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- Hacker News
- Anecdotal, one of my colleagues was sounding surprisingly clear on one of the calls, and I had to ask him what is he using. Turns out whose were AirPods Pro 3, so my first impression with their microphone is quite amazing. Comparable to "studio mics from MBP" from a generation or two ago. He shared noise cancellation is also great.by elAhmo
- At first I liked the noise cancellation on the AirPods 4 but after a while I started feeling weird. A weird, fullness in my head. Not very enjoyable.
- It might also be because newer Bluetooth codecs being used. I think Apple doesn't publish a lot of documentation about it (or it isn't obvious, at least...)by tecleandor
- Probably Airpods Pro 3 then and not Airpods 3. The latter have no noise cancellation.by Tepix
- Is it the noise cancellation making a feedback sound, or is it the pressure differential in the ear canal pulling the ear drum back to produce a white noise?
He said that it goes away when he yawns, so I'm thinking it might be the pressure differential.
- Yawning alters the conformation of the external auditory canal by displacing the mandible, which articulates with the tympanic plate of the temporal bone adjacent to the canal.
The seal might be so good that a small pressure differential happens as cabin pressure drops, which causes some issue with the microphone or speaker. Yawning might break that seal, or otherwise cause pressure equalization. Why only the left one? Apple might put some kind of special signal diagnostics or sensors in that side that bugs out under those conditions, or maybe human anatomy on the left side is consistently subtley different in a set of people.
Because this doesn't happen to everybody it could be some kind of "instrument effect" where the particular shape of someone's ear canal, and the interaction with their ear drum and the speakers and sensors in the app creates this tone, likely assisted by the constant driving signal of air cabin white noise.
by keepamovin - I bought the airpod pro 3 and returned it after a couple of days. It would make a loud crunching sound every time I move my mouth, probably due to the memory foam moving inside my ear canal. Never experienced anything similar on pro 1 or pro 2.
This entire cycle of Apple releases is riddled with puzzling defects - the super scratchable iPhone Pros, the condensation issues on the Air lenses, the Airpod fit and weird noise cancelling issues. I don't recall this level of weird basic defects since the first unibody macs or the butterfly keyboard debacle. Wonder what caused it...
by herval - Pushing to release something every year. That's a really dumb strategy. Managers forgot about the golden triangle of: "good, cheap, fast", out of which you can pick only two, but they have decided to pick only "fast".
I'm using some Apple products, and I'm concerned about the drop in quality. Soon they won't differ much from yet another, Chinese company.
by a5c11 - I used to be first to try out new Apple products. Now I wait for OS upgrades and will let others try new Apple products or major software updates. Too many times Cupertino has let users down with poorly tested software. This problem with the Airpods- it should have been caught if this many people are experiencing the same problem.
Apple doesn't deserve the share price it enjoys.
by gkanai - I've been on ~4-5 flights since upgrading to the Airpods Pro 3 from the 2 and haven't experienced this, though I had occasionally experienced a similar whine on my Pro 2 that seemed to have been resolved in a software update sometime back.
I am surprised by the general negative sentiment for the 3s in this thread. They've felt like a straight and clear upgrade to me. Better fit, better ANC, and much improved battery life. I typically wear mine almost all day so comfort is hugely important to me.
by MrDrone - Same. I've been on a number of long haul flights since getting my 3's and they have been great. They do fit very different than the 2's, and took me a few hours to get used to them.
I understand though that not everyone wins the ear hole lottery. For some the 2s may fit better than the 3's and vice versa. It's interesting to me that Apple made such a large fit change without considering 2's are simply better for some people fit wise.
by matwood - Same here, and I wonder if this is down to shifting pressure in the ear-nose-throat axis. The fact that yawning seems to remediate the issue, and also is a way to equalize pressure, makes me suspicious.by EA-3167
- I think the general neagtivity might be from a $250 set of headphones that aren’t great in all situations.
It’s not just an apple problem, but expensive tech just doesn’t seem to work well. generally apple were kinda the gold standard, now they’re having issues like a lot of tech.
by acomjean - I've flown twice with my new AirPods Pro 3, and both times I had this exact experience; high pitched and loud feedback. They were properly cleaned, and had a "good seal" according to the settings wizard.
Glad to see I'm not the only one at least, and hopefully this will be possible to fix as a software update, rather than having to replace the AirPods.
by torarnv - In which ear(s)?by jonny_eh
- During the operation of engines that emit loud noises such as lawnmowers and pressure washers, I've had similar experiences. With the lawnmower, the deafening roar reached both ears the moment the blade struck a stone. Using the pressure washer, it was highly unpleasant to hear the loud abnormal noise, possibly caused by splashes or wet components touching the microphone. I believe the abnormal noise from the lawnmower could be resolved with a software update.by tarou
- Something interesting occurs to me. Many of the anecdotes about the squealing on flights says the noise goes away when yawning. Yawning lifts the soft palate and equalizes ambient pressure behind the eardrum in the sinuses. Air pressure is lower in a pressurized airplane cabin than on the ground and is usually more dynamic as well. I wonder if an air pressure gradient forms in the ear canal when in the air that exacerbates the ANC feedback issues that users (myself included) are experiencing on the ground. I feel like there must be some interaction between the multiple microphones due to vibration transmitted through the body of the Airpods.
Since it seems to be an ANC issue it should be fixable in software.
by Fwirt - The acoustic importance mismatch may result in the wrong gain?by cozzyd
- I discovered another way to remove this problem - Initiate a screen recording and it's gone. I was doing this to report a TestFlight app bug on a flight I was experiencing and wow did the ANC improve so much.by ofcrpls
- I had to return my AirPods Pro 3. I upgraded from AirPods 4 with ANC and they were worse in every department I could see. I assume battery life is better, but I've never ran out of battery anyway.
I've never much got on with in-ear rubber tips, and these were no different to any I've tried, despite reviews stating they were super comfortable.
My left ear is also worse to get it fitting right than my right ear. I have tried every size provided, none seem right. A grimace in the gym is enough to unseat even the most secure fit/seal, in either ear.
My main gripes specifically with AirPods Pro 3, which I've not seen in any other review;
- Because the rubber tips vary in size, the case has to accommodate the largest. This means if you're using small tips, there's a lot of spare room, which means the AirPods can easily be mis-seated, breaking the charge connection.
- The case is substantially bigger than AirPods 4 with ANC. I would say ~40%.
- The volume swipe on the stalk action is very tricky to trigger.
- Any stalk action is a bad idea when it's so easy to unseat them. I skip songs with a double press regularly, and nearly every time I had to push in and rotate after.
by jamies888888 - > This means if you're using small tips, there's a lot of spare room, which means the AirPods can easily be mis-seated, breaking the charge connection.
I've used many headphones - probably upwards of 10 pairs cross 5 brands - in my day with rubber tips that can accommodate multiple sizes. This has never been a problem for me with any brand. I've switched to open ear headphones (over-ear for flights) since last year so my knowledge base is aging.
Is the magnetic action in Apple's case not strong enough, maybe?
by HelloMcFly - > I've never much got on with in-ear rubber tips,
That's a shame since it's literally impossible to get that deep sub bass or punchy mid bass without a seal. But if you're not into genres that sound better with that, then you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
- A wild guess as to what is happening. I haven’t actually tested this hypothesis so I could be completely wrong.
In feedback systems, the gain is a function of frequency, and typically decreases when going from low frequency to high frequency. This is often accompanied by a phase delay.
So if the overall gain of the system is high enough, there will be some high frequency where the gain is 1, and the phase is 180 degrees. This would result in positive feedback, amplifying noise at that frequency.
Maybe that’s what’s happening in the latest AirPods? If Apple is aggressive cranking up the gain of the noise cancellation system, there’s some high frequency where the noise gets amplified rather than suppressed.
The solution would be to either reduce the gain (which reduces the noise cancellation), or to add some differential gain in the system which pushes out the unity gain frequency to higher frequencies.
by spot5010 - That doesn’t explain why the issue seems to be specific to left APPs.by layer8
- I just had a thought, it's possible to completely disable ANC in settings, turning them into "dumb" bluetooth headphones. (Enable "Off Listening Mode" in Airpods Settings and the option will become available in Control Center.) If some of us who are able to replicate this effect consistently could try turning ANC off and seeing if the effect still occurs, that would narrow it down to being feedback related from Transparency/ANC or being something external like back EMF.
I just tested this myself and the two ways that I am able to get consistent squealing (stroking the upper body when in-ear and cupping them in the hand) both fail to replicate when ANC is off. So this does point to a feedback issue.
My other thought is that the APP3 may have microphones located next to the drivers in the ear canal, both for measuring fit, and for the new "own voice amplification" feature that appears in hearing control center if you enable Hearing Assistance. Maybe vibration is leaking through the body to the inner microphone.
by Fwirt - Sounds like you are stating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkhausen_stability_criterion (1921):
"if A is the gain of the amplifying element in the circuit and β(jω) is the transfer function of the feedback path, so βA is the loop gain around the feedback loop of the circuit, the circuit will sustain steady-state oscillations only at frequencies for which:
1: The loop gain is equal to unity in absolute magnitude, that is, |βA|=1, and 2: the phase shift around the loop is zero or an integer multiple of 2π: ∠βA=2πn,n∈{0,1,2,…}"
by em3rgent0rdr - An even wilder guess: the speed of sound varies with air density.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound#Altitude_variat...
If they were calibrated assuming a certain distance from the microphone that "hears" what the wearer's ear is hearing and the ear itself, then it's possible a change in air density could position the area of highest constructive interference at the eardrum instead of the intended destructive interference for some frequencies.
by userbinator - Interesting. I have roughly 50,000 flight miles on the new AirPods Pro 3, and while I do prefer them to the 2s, I too have some annoyances with the left AirPod. In my case it never feels like it fits my ear canal quite right, to the point that I thought I might want different size tips - after trying all the tips, that's not it. The seal is in fact good, but the different feel is noticeable.
The noise cancellation also feels a bit more variable - when it's good it's significantly better, but sometimes I get cycles or loops where the algo doesn't seem to be working right.
I was mulling over getting custom tips, but it's a good reminder it might just be easier to downgrade.
by vessenes - Wow you fly a lot! These things are out what, 2 months? :O
Doesn't that get exhausting? I used to have a job where I'd be on a plane every week and I couldn't hack it. It's supposed to be liberating to travel but basically just seeing the inside of a plane, taxi, meeting room and hotel room every day it was more like a moving prison. Sometimes I'd sneak out to walk through these strange places. But often I'd be forced to attend boring business dinners.
My last business flight was in 2018 and I don't miss it at all :) I even cancelled my corporate amex since I never use it anymore. And these guys keep asking for copies of ID and stuff for tax records or something (completely stupid because yes I'm still the same person duhhh) so in the end I just rolled my eyes and told them to stuff it where the sun don't shine :P
by wkat4242 - Exact same issues here with my APP3s. (Except it's my right ear)by plexicle