AirPods Pro (2022) review: H2 and the sound of silence

Note: This article was first published on 22 September 2022.

Even by Apple’s lofty standards, the first-generation AirPods Pro were one of the few products that they really nailed from the start. They had great active noise cancellation, sounded mostly quite good, were easy to set up, and worked seamlessly with other Apple products. It was the true wireless earbuds that Apple users wanted. But in the past three years since its release, the competition has moved the game on in some ways and it was clear a successor was needed. And their response are the white earbuds in the photo at top of this page. The new AirPods Pro.

What’s new

If you didn’t know what to look out for, you could easily mistake the new AirPods Pro for the old one. I walked around with them for nearly a week before this review was published and not once did anyone stop me to ask me about them. Or maybe I didn't hear them.

Anyhow, the shape of the earbuds is the same to the point where you can fit the new AirPods Pro into its predecessor’s charging case and vice versa (you can’t charge them without their correct cases, however). The way to tell the difference is by the position of the vents and the size and shape of microphone openings, which Apple has altered slightly. The earbuds now also come with an additional XS size (extra-small) eartips that some users might find preferable. I'm perfectly happy with the default medium eartips and these new AirPods Pro fit me very well.

The touch controls have been improved with one feature that users have been asking for: volume control. You can now glide your finger up and down the stem to adjust the volume – a feature which was bizarrely and frustratingly missing on the first-generation AirPods Pro. The touch controls are, as ever, responsive and work with a very high success rate. The reason it’s so good is because it has a sense of tactility that it missing in other earbuds. You immediately know if you have actuated them properly.

Like the earbuds, the charging case looks mostly identical. The one giveaway is that there’s now a lanyard loop on the side of the case. The case still has a Lightning port for charging, but fortunately, it isn’t the only way you can charge it. You can also use a Qi wireless charger, the Apple Watch’s charging puck, or a MagSafe charger.

However, what’s arguably the biggest change to the charging case is that it has AirTags technology built into it. If you misplace it, you can open the Find My app on your iPhone and look for it using Precision Finding just like you would with AirTags. It even has built-in speakers to help you locate it (another way to tell the new case from the old). This is extremely thoughtful. You know what else Apple could have built into the charging case? A battery level indicator. Another thing to note is that both the earbuds and charging case are IPX4 water and sweat-resistant.

Noise cancellation, transparency, and mic performance

The biggest update to the AirPods Pro is one that you can’t see and that is Apple’s new H2 chip. As you’d expect from Apple, they are coy on the specs of this chip and will only say it is much faster and that it “unlocks advanced computational audio algorithms previously unable to run on a device of this size.” The only specifics we know is that H2 has over a billion transistors, which is double that of H1.

What’s important is that it's because of H2 that Apple can load its complex noise-cancelling algorithms onto these new earbuds. Apple claims these new algorithms, coupled with the optimised position of the acoustic vent of the earbuds and the microphone, will enable the AirPods Pro to cancel up to double the noise of the first-generation AirPods Pro.

It’s hard to say if it really cancels up to double the amount of noise but the new AirPods Pro are unquestionably better. At my desk, with my fan at its middle setting pointing at me, I barely hear a thing. If I were using the first-generation AirPods Pro, I would still hear a slightly low-pitch rumble. And even with the fan at full power, all I could hear was a faint whisper. It was the same outdoors too. The amount of noise that the new AirPods Pro can cancel borders on being unnerving. Your mind can’t square what your eyes are seeing with what your ears hear. It’s so silent.

Furthermore, if you have an Apple Watch, you can now see how much sound the AirPods Pro nullifies using the Noise app. With the fan blowing at me, the Noise app is giving me a reading of 54dB. That drops to 30dB when I turn on the ANC function. That means it cancelling out around 24dB of noise, which is very nearly half.

Is it better than Sony’s very excellent WF-1000XM4? I’ll need to hear them back to back to confirm. But based on my memory, I think the new AirPods Pro edges it.

What’s not up for debate, however, is how much better Apple’s ambient sound or transparency mode is. Thanks to the H2 chip, Apple is now calling this mode Adaptive Transparency. Because the chip is processing sounds 48,000 times per second, it can automatically tune down harsh environmental sounds that it hears like the sirens of an emergency vehicle, a motorcycle zipping past, or even construction noise. Unfortunately, given the very specific way this feature activates, I can’t tell if it really works. What I can tell you, however, is that the new AirPods Pro transparency mode remains class-leading. It sounds so natural that you'll forget you had earbuds in your ears. 

Mic sound quality is also markedly better – voices now sound less hollow and more natural. The same is true in noisy environments too. The new AirPods Pro are better at isolating your voice.

How do they sound

As usual, Apple doesn’t disclose specifics – not that it really matters because what good is knowing the size of the driver – but we do know that this AirPods Pro has a new low-distortion, high-excursion driver and high dynamic range amplifier. Both components are claimed to be custom-made for the AirPods Pro.

Like all recent AirPods devices, the new AirPods Pro feature Adaptive EQ. This means it uses the internal mic and the H2 chip to measure and analyse the sound that’s going into your ears and adjusts the drivers’ frequency response in real-time so that it matches its target tuning. The idea behind this is so that the AirPods Pro can compensate for variances in fit, seal, and ear shapes to deliver a consistent sound. 

Unsurprisingly, the new AirPods Pro sound quite similar to its predecessor, which is to say it has a V-shaped sound signature – a safe choice because this is the kind of sound that most people prefer. But if I put on my critical listening hat, I can pick holes in it. 

The first thing I noticed was the bass. It’s punchy, full-sounding, and stronger and richer than before. Bass lovers will appreciate it but I find that it bleeds too much into mids and could be tighter. Mids as is often the case with V-shaped-sounding earbuds sounded hollow and distant. The treble is mostly tame but there’s unevenness. The lower treble is quite recessed but it ramps up quickly as we approach the upper treble – a common trick that earbuds employ to sound more clear and airy. I suspect, however, most listeners won’t notice any of this. They’ll just enjoy the thumping bass and how easy they are on the ears. 

If you like listening to your music in spatial audio, the new AirPods Pro have a Personalised Spatial Audio feature that uses your iPhone’s TrueDepth camera to take pictures of your head and ears to create a personalised sound profile. This is based on concept of head-related transfer function which isn’t new and has actually been employed by companies like Sony for its 360 Reality Audio feature and Creative with its Super X-Fi line of products. 

However, in true Apple fashion, creating a sound profile with the new AirPods Pro is markedly more straightforward and fuss-free than it is with either Sony or Creative. Simply go to the new AirPods settings page in the Settings app to start and the process, which is similar to setting up Face ID for the first time, takes all of about two minutes.

Now, I’ll lay my cards on the table and say that I don’t fancy spatial audio and leave it off when I listen to music. The problem is that it only sounds right on tracks that were specifically mastered for it and that’s only a handful. On tracks that are not, it just sounds weird – vocals could sound strangely distant, the stage could sound unnaturally wide, or drums could sound terribly hollow. Does having Personalised Spatial Audio solve this? I’m afraid it doesn’t. Tracks that weren’t mastered for Spatial Audio still sounds janky. But on those that are, they sound even better – more powerful, dynamic, and wide.

As for battery life, Apple claims up to 6 hours with on a single charge and up to 30 hours with the charging case. That’s entirely believable. I could get through a whole day of work with on-and-off listening and it was only after three days that I had to put the charging case on the charger.

Closer to perfection

There’s no question the new AirPods Pro are a big step up from their predecessor. Active noise cancellation has improved substantially and the transparency mode is a little better. It also has received other welcomed updates like the findable charging case, the ability to adjust volume, and improved battery life. I think most people will also like the way it sounds too. It's also easy to create personalised profiles if you like listening to your music in spatial audio.

At S$359, they are actually quite affordable for a flagship Apple product (relatively speaking, of course). Yes, it’s S$90 more than the regular AirPods, but they are – surprise, surprise – actually S$20 less than the launch price of the first-generation AirPods Pro. They are also S$20 less than Sony’s WF-1000XM4 which retails for S$379. They are also less dear than other flagship earbuds from premium audio names like Klipsch, Bowers & Wilkins, and Master & Dynamic – which all cost well over S$400. Get them from Amazon Singapore and you can get an additional S$8 off if it's your first purchase on the Amazon App. 

As good as the new AirPods Pro are, they aren’t perfect. To start, it still doesn’t support true multi-point connections. I know Apple gets around this by using iCloud as a crutch to tell it which Apple device to connect to, and while it mostly works, there were times when they don’t switch devices properly.

But my biggest gripe about the new AirPods Pro is that they don’t support Apple Music Lossless. Admittedly, lossless music contains much more data than what Bluetooth was designed to handle and I suppose there are design constraints that Apple cannot overcome, but it’s a shame considering they are Apple’s flagship true wireless earbuds and Apple Music Lossless is really one of the highlights of Apple's music streaming service.

However, these grievances are not deal-breakers. To be fair, many other true wireless earbuds don’t support multi-point and no true wireless earbuds support lossless audio yet (LDAC is not lossless). Fact is, these AirPods Pro are much improved and are hands-down the best true wireless earbuds for iPhone users. 

You can find the AirPods Pro on the Apple Online Store, Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee.

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