Bluetooth-based headphones pretty handily. The bass is surprisingly good and nimble, even on tracks like "Teardrop" by Massive Attack or "Got 'Til its Gone" by Janet Jackson, and even manages to really get the almost-nauseating sub-bass wobble on "Limit to your Love" by James Blake. "Wow" by Post Malone absolutely pops. Treble is crisp, and vocals hold up. The dynamics are a bit compressed compared to most of my other headphones; you don't get the same incredible build up and crescendo in "It's All So Incredibly Loud" by Glass Animals as you do on a more transparent system, but it's still quite servicable.
It's still Bluetooth, and it's locked to Apple's proprietary AAC file format so you're always getting a lossy signal, but Apple designed the system from the ground-up and the on-board chip is pretty impressive, so you're getting probably the best version of Bluetooth possible.
*Noise canceling.* The noise cancelling is about as good as you're going to get in an earbud, which is to say no where near as good as the Bose 700s (second row, far left) or even Beats Studio Wireless (second row, fourth from left), but they crush the Bragi Dash (third row, far left) and the Jabra Elite 65t (third row, second from the left). Transparency mode is also pretty well done; the sound feels a little more natural and you're able to hear everything around you (like right now, for instance, I can hear Denali scratching in my living room and my keyboard taps) which is nice when you're in an environment where you need to be aware of your surroundings. I live alone and don't really need ANC most of the time, and I'd want a better system for airplanes, but I'm sure it will be convenient in the office when I don't want to take the time to set up my dongle DAC.
*Spatial audio.* This was the part that most surprised me. ATMOS/spatial audio is different for music than for movies, and different on headphones than on speakers (you don't get the same sense of things moving in space around you, for example), but you do get a pretty impressive soundstage, both horizontally and vertically. I might turn off the auto adjusting that shifts sounds when you move your head around; while it's entertaining, I mostly want to hear things the way they were mastered. It's pretty cool to hear the synths/organ on "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors sitting waaaay to the left, and the guitar riffs far to the right, and the way the storm moves around is an interesting experience. And if you haven't heard Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album or "Tusk" mastered in ATMOS, they're a treat and worth finding someone who's made the investment. I don't think any headphone setup is ever going to match a real speaker-based ATMOS system (and certainly earbuds won't), but it's a really clever and interesting implementation and the ATMOS catalog is only growing. (And it's free for anyone who subscribes to Apple Music; lossless and ATMOS are free on any track they have mastered in that format!)
*Connectivity.* If you're an Apple person, these will just work. They seamlessly connect to both of my iPhones (work and personal), it's really easy to connect them to my MacBook and iMac, and it's trivial to connect any of my AppleTVs to them. In fact, one of my favorite use cases right now is using them for music or YouTube while I'm cooking, as the HomePod mini in my kitchen is a little hit or miss these days. I haven't tried connecting them to a Windows machine yet, but everything I've read makes me think it's not particularly difficult. And I don't own any Android devices to test them on.
*Value.* It's Apple. They're expensive. They're always expensive. Costco has them for $239, but that's more than MSRP on all but maybe five or six of the headphones I own (to be fair, I haven't payed MSRP for most of this collection). That said, as almost anyone with other Apple products knows, you do mostly get what you pay for with Apple stuff.
*Overall.* I'll throw these in my pocket on my way out of my house most days, along with my wallet/keys/pocketknife/etc. I'm sure I'll get a chance to test out the integrated "Find my X" and noise-making system soon enough, as the earpieces are slippery little buggers and I've already dropped them four or five times. I think I'm going to get out one of my extra watch chargers and rig it by the door so I can just drop them on it when I come in (they accept standard Apple Lightning charging cables, Apple Watch charging fobs, and Qi near-field magnetic charging).
This is the first time I've liked an Apple headphone since that original, cheap wired freebie, and I really didn't want to like them. They're just THAT good.
#reviews #headphones #apple #anc #bluetooth #spatialaudio #earbuds #iem #damnit
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