The Airpods Pro 3 Flight Problem

AirPods Pro 1 had that issue

I mean... I did too, but you do know it's actually optional, right?

You are locked in your mind only ...

In which ear(s)?

During the operation of engines that emit loud noises such as lawnmowers and pressure washers, I've had similar experiences. With the lawnmower, the deafening roar reached both ears the moment the blade struck a stone. Using the pressure washer, it was highly unpleasant to hear the loud abnormal noise, possibly caused by splashes or wet components touching the microphone. I believe the abnormal noise from the lawnmower could be resolved with a software update.

LOL, if they share any insight in this problem it will be along the lines of "you're wearing them wrong".

Other other brands dynamically do this, so you don't need to do any recalibration manually. Bose Ultra headphones, for instance, seem to do this dynamically all the time. You can tell this happens since the ANC slowly ramps up as you get a better seal on your ears.

Ya

> surprised it took author this long to realize it

I don't think "realize" is the right word here. "Realize" would require them to have been affected by this issue but unaware. Instead, they were not affected with their previous models, only with the new ones.

> I don't know why Apple chose to "upgrade" it

Of course you do. If they do not constantly upgrade, there are no new sales. Charts must go up, not stay flat. As an example, the venerable Technics 1200 turntable only had a few version releases for fairly minor cosmetic usability items. The core functionality did not change since it was designed. Those versions came with years in between. You buy a pair of those, and you only replaced them when they were stolen. If something broke, you repaired it. Apple's share holders will not be happy with buy once keep forever items.

I could always have more ANC, I want feedforward ANC so strong that I don’t have to listen to showtimers on the subway (still not there yet)

i disagree here - having a feedback loop that makes loud noise instead of cancelling is fundamental failure of their ANC algorithm. There's basically no protection mechanism incase of divergence.

None of the Apple tips work for me, they all leak outside noise and slip out of my ears. I've tried nearly every 3rd party tip on the market, the AZLA ones are the best but with caveats. The Xelastic tips [0] provide the best comfort, noise cancellation and stay in your ears perfectly, but they wear out and become too soft quickly - like every two to three months. The Max tips [1] are durable, stay in properly, and are so comfortable it's easy to forget you have ear buds in. They're not so great at the noise cancellation though so I tend to use these as my every day tips and swap them for the Xelastics when I'm going on a flight or somewhere where the ANC is more important. I haven't tried the Crystal ones yet.

[0] https://store.azla.co.kr/collections/sednaearfit-series/prod...

[1] https://store.azla.co.kr/collections/airpod-pro-ear-tips/pro...

Edit: I didn't know the Crystal ones existed until posting this, so ordering some now to see if they're the best of both worlds. If I remember, I'll report back.

Wow you fly a lot! These things are out what, 2 months? :O

Doesn't that get exhausting? I used to have a job where I'd be on a plane every week and I couldn't hack it. It's supposed to be liberating to travel but basically just seeing the inside of a plane, taxi, meeting room and hotel room every day it was more like a moving prison. Sometimes I'd sneak out to walk through these strange places. But often I'd be forced to attend boring business dinners.

My last business flight was in 2018 and I don't miss it at all :) I even cancelled my corporate amex since I never use it anymore. And these guys keep asking for copies of ID and stuff for tax records or something (completely stupid because yes I'm still the same person duhhh) so in the end I just rolled my eyes and told them to stuff it where the sun don't shine :P

I feel like I'm in-between sizes or something. The medium Apple eartips are more comfortable but tend to sit farther out of my ear canal and feel like they're working their way out. The small eartips stay in more securely, but sit uncomfortably far into my ear canal and lose seal when talking or putting my head in certain positions. I eventually settled on the mediums and have become accustomed to the feeling of them "falling out" even when they're not.

But yes, odd to hear that other people also have issues with the left ear fit, because they must be identical shapes. I wonder if human physiology averages to the left ear being smaller or something. Although I feel like the right ear falls out more easily if I switch to the small tips...

I had a fit issue with Airpods Pro 2 in my left ear. It would always pop out after 20 minutes of rowing. I tried different ear tips, but none of them really worked. ANC is only medium-important to me, so I'm using Airpods 4 with ANC.

Concurring with sibling, AZLA does make good aftermarket tips. I have my Airpods Pro 2 in my work bag and still use their "crystal" tips.

Weirdly, I have fit issues in my left ear, too, like others. Very odd.

Exact same issues here with my APP3s. (Except it's my right ear)

I've never had in-ears that use the same size tips. I always just assumed I was the oddball with weirdly mis-sized ears, but I'm pretty sure everyone has it to some degree and just always accept one subpar fit rather than use differently sized tips.

Use normal ass headphones that cost $5, problem solved even better. I think wireless earbuds are the dumbest product ever made. They are worse than normal headphones in every way.

Sounds like you are stating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkhausen_stability_criterion (1921):

"if A is the gain of the amplifying element in the circuit and β(jω) is the transfer function of the feedback path, so βA is the loop gain around the feedback loop of the circuit, the circuit will sustain steady-state oscillations only at frequencies for which:

1: The loop gain is equal to unity in absolute magnitude, that is, |βA|=1, and 2: the phase shift around the loop is zero or an integer multiple of 2π: ∠βA=2πn,n∈{0,1,2,…}"

I just had a thought, it's possible to completely disable ANC in settings, turning them into "dumb" bluetooth headphones. (Enable "Off Listening Mode" in Airpods Settings and the option will become available in Control Center.) If some of us who are able to replicate this effect consistently could try turning ANC off and seeing if the effect still occurs, that would narrow it down to being feedback related from Transparency/ANC or being something external like back EMF.

I just tested this myself and the two ways that I am able to get consistent squealing (stroking the upper body when in-ear and cupping them in the hand) both fail to replicate when ANC is off. So this does point to a feedback issue.

My other thought is that the APP3 may have microphones located next to the drivers in the ear canal, both for measuring fit, and for the new "own voice amplification" feature that appears in hearing control center if you enable Hearing Assistance. Maybe vibration is leaking through the body to the inner microphone.

An even wilder guess: the speed of sound varies with air density.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound#Altitude_variat...

If they were calibrated assuming a certain distance from the microphone that "hears" what the wearer's ear is hearing and the ear itself, then it's possible a change in air density could position the area of highest constructive interference at the eardrum instead of the intended destructive interference for some frequencies.

That doesn’t explain why the issue seems to be specific to left APPs.

Yawning alters the conformation of the external auditory canal by displacing the mandible, which articulates with the tympanic plate of the temporal bone adjacent to the canal.

The seal might be so good that a small pressure differential happens as cabin pressure drops, which causes some issue with the microphone or speaker. Yawning might break that seal, or otherwise cause pressure equalization. Why only the left one? Apple might put some kind of special signal diagnostics or sensors in that side that bugs out under those conditions, or maybe human anatomy on the left side is consistently subtley different in a set of people.

Because this doesn't happen to everybody it could be some kind of "instrument effect" where the particular shape of someone's ear canal, and the interaction with their ear drum and the speakers and sensors in the app creates this tone, likely assisted by the constant driving signal of air cabin white noise.

Pushing to release something every year. That's a really dumb strategy. Managers forgot about the golden triangle of: "good, cheap, fast", out of which you can pick only two, but they have decided to pick only "fast".

I'm using some Apple products, and I'm concerned about the drop in quality. Soon they won't differ much from yet another, Chinese company.

I think the general neagtivity might be from a $250 set of headphones that aren’t great in all situations.

It’s not just an apple problem, but expensive tech just doesn’t seem to work well. generally apple were kinda the gold standard, now they’re having issues like a lot of tech.

Same. I've been on a number of long haul flights since getting my 3's and they have been great. They do fit very different than the 2's, and took me a few hours to get used to them.

I understand though that not everyone wins the ear hole lottery. For some the 2s may fit better than the 3's and vice versa. It's interesting to me that Apple made such a large fit change without considering 2's are simply better for some people fit wise.

Same here, and I wonder if this is down to shifting pressure in the ear-nose-throat axis. The fact that yawning seems to remediate the issue, and also is a way to equalize pressure, makes me suspicious.

I feel a bit the same. I rushed out to upgrade for the better noise cancelling, apparently better mic quality and live translation feature.

All three have been a miss. Noise cancelling is much the same and seems to leak higher pitch noises more. Mic is more or less still bad and the live translation only works in doors in a quiet room.

And I resent the upgrade to 26 and all of the bugs like phantom notifications.

They’re still good ear buds and the noise cancelling is valuable but I shouldn’t have made the upgrade from the 2 pros.

Ahh lastly, it seems the case battery depletes much faster now too.

100% agree with the required update to 26, I was hugely bummed when I discovered I had to update my devices to pair them.

I've had the opposite experience with noise cancelling though, the APP3 feel like magic when I'm working with power tools - better than any other (passive) ear protection I've tried in Noise Cancellation mode, and still enough protection in Transparency mode that I can use my circular saw without any discomfort. I did experience a little of what you're mentioning the other day, but only when my Airpods (and head) were close to the tool. I thought it might be back EMF.

I have no complaints with my APP3 other than the forced iOS upgrade. I feel like they fit much better than the APP2, I have had far fewer incidences of them working their way out. And sound quality is a huge leap forward IMO. Best IEMs I have ever heard.

I'll say, I recommend my Honeywell sync earmuffs for the workshop. They block more noise, have a physical volume knob and accessible buttons, and best of all, the microphone is also noise cancelling directly, meaning you can usually have a conversation with someone while using a power tool or mowing the lawn without much issue. APP2 or 3 for me has never been able to displace these.

Are you sure that the perceived reduction in noise corresponds to a reduction in damaging sound pressure levels?

I know about destructive interference in theory, but was always curious about the perceptual vs real SPL.

Whenever I’ve tried ANC (Bose) it’s always hurt my ears, even when quiet.

> the APP3 are what forced the upgrade to iOS 26

I resisted, did not upgrade, and I have to suffer through Apple's spiteful treatment of my AirPods as "just another Bluetooth device". You can't even see the battery status, the battery widget will show three headphones (!). I find their attitude annoying and disturbing. There was no reason to degrade the experience.

In case anyone says "but new iOS is required to make use of the fancy new features/protocols/whatever" — that is not true for functionality that existed in AirPods 2. I know, because they didn't have the time to break things on the Mac, so my Airpods 3 work exactly the same on the Mac as Airpods 2 did: they show battery status as expected.

you need to stay up to date to protect against 0 click hacks in the wild

Having to jump to iOS 26 just to use the new hardware, only to find out it's not up to par, makes it feel like a double hit

hearing aids, in general, have the some problems and they operate on similar principles - sound is isolated physically, and the outside world is transmitted digitally to the ear/ANC when needed.

Anecdotally, my APP3 have worked much better then expected when I worked with a drill and jigsaw this weekend. No weird noises and much more NC than the 2 had.

Might be worth trying different ear tips or asking for a replacement if software updates don’t improve it.

I replaced the silicone tips with memory foam, which fixed this problem for me.

I have been able to trigger it when fumbling around with adjusting the fit. If I run my finger over the top of the body I can get a brief squeal out of them. Happened just a few seconds ago. I also have noticed on multiple occasions that if I take them both out of my ears and cup them in the same hand, they squeal audibly enough to hear faintly from a couple feet away. The skin contact sensor is very sensitive.

However, unlike a lot of other commenters in this thread, I feel like the APP3 are a huge leap forward from the APP2 and have had zero regrets with the upgrade (other than the forced iOS 26 upgrade, but I feel like that's inevitable anyway.) They stay in much better, the fit is more comfortable, the battery life is better, the ANC probably drops background noise another 10db subjectively, and most of all, the sound quality is absolutely stellar. I have owned several midrange headphones and a portable DAC and I find myself preferring the AirPods over them. I haven't worn my Sennheisers since I got the APP3.

The horrible thumping is purely a fit issue. The solution to the thumping when running is to either size down the tips or to slightly dislodge the tips from your ear.

It’s not ideal, I’ll grant you that.

While we may have some overlap in issues, I would say that the Airpods Pro 3 are incredible. I’ve ditched my Airpods Max entirely. The noise cancellation works too well, the sleep detection is a godsend, and the battery life is so good. I use my airpods to sleep. before, i’d always wake up to dead airpods. now, they have like 70% batteries when i wake up, because the sleep detection kicks in.