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AirPods Pro 2 Mic Quality - Very Bad
- Thread starter appleofmyibook
- Start date
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Hopefully we have the solution https://www.macrumors.com/2023/03/21/ios-16-4-voice-isolation-phone-calls/
Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I'm one of the people having issues with the AirPods Pro 2. When walking in a windy environment and talking in a phone call (or FaceTime, or Whatsapp, anything really) the other person can barely hear me, complaining I sound like under water or talking through a pillow. I can reproduce that with anyone using AirPods Pro 2 in windy conditions.
At this point I don't think this problem can be solved, so I'll try a different approach: does anyone know of good alternatives to the AirPods Pro 2 that are less sensitive to wind during phone calls? I cannot find much by searching, so I'm hoping on someone having some experience in this forum.
At this point I don't think this problem can be solved, so I'll try a different approach: does anyone know of good alternatives to the AirPods Pro 2 that are less sensitive to wind during phone calls? I cannot find much by searching, so I'm hoping on someone having some experience in this forum.
Yes, the problem can’t be solved. Definitely. The only way to mitigate it is enable the voice isolation. Have you tried it?
Yes I have! It makes it even worse. Because then it clips my voice away (mistaking it for background sound) and you can't even hear the muffled/through the pillow/underwater voice anymore. So it's an absolute disaster.
Any alternative products that work well instead of the AirPods Pro 2 in a similar format? Has anyone found anything?
Originally posted on Reddit:
This specifically pertains to FaceTime as that is the app I tend to use the most.
FaceTime microphone quality with the AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) is bad. It appears that the microphones use some sort of automatic gain control that freaks out occasionally. The speaker will often sound muffled and/or quiet after brushing their hair, beard, or fabric against the AirPod. Sometimes one doesn't even need to do that, the voice is present but unintelligible. Whether the phone is in Standard or Voice Isolation doesn't matter.
With the AirPods Pro 1 I can activate Music SharePlay, pause the music, and switch the mic to the iPhone using the mute button. For some reason they got rid of that feature with the AirPods Pro 2. If you have both sets you can try it for yourself. Voice intelligibility is night and day between the iPhone mic and the AirPod mic.
In some environments the AirPod mics are flat out unusable. I've had to resort to using wired headphones without an inline mic connected to the Apple USB-C to 3.5mm dongle at the office. It works beautifully, but then why did I pay $200 for a headset that can't function as a headset?
It's not an issue of Bluetooth bandwidth limitations. I'm not expecting 48KHz 32bit 256Kbps AAC. I fully understand the limits of CVSD, mSBC, LC3, AAC-ELD, etc. All I'm expecting is voice intelligibility and that's a function of mic quality, Bluetooth is not to blame here.
Read this:
https://medium.marco.zone/apple-imp...nt-to-bluetooth-audio-since-2009-2079abc607af
This has been an issue for two generations of AirPods Pro now. It's also happening with me on the receiving end of terrible AirPods mics so it's not my sets. No amount of having Apple replace the AirPods helps them either.
FFS Apple, let us choose the the onboard microphone on iOS. We can do it on macOS, iOS shouldn't be any different. Are you afraid we'll see how terrible the AirPods Pro 2 mics are?
This specifically pertains to FaceTime as that is the app I tend to use the most.
FaceTime microphone quality with the AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) is bad. It appears that the microphones use some sort of automatic gain control that freaks out occasionally. The speaker will often sound muffled and/or quiet after brushing their hair, beard, or fabric against the AirPod. Sometimes one doesn't even need to do that, the voice is present but unintelligible. Whether the phone is in Standard or Voice Isolation doesn't matter.
With the AirPods Pro 1 I can activate Music SharePlay, pause the music, and switch the mic to the iPhone using the mute button. For some reason they got rid of that feature with the AirPods Pro 2. If you have both sets you can try it for yourself. Voice intelligibility is night and day between the iPhone mic and the AirPod mic.
In some environments the AirPod mics are flat out unusable. I've had to resort to using wired headphones without an inline mic connected to the Apple USB-C to 3.5mm dongle at the office. It works beautifully, but then why did I pay $200 for a headset that can't function as a headset?
It's not an issue of Bluetooth bandwidth limitations. I'm not expecting 48KHz 32bit 256Kbps AAC. I fully understand the limits of CVSD, mSBC, LC3, AAC-ELD, etc. All I'm expecting is voice intelligibility and that's a function of mic quality, Bluetooth is not to blame here.
Read this:
https://medium.marco.zone/apple-imp...nt-to-bluetooth-audio-since-2009-2079abc607af
This has been an issue for two generations of AirPods Pro now. It's also happening with me on the receiving end of terrible AirPods mics so it's not my sets. No amount of having Apple replace the AirPods helps them either.
FFS Apple, let us choose the the onboard microphone on iOS. We can do it on macOS, iOS shouldn't be any different. Are you afraid we'll see how terrible the AirPods Pro 2 mics are?