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AirPods or not?
Hi, here is me asking for some advice.
I currently have the Sennheiser CX True Wireless but I feel like they are too heavy, big, and uncomfortable for my ears to the point that I feel my earholes are being stretched.
I am looking at AirPods right now despite not being committed to the whole Apple eco-system. They seem to be light enough and good quality enough, but I fear getting them is too expensive for what I'm getting given that I would want to use them with my Ubuntu desktop and my Android phone.
What alternatives could you suggest? Or is AirPods the best bang-for-your-buck even if you are not really into the Apple eco-system?
I recently purchased the AirPods Pro 2 for my iPhone. Without exaggeration, noise-canceling earbuds are literally life-changing. The ~$240 I paid was the single greatest bang-for-my-buck purchase I have ever made, up there with my bed. I had the original AirPods before and the difference is night-and-day. It has enabled so much more contentedness in my day-to-day life, and that joy has not gone away even after several months.
The Pros are light, portable, and flawlessly cancel all sorts of ambient noise immediately. I live in a city and the active "noise cancellation" feature on the Pros all but perfectly suppresses the relentless traffic rumbles and honks, subway train screeching, truck unloading, blasting music, and even construction activity. (If you're right next to a jackhammer, you can still hear it, but it's greatly muffled.) They effectively reduce the sounds of crying babies and unruly groups of teenagers. It's serene. Airplanes are suddenly an order of magnitude more pleasant. I've never found Amtrak trains to be loud, but they make it even quieter. They work while I walk, run, cycle; when I yawn, chew, move my head. The charging time is rapid and the battery life is remarkably long. It's also better for my hearing, because I don't have to drown out the rest of the world just to hear my music.
The "adaptive" and "transparent" modes are also amazing and I use them frequently when walking around. In general, I like to hear a little bit of my surroundings, even if it's heavy traffic, for general safety/awareness. These modes do a wonderful job of muting the worst of the ambient noises while letting me hear conversations and approaching vehicles. Even if the Pros are in the "off" mode, the tips create a nice enough seal that it's as effective as wearing earplugs.
I found that the AirPods fit my ears nicely. You're given four sizes of tips. I rarely wear them for more than an hour at a time, but they don't hurt. You can try them for free at an Apple Store. Personally, while I have an iPhone, I don't consider myself much of an Apple person. But I have nothing negative to say about the new AirPods.
If you're switching to AirPods Pro from another set of noise-canceling earbuds, it will be at least as good. The noise cancellation works even if they're not connected to an iPhone (I often wear them with my phone's Bluetooth off to preserve the phone's battery): you can control it with the button on the Airpods. There are probably some quality of life reductions beyond that. While I usually control them with the button, I do often use my phone, and I'm not sure what support for that is like on Android. I imagine that a couple features, like conversation awareness, might not work on Android.
Seconding most of this.
I did try other noise canceling headphones before the pro, but the integration with the iphone was a very mixed experience. I don't LIKE that I feel somewhat forced into airpods, but at the same time the pro 2s have been the best I've used.
Thirding this. I’ve had Sennheiser and Audio Technica noise canceling headphones and earbuds in the past - they don’t come close to how good the noise cancelation is on the AirPod Pro 2s with an IPhone
Echoing this. I used some other Bluetooth earbuds until a software update from their manufacturer rendered them useless. Got AirPods Pro 2 at good price from Amazon last January. Literally life-changing, which I know sounds ridiculous but in my case is 100% true. Noise cancelling, being able to use your hearing test audiogram to adapt the noise to suit your hearing loss, spatial audio ("surround sound") for music and movies, seamless switching between iPhone and Mac, hassle free charging.
Have you used any of those ears plugs, such as Loop Quiet? If so, how do they compare to AirPods Pro's noise cancellation?
I have Loops (though not sure if this specific model, I pretty much never interacted with the brand/company again after my happy purchase. Although after this comment, I’m probably going to put a backup/replacement pair on my shopping list :P).
They are really amazing for concerts, especially front-row goers. I keep them with me in a jacket pocket or bag somewhere basically all the time just as a backup for loud situations, which is feasible since even with case, their footprint is sufficiently negligible for nearly all types of pockets or other containers. That said, in everyday life… they don’t play music or other audio. On the flip side, I haven’t tried AirPods’ noise cancellation at a concert yet either, so I don’t really have a direct comparison. I more tend to use each for distinct activities, if that makes sense. But overall yeah it’s safe to say, both are great products in the noise suppression department.
I personally trust passive concert earplugs more for actual protection than ANC. AirPods are amazing for minimizing distractions at work, and they're great sounding for music. (They're more bassy than my Sony MDRs, though those are meant to have a flat response for mixing, but the quality is damn close to them, which is impressive for earbuds.)
Passive earplugs rated for a certain amount of reduction, say 15-20db, will do that reliably as long as they're undamaged and inserted correctly...and with concerts pushing 95-100db, you really want to protect your hearing. That really can't be overstated.
ANC's approach has so many moving pieces I only use it as a last resort, and not something I deliberately bring when I know I'll be in a noisy environment. (i.e. the best hearing protection is the kind you have with you.) You have microphones, speakers, a looser rubber seal, and software that have to work flawlessly to hammer down sudden noise with a corresponding inverted signal. If the slight delay is too much, or a high sound you can't hear is getting through, you could still be taking potential damage.
You can sometimes hear that imperfection with ANC: sometimes there's this sort of metallic hum and you can hear the sound bleed through and get partially stomped down.
My personal pick for concert earplugs are the ones from Etymotic Research. They're made much the same way as the IEMs they make, sans speakers, which musicians trust to protect their hearing. (If you ever see a performer up close, they probably have either a blue rubber thing with a clear plastic tip in their ear, or a custom molded one, and a wire going down somewhere. That's physically blocking the noise while playing what they want to hear from the mixing board.)
$240?? WOW! You can literally get all those features for 1/4 of the price, or 1/2 the price if you insist on having a premium product. Apple people continue to be such suckers.
As is often the case with Apple products, much of the value is in the details and execution than in a feature checklist.
I own both a couple pairs of AirPods and a pair of Sony XM4s. On paper the XM4s are about as good or better than the AirPods, and yet the AirPods get used much more frequently and consistently than the XM4s do because in actual usage, they’re nicer.
I mean, you can, but wanting them in the AirPod package doesn’t make someone a sucker. Namely, the new Pros add hearing aid features, which makes $240 ($200 at Costco) a compelling deal. Second, the handoff of AirPods from device to device is a quality of life feature afforded by Apple to its own ecosystem. Third, they’re tied into FindMy which makes keeping track of them easier (admittedly, when it works). Lastly, there’s a use case for users that share a device for entertainment on flights. Two AirPods can connect to an iPad (or a Mac with an easy workaround) for movies and music, which is another quality of life feature.
I would much rather wear my IEMs (<$150) on a flight, but I’d be hard pressed to use noise cancelling AirPods if I had them. Expensive? Yes. Does it make someone a sucker? Not really.
Super, super useful and, for me, one of the biggest selling points. Saved me hours, sanity, and the need to tear apart my house.
I find that it works well if both my AirPods and my iPhone have the U1 chip. It's for when I've ditched my AirPods in a pile of clothes, forgotten it in a pocket in one of my three bags or myriad jackets, or left it just somewhere in the house. I just use the Find My scanner thing and it brings me within a foot of my AirPods.
It seems like such a niche, "when am I ever going to use that?" feature but my partner and I use it when we want to listen to something and not bother other folks.
Have you A/B tested the products? My partner was given some of those headphones at 1/4 the price and her take away was "yeah they're alright" and planned to travel with them. But I noticed she didn't really use them at all. Her preferred headphones are Aftershocks.
Reviews recommend the Bose QuietComfort Ultra so I picked up a pair of those for her since we are going to be on 34 hours of flights and a bunch of trains over the next couple weeks. She immediately loved them significantly more, her feedback was that the ANC is sufficiently better than the cheaper pair. For a lot of "around the house" listening they've supplanted the Aftershocks, and I notice she is using them to fall asleep as well.
I have a pair of Airpod Max and the Bose compare favorably especially considering price (~100 difference). I'm definitely considering a pair of Apple earbuds for blocking out the sound of my open floorplan office.
I'm against Apple products for various reasons, and I'm not exactly an audiophile, but here's what I use:
Nothing Ear (a) as my daily driver buds. Less than $100, configurable LDAC support (at the cost of battery), sound really good to me, and pretty decent noise cancellation. They're comfortable, the app (on Android) is really nice, and the stem controls work well and can be customized. Best buds I've ever owned (though I've never spent over $100 on a pair).
Soundcore Space A40 as my sleep buds. I got these because they're cheap (often on sale for $50 or less), and small enough that I can side-sleep with them in and not feel them. I use them with ANC turned off (for max battery life) to listen to podcasts or white noise at night, so sound quality wasn't a big factor.
Microsoft Surface Headphones as my daily driver when I want over-ears. Sound quality is acceptable (I think maybe they only support SBC though), and noise cancellation is there but nothing to get excited about. These are probably the most comfortable over-ear headphones I've ever worn though, which is the only reason why I haven't replaced them with something with better quality or ANC yet.
Sennheiser HD 450BTs were an attempt to replace the Surface Headphones with something that sounded better, but these are straight trash. I can't wear them for longer than 10 minutes without feeling like my head is slowly being crushed in a vice and my ears are going to melt off. I should have returned them. Dunno why I waited too long. They're the only ones I have paired to my desktop so I only use them for work meetings which typically don't last long anyway.
Keeping an eye on those yellow Nothing Ear (a)s on Cyber Monday! Glad to hear they're serving you well. I'm mostly happy with my IEMs with a replaceable cord, but at some point I'll have to replace my phone, and when I lose the jack, I don't want to switch to USB-C.
I bought these https://www.brainwavzaudio.com/products/headphone-pad-hybrid for my Sennheiser 4.50BT, and been using it daily for 4 years and counting. Super comfortable, even after 8 hours of non stop use. However, noise cancelling is not that good, but it doesn't matter for me.
Original cushions were painful to use
I use AirPods Pro specifically for their Apple integration. But to be honest, I don’t think they’re the best choice for people outside of that ecosystem. The choices I would probably look into are Beats’ high end TWS (I forget the name) because it is made by Apple and has a lot of their good stuff but without the Apple specific stuff and it’s a bit cheaper. Alternatively I would probably get Sony’s XM5.
I have AirPods 2 Pro and connect them to both my personal Google Pixel and my work iPhone so I have experience in and out of the ecosystem.
There is not much to the functionality you lose out on for not having an iPhone. Spatial audio, using Siri through squeezing the buds, some other configurable triggers, and more, but none of that is enough for me personally to consider it a major difference. I'm more inclined to simply disagree with the principle of it instead.
While Spatial Audio is probably the nicest of the functions you'll lose out on, it hardly matters. What's important is how the AirPods sound and how their ANC functions, which is to say that it absolutely competes with the top within the bud-type audio sphere.
They'll never compare to fullsized closeback headphones when it comes to both audio quality and ANC (brand and cost depending), but that's not the market they compete in.
Apple's active noise cancelling is superb, audio quality is decent to good, and they're easy on the ears provided they fit. I love going on a run with these over any other wireless airpods or headsets I've tried. They are stable, stay put, and are clear enough.
I don't have any advice for you, unfortunately, but I will be watching this thread with interest. I recently picked up a pair of the Pixel Buds Pro 2. They're very small and light, so if that is what you're looking for, maybe they'd be a good option. Unfortunately for me, they do not stay in my ears at all. Their little stabilizer fin is way too small and basically does nothing for me.
I've heard lots of people say airpods stay in their ears when no other earbuds do, so I'm considering that option. But I'm in a similar boat as you - otherwise un-Appled.
Thanks for replying either way. Refreshing to know I'm not alone in this boat. :)
That's unlucky. I've recently upgraded to the Pixel Buds Pro 2 from the previous Pixel Buds Pro, and they finally fit me really well. The previous ones were a little too heavy and wouldn't keep a good seal in my ears over longer periods of time. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 are the first ones of the line I've considered excellent enough to recommend to others.
I don't know what it is. Something about the shape of my left ear I guess!
The A series fits me well, it's a shame they don't get any noise canceling. But I guess I just have to go back to them.
I have some Sony Linkbuds S and they're excellent. They're small, very light, very comfortable, sound quality is fantastic, ANC is decent but not amazing. Good enough though. I don't know how they compare to Airpods for quality, the Sonys are a little cheaper to buy.
My ears have always got on well with Sony things, yours might not. I have third-party silicone tips on my Linkbuds but the stock ones were perfectly good.
The AirPods Pro 2 are very solid earbuds, offering cancellation on par or better than those of my Sony XM4 headphones. Audio quality is also quite good, though not the best you can get. Charging case form factor and size is excellent — the case fits perfectly in the little mini-pocket that's commonly found inside the right pocket of mens' jeans, making them easy to carry around without taking primary pocket space or requiring some kind of daily carry bag.
Within the Apple ecosystem, one thing that's super nice and in my opinion underrated is how easy it is to switch them between devices. I can bounce between my iPhone, iPad, macs, and Apple TV with almost zero friction or fiddling. My Sony XM4's are much more annoying in this regard — while they can be paired with multiple devices, one needs to disconnect them from one device before connecting them to another (they can't switch automatically) which makes the experience considerably more clunky and annoying, particularly when it turns out the last device you used them with is across the room and now you're sitting with a cat on your lap or something.
Echoing this. I now use an iPhone and work on a PC laptop. Sometimes they want to not connect to my laptop at all, unless I turn off the bluetooth on my iPhone. A year ago, they would also not want to stay connected to my laptop. I would have keep an empty google meet or zoom call to trick them into staying connected; this specific issue hasn’t happened to me in about a year. All this to say is that Apple’s products are geared towards using other apple products. They will work, but not always at intended. I currently still use my airpods, but also use the Bose 700.
This is such great info! Can anyone chime in on over the ear nose canceling headphones?
I'll share this link from The Verge as they will have a lot more experience with multiple brands as any single commenter will. And now's a good time to keep an eye on headphones as black Friday sales start to go up.
https://www.theverge.com/21345733/best-noise-canceling-headphones
https://www.theverge.com/24293826/best-early-black-friday-deals-2024-amazon-walmart-buy-target-tech-sale
I've had these Sennheiser MOMENTUM 3 Noise-Canceling Wireless Over-Ear for over 4 years and they're still going strong and I really like them. Great noise cancelling and amazing depth in sound. I listen to a lot of metal so that's really important to me. Maybe you can get them cheap some place as there's a 4 out now so I don't think they sell them in the official store anymore.
I have the Momentum 4 Wireless earbuds and I love them to bits. They are not cheap but they will last me a longgggg ass time before I get those replaced. Sometimes more expensive is better than multiple cheap ones.
Agreed. I just bought them too a couple of months ago and love the sound. I’m having trouble with the tips as they don’t seal my ears canals enough and it creates a lot of noise when I bike. It’s my ear canal that’s strange I think so I’ve ordered some Comply tips and hope they do the trick.
I've got the EarFun Air Pro 3s. For $60, you can't really go wrong. They aren't the highest quality audio but I'm not an audiophile. They have an app also where you can do a little EQing. They have ANC that, to my ears, is really strong, but I also hate ANC and find it makes me dizzy in general, so that wasn't a selling point for me. The battery life, especially without ANC, is amazing.
Basically, when I did my research, I wanted AirPods but cheaper and not Apple and these have absolutely done that for me. They're no Sennheisers but as a daily active use solution, I've really enjoyed them.
Agreed.
A coworker of mine is much more of an audiophile, but we both agree that these are fantastic for the price.
If you're in the US, AirPods Pro 2 have been $170-$180 3 times in the past month. They're $190 at Best Buy and Amazon right now. Just make sure you don't buy from Amazon (elevated risk of fakes; this bit me) and instead price match to Best Buy or something if they're not already selling it for that price.
Probably not really helpful, but I own a pair of Airpods Pro 2 (with an iPhone) and I could compare them to the similarly priced Sony XM5 on a Google Pixel, the Airpods being way better, specially when it comes to noise cancelling.
However, I haven't tried them outside the Apple ecosystem and, knowing Apple, you will lose a lot of functionality if you try to use them outside their ecosystem. If I was an Android user I'd pick any other alternative.
When not on Apple equipment, you lose the ability to change settings (like turning transparency on and off) but they work fine. I have an Android phone, but make adjustments on my iPad, and mostly listen to music with my iPad.
I personally use AirPods Pro (Gen1) with an iPhone, and obviously in that context I think they are great. I’ve also known several people who use AirPods but don’t have any other Apple devices, and it doesn’t seem to have hampered their experience. Obviously you lose out on some features like Spatial Audio, but as far as comfort, audio quality, noise transparency and cancellation modes, these are all available and function just as well with non-Apple devices.
I have a pair of Indie Evo Skullcandy headphones and I got during a Black Friday sale for $18. I have seen them for as much as 84 dollars, but right now they seem to be $25 on amazon. I would buy them again at that price point.
I can't tell from looking at pictures of the Sennheisers exactly how they compare, but they seem smaller. Their shape is different. They have a stem that hangs down like the airpods and also a little gel sticks up. Both of these make them fit well in my ears, and they don't fall out.
I don't think anybody's going to claim that these are the best earbuds ever, but they were a big Improvement for me over the wired bluetooth head earbuds I was using before. They have decent battery life. Sound quality is good to me, though I am no audio file. They have ambient sound mode that is nice for walking outside. Controlling then with the taps is meh, usually takes me two or three tries to pause/unpause.
I think the most useful feature on them is the tile integration. If I leave them somewhere, they can be found like any tile. But the most useful, when I know they are in the house, but I can't find them, the tile app shows you relative signal strength so you can do hotter/colder until you find them.
One time I was walking at a track and fell. I didn't notice that I had lost one when I fell, but once I did, I was able to track it down without trouble. After my experience with these, I won't buy a pair that doesn't have a similar feature.
The only catch is the case doesn't have a tile detector in it so if you have the earbuds in your ears, best put the case in a consistent spot.
ooh, my Pixel Buds case does have a Tile tag on it but I do like that feature. Not enough to buy new earbuds at the moment, I kind of hate having them at all, but i'll keep an eye on that, thanks!
Out of curiosity, if you are plugged in (ha!) To this space, is there a brand considered "not a joke" that has a reasonable low end offering? Like $50?
I go as cheap as possible because I mostly listen to audiobooks, I am tone deaf, and if I go a year without destroying a pair of earbuds, it will be a miracle. I'm right at that date with the Evos, and probably they have lasted so long because there's no wire connection to fatigue.
I appreciate the fact that people have much higher standards. More power to them. Although even if I were inclined to buy such things, I'd have trouble even thinking about saying $300 for a pair of earbuds that don't have a localization feature in them, which was mainly why I was commenting.
Thanks for the links. I had run across rting then forgotten about them. This gives me a slightly improved pick to offer my wife
They have an exact answer to my question, the five best wireless earbuds under $50.
Notably in that category, the Skull candy Dime 3's are top for "best sounding". These are similar in features and price to the Indy Evos, but score slightly better across the board (to be fair to the Evos, they used an older methodology). The Dime 3s have the required (by me) Tile locator feature and a charging case that looks more reliable than the Evos.
One thing worth keeping in mind is that AirPods Pro 2 can also function as clinical-grade hearing aids and can be tuned to your specific hearing loss. There's some info here: https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/hearing-health/
Remember those wired earbuds Apple used to make? I hated those. They were so uncomfortable.
Airpods aren't like that. They fit my ear holes well, they sound good, and they use Bluetooth, so they pair with my Android phone just fine.
I used to use a pair of Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds before switching to the AirPods Pro 2 last year. The Airpods Pro are amazing honestly. They're small, battery life is great, sound is great, and the noise cancelling is the best. I bought into the Apple ecosystem at the same time I switched to the Airpods but I still use a Google Pixel as my secondary phone and use the Airpods with it.
There are two main downsides of Airpods on non-Apple devices though. First, you will not be able to update your Airpods. If a new firmware gets released with features you'd like, you will have to connect to some Apple device to get the firmware to update. Secondly, you won't be able to change all the settings of the Airpods without an Apple device. I think on Android you can download apps to let you enable/disable the ear detection (where the sound stops when you take one Airpod out of your ear) among other settings but I don't think its as smooth as it is with an Apple device.
I think the competition have gotten closer recently both in terms of sound quality and noise cancelling that don't require you to have the phone from that brand so you might have better luck with earbuds from Google, Sony, Samsung and other brands.
Have you tried memory foam eartips? I use them with my earbuds to help with comfort and to give the ANC a hand battling the noise in my environment.
It might be an inexpensive way to keep the Sennheisers in play.
Comply used to be my go-to but I don't know if they still exist.
Huh, they do. Been around a while that company.
I no longer can stand to wear in-ears so I don't use them any more, but they used to be fantastic
Mind sharing your use case for the earbuds? I've tried several different Android equivalents, and have a variety of opinions. I'm currently using Shokz open run minis, due to my job which has a massive risk of hearing loss to the point where noise canceling will not work. I like the over ear Shokz because I can use standard ear plugs for hearing safety. They do not provide quite the same sound quality as actual in ear earbuds, but they keep me safer.
I used to run Sony XM4s earbuds, which at the time were the top of the line on noise canceling. Those were great! (And then I lost them) I couldn't justify paying the same price again for them though, at the time I couldn't really afford it. They did have a bit of trouble staying in my ears as well.
After that I ran wired earbuds again for a while, until a broken phone meant I had to give up a headphone jack. Then I got Google pixel earbuds. Didn't like the noise canceling as much there, the white noise effect kinda bugged me, but to each their own. These were substantially more affordable, which was nice.
It sounds like comfort is your most important factor.
Focus on that, and only that, because an uncomfortable head or ear phone is an unworn and unused head/earphone.
Have there been any headphones that you like comfort-wise?
I tried my darndest to like Apple headphones, but could not get over them, comfort-wise. I love most things Apple and live in the ecosystem, but with the headphones I just found them to be really uncomfortable for me. I say this to remind you to trust your gut, don't be like me, and think "well everyone is saying these are the most comfortable and best headphones ever--that should apply to me too".
If you can try headphones on (I don't know how this goes for in-ear style), do that, and go with your gut and experience/feelings. If you can't, find people that have a similar opinion to you regarding headphone feel (like other users who find your current set bulky), and see if they have recommendations.
Good luck!
Come over to the dark side, come join the borg... I mean the Apple ecosystem!
The best thing about airpods is they seamlessly work with the iPhone/ macbook/ iPad etc...
The second best thing about airpods is you know the quality is high... so is the price, but at least you know you are getting what you pay for.
Seconding anker soundcore a40’s, bought for my daughter and they work great, super affordable. But i use airpods pro and like them pretty well. Nothing fits well in my ears though, they always break seal. Dunno whats wrong with my canals.
I have the exact same issue. I have one ear canal smaller than the other, and the larger one seems to be oddly shaped to the point where unless the ear pod is a marshmallow, it's not gonna fit properly.
I just picked up the Pixel Buds Pro 2 on a whim. They are my first pair of ear buds (always preferred headphones), and I have to say, they are fantastic. The noise cancelling and transparency modes work great, battery life is good, and they are the first Bluetooth anything I've owned that just work every time. No idea how they work with apple devices though ( I have a pixel 9 pro).