I’m so confused the EarPods test shows the Passive Soundstage result is (2.8 Score) but the AirPods Pro 2 have (0.8 Score) somehow worse than the EarPods… Surely this is a mistake in typos cause the AirPods Pro 2 have very good passive soundstage especially compared to the EarPods lol it’s night and day you can’t even compare them.

Hi, in Headphone Accommodations settings do any of the options, Balanced Tone, Vocal Range, Brightness, help the AirPods Pro 2 sound more neutral ? Also does Spatial Audio affect the frequency response in any way ? Thank you in advance

Jan 21, 2025 11:55 PM By ThogXX

6

Hi, in Headphone Accommodations settings do any of the options, Balanced Tone, Vocal Range, Brightness, help the AirPods Pro 2 sound more neutral ? Also does Spatial Audio affect the frequency response in any way ? Thank you in advance

Hey there, We’re going to look into these requests and see about measuring these EQ modes. We don’t typically measure the frequency response of spatial audio modes because they don’t always capture the actual listening experience, but we’ll look into it. Thanks!

Jan 23, 2025 10:08 AM By  Jasper Lastoria

Hey there, We’re going to look into these requests and see about measuring these EQ modes. We don’t typically measure the frequency response of spatial audio modes because they don’t always capture the actual listening experience, but we’ll look into it. Thanks!

Hello, I also believe testing this can be valuable. I wanted to note that this is not part of spatial audio. But it also doesn’t seem like a direct EQ, it just elevates certain parts of the song to be louder using software (compressor maybe?), but it sort of works like an EQ. There is also a strength slider too.

Jan 16, 2025 05:07 PM By Jashar7

1

I’m so confused the EarPods test shows the Passive Soundstage result is (2.8 Score) but the AirPods Pro 2 have (0.8 Score) somehow worse than the EarPods… Surely this is a mistake in typos cause the AirPods Pro 2 have very good passive soundstage especially compared to the EarPods lol it’s night and day you can’t even compare them.

Because the airpods pro have a closed design, while the earpods are open back

Jan 16, 2025 05:07 PM By Jashar7

1

I’m so confused the EarPods test shows the Passive Soundstage result is (2.8 Score) but the AirPods Pro 2 have (0.8 Score) somehow worse than the EarPods… Surely this is a mistake in typos cause the AirPods Pro 2 have very good passive soundstage especially compared to the EarPods lol it’s night and day you can’t even compare them.

Hi there, For Passive Soundstage, the score distribution is as follows: 15% PRTF Accuracy (Std.Dev.) 15% PRTF Size (Avg.) 20% PRTF Distance 20% Openness 30% Acoustic Space Excitation

Like Metalpheonix45 mentioned, the Apple Earpods score higher in Passive Soundstage because they obtain a much higher Openness score. This score is calculated and taken from the inverse of the Noise Isolation test score.

We are planning on improving this box and possibly looking at a different way to calculate Soundstage.

Cheers, Dagobiet

It would be amazing if you could add a checkbox to your reviews to identify earbuds with Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling. The Apple AirPods Pro (2nd gen) have this ability and it is life-changing for those of us who have difficulty hearing people in noisy environments. It actively reduces background noise, but lets voices through. With these, I can finally hear my family at the restaurant instead of nodding in agreement when I have no idea what they just said. I no longer need to asking them to repeat themselves.

Thank you for all you do!

Mar 10, 2025 11:08 AM By RtingsUser8901728

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It would be amazing if you could add a checkbox to your reviews to identify earbuds with Adaptive Active Noise Cancelling. The Apple AirPods Pro (2nd gen) have this ability and it is life-changing for those of us who have difficulty hearing people in noisy environments. It actively reduces background noise, but lets voices through. With these, I can finally hear my family at the restaurant instead of nodding in agreement when I have no idea what they just said. I no longer need to asking them to repeat themselves. Thank you for all you do!

Thanks for the feedback, it will be considered. we will start looking for this feature I agree it is a good info to transmit.

Dec 17, 2024 12:48 PM By RtingsUser1545816

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Hi RTINGS team, Your comfort rating for Airpods pro 2 states “While this doesn’t affect all users, some people have solved this issue by purchasing foam ear tips, which mold to your ear.” I wanted to know if using third party foam tips will affect the sound quality and/or ANC negatively? also do you recommend any from a specific brand such as comply? Thank you in advance! Adi

I’ve been using foam tips on my AirPods Pro for several years. They have much much better passive noise isolation, which helps the overall noise reduction greatly (night and day difference, not a slight improvement). Sound quality is also better to my ears because of the reduction in unwanted background noise.

Would be cool to see test results with foam tips…

Without the target curve in the graphs I find it very hard to see the changes in frequency response with ANC ON vs OFF.

May 16, 2025 02:52 PM By Metsuki

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Without the target curve in the graphs I find it very hard to see the changes in frequency response with ANC ON vs OFF.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. I see what you mean; typically we’d just overlay the ON and OFF FR on the same graph, that way you can directly compare the two settings. In this case, we took the approach of individual graphs due to the AirPods changing their frequency response depending on the listening level; it likely would’ve been too cluttered if we had everything on one graph (though as you said, we could’ve included the target). I’ll flag this with the rest of the team and see if we can generate an On/Off graph using a typical listening level.