As we’ve talked about recently, the AirPods Pro 3 is a pain in the butt to measure, but difficulty doesn’t mean people should feel okay providing subpar measurements.
That’s why we went through the effort to make sure all of our measurements for the AirPods Pro 3 were as well done as they reasonably could be (and equally importantly, labeled correctly), so people can see what is going on under the hood here.
Note that Andrew (our resident squigpiggy) is currently in the middle of a move, so there were certain conditions that couldn’t be idealized and certain time constraints that we had to work within to get this data out there. But we wanted to make sure you all had something reasonable to chew on for when we published our full review, which can be seen here:
Without further ado, here are our measurements, with their specification outlined:
Compensated, typical visualization from The Headphone Show
Thanks for this. Did you check out Soundguys and their Youtube review? They seem to have gotten different frequency response measurements depending on the security of the fit.
I think that this is an erroneous assessment on their part. If the wear sensor is off, while the earbud can still play sounds, numerous functions are deactivated, like ANC, so it should be very, very easy for anyone to quickly notice something is wrong.
What’s likely happening is that their 5128 pinna might be less reliable to trigger it than human skin, but it’s their job to do it properly anyway like HP.com did.
A quick note in regards to the above measurements, in particular the ANC off ones, I think that the differences below 1kHz and especially the notches can be explained by the 5128’s tendency to show “rocking” modes that may not occur in real human ear canals, combined with the ANC off Adaptive EQ function working in a different way from when the feedback loop is activated (all other modes), and not having the capacity to apply very fine grained filters to counteract these notches.
This measurement was done in a clone 711 coupler with putty to stabilise the Airpods to avoid any rocking mode and the difference is lesser.
On a separate note, I would say I agree with most aspects of this review—indeed the fit/feel is better. I didn’t realize you could simultaneously have an AirPods Pro 2 bud in one ear and a v3 in the other - when I did v2/v3 direct comparison on same tracks there is a significant and easily discernible difference at the same volume (v2 sounding much better in my opinion). Just returned my V3’s today. Apple may come out with a FW update to improve this, as I can’t imagine the device is actually physically inferior from a HW perspective.
It looks as though there was another firmware update on the APP3 around December 11th. Firmware 8B30. I’m seeing some comments on Reddit and a video on YouTube by Aaron X Loud with a frequency response graph. Looks like increase in sub bass, smoothed and more forward upper mids and slightly recessed treble compared to previous. Can anybody confirm? I’ve only seen this one FR graph and nothing on squid so I was curious if anybody else could confirm.
I just gave my APP2 to my wife and switched back to the 3 and they don’t seem as V shaped as I remember when I fist got them around release.
Just got these. First listened to them straight after unboxing them (so the firmware they are shipped with). Then right after, updated to 8B30 and the sound quality + tuning improved significantly. They are still more V shaped than the APP2 but a lot less than the release firmware they are shipped with. The treble has smoothed out as well, sounds less peak-y. The ANC white noise sound is reduced too.
I preordered the APP3 and have used them from the start. The original scooped profile did had a better soundstage than earlier models, but the bass was certainly too much. The scoop led me to run them louder than I liked, and following the firmware update I’m playing them softer. Apple could fix this issue by adding a simple “flat” or “V” setting, but bullying arrogance is the Apple way.
