AirPod Pro Microphone Call Quality

My wife took me to pick up a pair of these tonight for Father’s Day.

Needing to ensure they would work for calls with the office and wondering how the mic performed, I thought to look here for input. I’m glad I did.

HEY APPLE - I’d already become a bit jaded over the years because of your engineered obsolescence to drive revenue, but in this case am not buying your product because you’re clearly just being ignorant of a big problem and unresponsive to your customers.

There are other options.

I had been using Plantronics Voyger 5200 for last couple of years. Finally I bought AirPod Pro in May. Since then everyone I spoke to complaint about background noise. Spoke to Apple technical support today and they told me that noise cancellation in Apple is only for user to cut back ground noise. There is no noise cancellation for microphone hence listener at other end can hear noise. As my AirPods are less than a month old, I am returning them to Apple and will switch back to Plantronics.

so lesson learnt. Don’t use AirPods for making calls in noisy environment

So finally I bought a new Plantronics Voyager 5200 and did a sound noise test. I opened my kitchen tap and called a friend. Asked him to record audio. While using Apply earpods pro he could hear water running. When I switched to Platronics, it went quiet. I did same test on road and again Plantronics cancelled all noise.

Funny. I’ve just purchased my first AirPods Pro and made two phone calls. First person said quality was bad and heard a lot of hiss. (It was windy outside). Second person said I sounded muffled. I shall be returning them for a refund.

I posted the same earlier and Apple removed my post. Not sure why it was censored. Let’s see if this one is okay.

I noticed Airpods Pro do not have HD audio for calls, like most high-end headsets. Noise cancellation is not enough these days, you also need HD voice. When in meetings we can tell the people using airpods for the bad quality compared with others using Jabra or Poly headsets. Hard to believe Apple launched high end headsets with no HD voice.

That’s because voice calls use a different codec than the version used for music. The libraries are maintained standards by Bluetooth community. Here’s a simple tutorial on variants submitted my mfgs and team members that have been adopted.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.soundguys.com/understanding-bluetooth-codecs-15352/amp/

Funny, I always get this complaint with Airpods. I don't have the AirPod Pros but I was hoping this was addressed. Looks like I'll stay put. People also seem to be reporting a number of issues with the external noise cancelling feature.

That is true, but that doesn't mean they can't implement an HD codec for voice calls. As I said, I use Plantronics (Poly) headsets that have both HD for voice and calls, and with voice for both receiving and sending.

I did a sound test between Plantronics Voyager 5200 and Apple Pro. Switched on tap and called my friend. There was a massive difference in voice quality. My friend could hardly hear noise of water with Plantronics. Apple Pro are pathetic for voice calls

A good way to see how do they suck (and I think it's the latest update, since people weren't complaining before) is to record a voice message and hear yourself back. The voice comes and goes.

I tried in all three modes (Transparency, NC, off) and it's all the same.

what They’ve done is over sample the codec. It’s not a approved codec that can simply be adopted. Bose for example, applies a proprietary EQ for all of their speakers. They have to be matched with their own apps to achieve their desired outcome. Taking Bose speakers and simply connecting them to another amp sounds horrible. Software and hardware need to work together.

when it comes to AirPod Pros, the problem with making voice calls has been problematic from the start, yet people are still trying to get them to make it through a voice call. Some are having success by turning off ANC, using only one and trying them with different devices but All of these fall short. At some point new hardware will fix this but for now, carry the AirPods for calls. They do well.

I get complaints from everyone when talking with my Air Pods pro in, that the background sounds are so loud it hurts their ears. I have tried using the noise cancelling option but doesn't seem to make a difference.

Just adding my support to this. Paid decent money for top grade headphones only to find the microphone quality in calls is so poor that I have to turn back to my phone. All background noise is amplified for whoever has called me, traffic, cleaning the dishes, typing on a keyboard. Anything just sounds loud to the caller and my voice gets muffled to the point they can’t hear me, but a car passing by almost blows their ears out it’s that loudly apparently.

seriously unimpressed how apple are just ignoring this!

Can anyone confirm the firmware version of their Airpods2 ?

I’m running version 2D15.

I ask because I very rarely charge my AirPods adjacent to my phone and may be well behind on the firmware version.

Cheers

I have problem left side microphone not working. Case quality very bad I never used without cover but it have lots of secratech on my case looks like i am using from last three years but it’s only 1 1 month😔