I need to replace my old AirPods (batteries are starting to fail). Looking at Apple’s description of the “AirPods Pro (2nd generation)”, I see this bit:

“Personalized Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking”
https://www.apple.com/airpods-pro/specs/

Long ago I’d guessed that we sensed the location of sound sources as a result of slightly different path lengths of sound components being reflected from convolutions in our outer ears. And that that location effect could be replicated by introducing multiple audio streams, each with a slightly different delay, in a headphone/AirPod device.

Is that what’s going on with “Spatial Audio”? And maybe the “Personalized” part means that you can tweak the delays to get your chosen stereo “sound stage” effect as though you were listening to a good pair of speakers.

That would be much better than the “inside my head” effect produced by my old AirPods.

I upgraded from the gen1 pro's to the gen2 pro's a few months ago.

Well worth the change. The sound is much better and the noise cancellation is significantly better. Also the volume control capability, while quirky, is a good addition.

Spatial audio to me is just an enhancement that makes things sound better. That's what I care about, and it works well enough for me. The personalized part means that you use the phone's camera to scan your ears and sides of your head to create some kind of profile. I do use it.

There are tweaks in the app program that weren't available with the earlier version.

There are also spatial audio recordings being done with new stuff and re-mastering old stuff that you can stream with the online services, that do sound better to me.

I would not hesitate to recommend the new Gen 2 pro's. But- if you want to wait, the new gen3 is supposed to be the same but with the new USB-c port, release next month supposedly. That didn't matter to me.

Edit to add- I do not like head tracking. That means as you move your head the sound balances in relation to your phone. I hate it for music. I believe its intent is more for videos/films. I have it disabled.

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“The personalized part means that you use the phone's camera to scan your ears and sides of your head to create some kind of profile. I do use it.”

Re: “The personalized part means that you use the phone's camera to scan your ears and sides of your head to create some kind of profile.”

That supports my theory that the convolutions of your outer ear enable you to sense the location of sound sources.

Spatial audio, meh. It’s the better noise canceling of the Gen 2’s that really is the massive upgrade and the overall sound quality that is better.

I did buy a new set of AirPods: AirPods Pro (2nd Generation). I’ve had them a couple of weeks now. Very impressed, I am. At the Apple Store they were priced at $250. I asked why, since they were only $200 on Amazon. The Apple guy said that because I had asked that question he could give me a 10% discount, so ~$225. I figured that the Apple guy’s help, on the spot, with the extensive set-up was worth the $25 difference.

A good decision, I think. He clearly knew what he was doing, but still spent about 20 minutes with the set up, educating me in the process. Part of it was using my iPhone to image my left and right ears. Then he imaged my face as I rolled my head around – rather like the set-up for Face ID.

Their acoustic fidelity is much better than my old AirPods (generation 1?). And their noise canceling ability amazed me. There are two aspects of noise cancellation:
* Physical blockage. Soft silicone cups seal out incident sound. Four sizes of snap-on cups in the box.
* Anti-noise. Each earbud has external microphones to detect impinging sound. And circuitry to generate an inverse sound wave that nulls it out.

That allows me to listen at lower volume levels and still hear acoustic details. And it’ll be sooo nice the next time a police helicopter circles endlessly over my neighborhood. And when the tree trimmers fire up a chipper in the street outside my home.

Spatial Audio is nifty. The effect is that music is all around me, rather than inside my head. It’s especially impressive with the Dolby Atmos recordings that I find on Apple Music and Apple Classical. I haven’t found any on Amazon Music so far, although I have the paid subscription.

I bought the Beats Fit Pro a year ago, but could never get them to fit properly. I talked to folks at the Apple Store, and bought some third party tips. Nothing worked.

Even though I'd spent $200 for the Beats Fit Pro, I recently gave up and decided to try the Airpods Pro 2 (I got them for $200 at Walmart). For me, it's been worth it just for the fit. I pop them in and the fit is flawless regardless of what I'm doing (walking, working out, etc.).

They are feature packed and I'm still learning my way around them. I agree, however, that the noise cancellation is fantastic. A couple of days a week, I go to my local Panera to grab some iced tea and read for an hour or two. The noise cancellation blocks all noise and conversation.

ETA: I also recommend buying a protective case for the Airpods. Based on some online reviews, people said the biggest risk (besides actually losing them) is dropping and damaging the case. I got this case off Amazon for $16.

In the old days, there were binaural recordings that, I believe, attempted a similar effect. The original recordings were made with microphones in the ear positions on either side of a dummy head, IIRC. I never tried listening to those recordings.
But I do love my AirPods Pro2.

Another thing that I didn’t know about my new Apple AirPods Pro (generation 2):

“Prone to losing your AirPods case down the side of the sofa? Apple’s got you. With this refresh, the charging case (which includes a lanyard loop) now includes a little speaker and full integration with Apple’s U1 chip that essentially adds the functionality of an AirTag to the earphones.

If they go missing you can make them emit a sound via the Find My app, and it’ll show you their precise location as you hunt them down. That’s not all the speaker can do either, it’ll also chirp when you pop it on a charger and – our favourite – it’ll make a slightly more forlorn series of beeps if you put the buds back in the case and it’s low on battery. It makes for a nice reminder that it’s time to put them on charge. …”

Esquire article:
https://www.esquire.com/uk/des...irpods-pro-2-review/

I'm still using my version 1 which I purchased at a big discount just before the V2 was released.

Everyone is saying the noise cancelation is much improved. Yikes, it must really be good since I find the noise cancelation on the V1 far better then I had imagined when I bought them. I'm always amazed when I turn them off in the gym and hear the sharp contrast of "dirty noise" that's been filtered out.

When the V3 is announced I might grab a V2 if they are offered at some good discounted prices. We'll see what next month brings.

One other major improvement with the V2 is the battery life of the buds. Sometimes I use them for close to 3.5 hours with noise cancellation on and they will still have 40% left. That is significantly better than the V1.

quote:

Originally posted by AH.74:
One other major improvement with the V2 is the battery life of the buds. Sometimes I use them for close to 3.5 hours with noise cancellation on and they will still have 40% left. That is significantly better than the V1.

I've yet to run out of juice and needed a charge from the case or plug in so that's not been and issue for me. Wear them for up to an hour at the gym, take them off at home and plug in. Then I wear them for maybe 2 hours watching TV in the evening. I know some people have them in their ears for most of the day, but that's not me. But I surely wouldn't turn down added battery life.

I am a bass guitar player, previously in two different bands. I demand a good, solid reproduction of the bass frequencies.

How well do the V2 AirPods reproduce bass? I don't want to spend $200.00+ on them only to revert to my over-the-ear Audio-Technica headphones...

Thanks in advance!

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
^^^^^^^^
“The personalized part means that you use the phone's camera to scan your ears and sides of your head to create some kind of profile. I do use it.”

Re: “The personalized part means that you use the phone's camera to scan your ears and sides of your head to create some kind of profile.”

That supports my theory that the convolutions of your outer ear enable you to sense the location of sound sources.

Idk about the spatial audio as far as the earbuds go.

But, in general, we localize sounds by volume (loudness), phase (slight delay), and frequency spectrum content. Echoes from nearby surfaces also plays a big part with how our brain processes location. Recreating a natural sense of space or stereo is actually quite difficult to do with electronics

The most basic is simply to make one side a bit louder than the other. This is how many early stereo recordings were made. Put an equal amount of the singer's voice in the left and the right channel. Put the piano a bit louder in the left than the right channel. Put the guitar a bit louder in the right than the left channel. Put one backup vocal harmony all in one side, and another all in the other side. This works ok, especially if listening in a room where the sound reflects off of walls, ceiling, and floor. You hear the vocalist as if he is centered in front of you, the piano is to the left of center, the guitar somewhere to the right.

But in real life a sound source is (usually) a single point in space. If it is to our left the sound reaches our left ear a tiny fraction of a second sooner than it reaches the right ear. More sophisticated electronic processing would delay the sound to the far side to simulate that reality, but in general music production ignores this delay.

A mostly unknown technique was used by the Beatles in the 1960's which modified the frequency spectrum. This was built into the EMI REDD recording desk and not invented by the Beatles, but was used to great effect. Their original studio was not "stereo" as we think of it today, and up until then recordings were commonly mono. Multiple microphones might be used (and was the design intent of the REDD consoles) but then mixed together while recording the performance to create a mono recording.

Stay with me, this is going somewhere.

The Beatles' early recordings were cleverly assembled, with a particular instrument or vocal all in one channel. No louder vs softer. Listen with headphones and you'll hear drums all on the left, guitar all on the right, etc. This took some hotwiring of the recording console. Their equipment prevented what we think of as "stereo", so they rigged the desk and then used that limitation very creatively to make iconic recordings.

Then they implemented the "StereoSonic Shuffler" circuit which applied differential frequency EQ to each channel of each instrument or vocal. This was magic and it is almost never used today. They reduced the high frequencies a little bit on the side away from the source. So if a guitar was to be located towards the right side of the listener it would be full volume and full frequency content in the right channel, while the left would have some of the highs rolled off (tone knob turned away from treble as a very simplistic description) and the volume decreased.

This is a very very powerful effect because it mimics the effect of sound wrapping around the skull to the ear on the far side. Low frequencies wrap around easily, high frequencies do not. With this effect toggled on and off while listening to a recording, the location goes from being "over there somewhere" to "I can point to the exact place that musician is standing in my room".

Use of reverb or other processing on completed tracks can tickle our brain a bit to give the impression of space, such as sound bouncing off of walls near or far. But it really requires careful recording and mixing up front in the studio to be convincing.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
In the old days, there were binaural recordings that, I believe, attempted a similar effect. The original recordings were made with microphones in the ear positions on either side of a dummy head, IIRC. I never tried listening to those recordings.

Stereo mic placement is a whole field of science and art, along with the size and surfaces of the room where the recording is being made. They sell replica heads to place mics in the ears, and some people swear by them.

quote:

Originally posted by bronicabill:
I am a bass guitar player, previously in two different bands. I demand a good, solid reproduction of the bass frequencies.

How well do the V2 AirPods reproduce bass? I don't want to spend $200.00+ on them only to revert to my over-the-ear Audio-Technica headphones...

Thanks in advance!

I find the base adequate on the Pro models, but not great. You can hear it but it does not rattle your teeth, and doubt you would be satisfied with it compared to over the ear.

They are returnable.

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
<snip>
I find the base adequate on the Pro models, but not great. You can hear it but it does not rattle your teeth
<snip>

Does any headphone rattle your teeth?

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
<snip>
I find the base adequate on the Pro models, but not great. You can hear it but it does not rattle your teeth
<snip>

Does any headphone rattle your teeth?

Just a little hyperbole. Ever stand/sit close to Subwoofers at a rock concert?

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
The Beatles' early recordings were cleverly assembled, with a particular instrument or vocal all in one channel.

I once had an office where the hallway outside had speakers in the ceiling. Somebody had wired them all to one channel. Most modern songs nobody noticed the difference, but with a classic rock station on it bothered me to no end to only hear half the song. One day I'd had enough and rewired things so as you walked down the hall you'd hear left channel, right channel, left channel, right channel, etc.

Regarding spatial audio in general I'll add that the elliptical shape of our ears comes into play as there is a phase change dependent on elevation of the sound. The delay between left and right (time difference of arrival in technical terms) provides azimuth. I took an electronic music synthesis class in college where we were able to produce sounds (using MATLAB) from anywhere in the hemisphere in front of us using only a pair of stereo speakers. It helped a lot to close your eyes.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:

quote:

Originally posted by NavyGuy:
<snip>
I find the base adequate on the Pro models, but not great. You can hear it but it does not rattle your teeth
<snip>

Does any headphone rattle your teeth?

My current set of Audio-Technica headphones give me a similar sound to when I would play live performances... minus feeling my pant legs moving to the beat!

I don't need to "rattle my teeth" with ear buds, but I do want to hear the bass line decisively without struggling to discern it. Sounds like the AirPods may not be right for me. I wonder if they'll let you test drive a pair at the Apple Store?

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I’ll just say that the drivers have sizable area and displacement. And they’re operating in a small volume: the space bounded by the silicone seal and my ear drum. I hear bass, but don’t feel it as I would with good speakers.