Before the firmware update, they were a bit pressure-heavy and would create the "stuffed ears" feeling that I'm familiar with from Bose nausea-inducing headphones.
A little while ago, they stopped doing that, which was really nice, but I didn't quite notice and they continue to cancel noise to the degree they always did.
EDIT2: I noticed a couple weeks ago that noise was leaking into my AirPods, so I re-did the ear fit test and this time it said they weren’t a good fit. I went one size up and now it said they were, and honestly now it’s better than it was on old firmware when I first got them. I bet that’s about when the firmware update happened! Maybe the noise canceling changed slightly because the tip fit algorithm changed slightly.
EDIT: "Stuffed ears" notes for a bunch, since I guess I'm "lucky" to be sensitive to this:
AirPods Pro: minimal but present until it was gone w/ update
Beats Studio Pro 3: not present since purchase ~2-3 years ago
Bose QC15: not present since purchase 10-15 years ago
Bose modern (past five years): significant presence, did not have a chance to test differing levels of cancellation
One thing I've been thinking that he didn't touch on, is that in-ears are 1) smaller 2) closer to the eardrum.
There are fewer paths the sound can take, so it should be possible send signals that are more precisely out-of-phase.
Another thing I've been thinking about is that the brain uses phase information of sounds to localize sounds. So if ANC changes leaves a small residual signal with a messed up phase, it may be confusing for the brain.
If you don’t experience it, you can rest safely knowing that most ANC will be fine for you :) Drop by an electronics store and test a Bose QC35 to verify, it’ll either be super obvious or not.
With both AirPods Pro and Beats Studio Pro, if I leave them unpaired to anything and with noise cancellation active, I forget that I have them on because it's so noninvasive and occasionally knock them off my head by accident.
Can’t speak for OP, but noise canceling headphones are good for low-frequency noise, while passive hearing protection is better for high-frequency. For that reason I use headphones while bicycling — it blocks the loud engine noise and lets me better hear localizable sounds like tire swish.
Ah ha! I was wondering why the fit check app started to tell me I needed to change my ear tips. Sadly, I'm already on the big size ones. I've summoned memory foam tips from Aliexpress. crosses fingers
This feeling makes my Bose unusuable unless I'm listening to music. They always default to noise-canceled enabled when you turn them on. So every time you turn them on, you have to disable noise-cancelling in the app.
I ordered some AirPods Pro, so hopefully that feeling doesn't exist while using the noise-canceling. At least you can disable the noise-canceling without opening an app.
If you have the 35s you can rebind the side button to change the level of noise cancellation. It will still default to full but you can switch it to half (which gets rid of the pressure imo) or off by pushing the button once/twice.
While I don’t suffer the pressure problem in any modern products (though I did in much older products) I still regularly use the QC35 half mode because
— It’s not affected by wind noise, whereas the full mode is. So it’s great when walking outside.
— It’s also less affected by rubbing and scuffing against the external microphone, so I use it when trying to rest on flights.
— And sometimes I prefer having that little bit more ambient sound, like when walking in a shopping centre. Too much noise cancellation can result in too little awareness of surroundings.
Is the stuffed ear thing like when a plane changes altitude? That makes people nauseous? I used to dive a lot so I got this a lot but I have never heard of people getting ill because of it. Maybe it is a different feeling but from reading the comments it is like that? I am weird though; I can play VR games forever (I played Skyrim VR for 6 hours straight last christmas while my friend who was over this week had to vomit after 15 minutes) and I like the popping feeling in airplanes. I also do phone calls with full noise cancellation on my Bose 35 headphones for hours and do not recognise the feeling from any description here. I do suffer badly from car sickness but not any other movement I tried. Diving + playing in a metal band when I was young really messed with my hearing (bad tinnitus etc); maybe that is related?
> Is the stuffed ear thing like when a plane changes altitude?
No, not really. It’s more like the feeling of being someplace persistently loud, except without the actual sound part, if that makes any sense.
It doesn’t make me nauseous, but it’s very unpleasant and tiring. I couldn’t handle wearing Bose noise-canceling headphones for any substantial length of time.
I've definitely noticed a difference, in that I can hear the hum of my desktop computer, where it was almost completely inaudible previously. Perhaps Apple could introduce tuning/options so folks can set their desired level of noise-cancellation?
Take a recording of the hum of your desktop computer by setting an iPhone next to (ideally, on a towel or pillow) your computer and using Audio Memo to capture a clean recording of the hum.
Then open an AppleCare support case and indicate that your AirPods stopped noise canceling a certain hum in your house a few weeks/months ago, and that you'd captured a recording of that hum with an iPhone and would like Apple to evaluate whether your AirPods are defective or the hum is by design found not to be addressed by their noise canceling.
At the very least, they'll probably let you provide them the recording (Support has a way to capture files electronically), and at best, they'll either execute a capture/swap of your AirPods for testing or tell you that this is within expected tolerances but thank you for the recording in case it helps them improve in the future.
This is a good opportunity to recommend Sennheiser PXC 550. They allow you to customize noise cancellation to your liking. There are other good things about them, and after trying Bose QC35 and PXC 550 for about a week, it wasn't a difficult decision to make. I've had them for >2 years now.
Is this not also maybe some weirdness with ANC? I have a solid pair of active noise cancelling cans (they're a hybrid in-ear/over the head setup) and they they're definitely inconsistent in what they filter out.
At home I could whistle and click my fingers and it would all be filtered, I was completely separated from body and mind as far as hearing went. As soon as I got on the tube, things started leaking through.
(I don't want to advertise, I just bought these cans on a trial/subscription basis, so I could feel them out for a month or so in the wild with minimal risk.)
Also! Test your ear tip fit again, in case they changed the algorithm. I recently had to change ear tips and maybe that’s why. They’re so much better now than they were before the update, too.
Compared with a coworker who updated his. This issues appears to be valid. Even bose has been sending engineers to peoples homes to test in their environment. Just an FYI
I don't know about you and your experience, but I used to have an issue with that "stuffed ears" feeling you're talking about; but I got used to it and I no longer even notice it.
It may be the same for you, if you also have the same issue with high-grade passive earmuffs. Most people who try on my 3M Peltor X5A muffs report a similar "stuffed ears" feeling.
Anyway, hope this is something you can overcome, because the far side of overcoming it for me was really great!
While I appreciate your optimistic assumption that “it’s something I can overcome” if I just grin and bear it, it’s been fifteen years and shows no sign of fading, so I’m not really holding my breath at this point. Clearly your perceptual system was able to do so using exposure therapy, but that isn’t at all universal.
Thank you for this comment. I currently cannot use my AirPods Pro in Noise Cancelling mode because of this stuffed ears thing, which immediately gave me nausea when I turned it on without anything playing. Now I'm looking forward to this update, although seems like Apple has since pulled it.
Has anyone else noticed the fit seems to worsen over the first week or two? Mine were perfect when I bought them. Now they lose the seal after an hour of wear.
This fact makes me suspicious that it might be an instance of comb filtering going on, which is often caused by the interference of a signal being summed with itself with a small delay. It is subtle and may cause the sensation described above, but I'm not really sure.
It's probably related but there seems to be a much wider bandwidth attenuation than you would expect with a typical comb filter phenomenon against a hard surface.
It's possible that the round surface is partly responsible for the width of the effect but it's pretty unique in my experience to inflated rubber balloons.
Before the firmware update, they were a bit pressure-heavy and would create the "stuffed ears" feeling that I'm familiar with from Bose nausea-inducing headphones.
A little while ago, they stopped doing that, which was really nice, but I didn't quite notice and they continue to cancel noise to the degree they always did.
EDIT2: I noticed a couple weeks ago that noise was leaking into my AirPods, so I re-did the ear fit test and this time it said they weren’t a good fit. I went one size up and now it said they were, and honestly now it’s better than it was on old firmware when I first got them. I bet that’s about when the firmware update happened! Maybe the noise canceling changed slightly because the tip fit algorithm changed slightly.
EDIT: "Stuffed ears" notes for a bunch, since I guess I'm "lucky" to be sensitive to this:
AirPods Pro: minimal but present until it was gone w/ update
Beats Studio Pro 3: not present since purchase ~2-3 years ago
Bose QC15: not present since purchase 10-15 years ago
Bose modern (past five years): significant presence, did not have a chance to test differing levels of cancellation