AirPods Pro (2nd gen) noise cancellation problem.
I just got the 2nd gen AirPods Pro. I have them on the latest firmware (5A377) and connected to an iPhone 14 Pro Max with iOS 16.0.2. I was using them at the gym today and noticed a strange behavior. While playing music from the Music app, the sound from left bud would get muffled then clear up then muffled again then clear up, all while sound in the right bud stayed normal/consistent. It kept happening throughout my 75 minute workout. At first I thought it was spatial audio, so I checked but that was disabled. I even when into the AirPods settings and turned off personalized spacial
audio but that didn’t make a difference. I disconnected the AirPods from Bluetooth then reconnected, but the issue came right back. Next I restarted the phone, but the issue came right back. Adjusting volume didn’t do anything to improve or worsen the issue with the left bud.
The last thing I tried was to turn of noise cancellation (set to Off, not to transparency mode). That fixed the issue.
When I got home, I removed the AirPods from my phone and factory reset them, then reconnected to my phone. I didn’t use them again until another later that evening. They were fine for most of the time, but there was a period of 5 minutes or so where the left bud started acting up again, but it resolved itself. (I had noise cancellation on the entire time).
Is anyone else experiencing anything similar? I know that firmware 5A337 was a “day one” bug fix release, but I don’t know if the issue I experienced was the original bug or something new. Or maybe I just got one bad earbud?
