When you enter the building that houses Apple's audio labs at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, you're greeted by a pair of giant MartinLogan Monolith III electrostatic speakers standing in the small lobby, almost looking like sculptures. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs donated the speakers to Apple's Audio and Acoustics Design team, "as inspiration for the successor to Apple's first high-fidelity loudspeaker system, the iPod Hi-Fi," according to a plaque that sits between them. That successor turned out to be the HomePod, which was announced in 2017, almost five years after Jobs' death.
On the plaque is an iconic photo from 1982 by Time photographer Diana Walker that shows Jobs, age 27, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his sparsely furnished home with a pair of "similar but less advanced" Acoustat Monitor 3 electrostatic speakers and his stereo and vinyl collection behind him. "Steve Jobs was well-known for many of his passions, though less well known that high-fidelity audio reproduction was among them," the text underneath the photo reads.
Enlarge Image Close-up of the plaque. David Carnoy/CNET
Apple's HomePod speakers have had mixed success, but its AirPods, first released in 2016 and initially mocked for looking like Q-Tips, are the best-selling earbuds worldwide (with Beats buds), according to market researcher Canalys. AirPods have helped spur the massive proliferation of headphones and earbuds, turning them into essential accessories for iPhones and other phones, while profoundly impacting how people navigate their worlds.
The original AirPods had an open design and lacked the greatest sound quality, particularly in terms of bass. Those were the early days of true-wireless buds, when just having a hiccup-free Bluetooth connection and good voice-calling performance were competitive advantages.
With each iteration of the AirPods, Apple has made performance improvements, and the company's latest flagship noise-canceling earbuds, the AirPods Pro 3, feature upgraded sound quality and noise-canceling that takes them to another level.
Steve Jobs didn't live to see the release of the AirPods. In many ways, the latest version, even more so than the pricey and bulkier AirPods Max, represents the fulfillment of his ultimate audio aspirations for Apple. You can even hear echoes of his 2006 iPod Hi-Fi introduction in Apple's marketing language for the AirPods Pro 3.
"What is home stereo quality, you could ask?" he said then. "Well, if you were an audiophile, what you'd say is four things. One, if you close your eyes, there's a soundstage around the speakers, the speakers disappear acoustically, and there's like a stage around the speakers where you can hear the performers performing; it's much larger than the speakers. So a large sound stage." He then goes on to list the other three things: precise imaging and separation, a wide frequency range and room-filling power without distortion.
Now, jump to the AirPods Pro 3's product page, and you'll see this near the top of the page, listed as the first highlight: "An exceptional spatial listening experience with high-definition, three-dimensional audio."
Discontinued after just 554 days, the iPod Hi-Fi didn't live up to its lofty expectations. Apple ceded the concept of an iPod speaker dock replacing your home stereo to third-party iPod accessory manufacturers, choosing instead to focus on the iPod itself and the just-released iPhone, which arrived in 2007 along with the single-bud Apple iPhone Bluetooth Headset, the precursor to the AirPods.
That was probably the right choice.
At the time, not too many people would have guessed that Jobs' high-fidelity Apple speaker system would live on in a tiny set of wearable speakers. If he were alive today, someone might ask him to recreate that 1982 photo of him sitting on the floor with an even more minimalist vibe. Instead of tower speakers and a stereo in the background, there'd only be an iPhone 17 on the floor next to him and AirPods Pro 3 in his ears. (Some have commented on that room's less-than-ideal listening space due to its emptiness, with nothing to dampen the sound and reduce reflections. Yet the acoustics of the room would be irrelevant for earbuds listening.)
Apple wants you to know all this. Or at least it wants you to know how ambitious the AirPods Pro 3 really are, and how their engineering was based on years of research, not to mention learning from every AirPods model going back to the originals. That isn't easily conveyed given that, on the surface, most people might mistake the AirPods Pro 3 for the same lightweight glossy white plastic buds, which don't look like they should cost $249.
Granted, Apple's flagship over-ear noise-canceling headphones, the AirPods Max, have a list price of $549, more than double that of the AirPods Pro 3's. But their blatantly luxurious design -- aside from their case -- makes it easier to persuade you that you're getting a high-end listening experience. It's a bit harder to convince folks they're getting a near AirPods Max-like sound experience from a pair of tiny buds claiming to have the "world's best in-ear active noise cancellation," with nifty extra features: Live Translation, heart-rate monitoring, hearing protection and an enhanced Hearing Aid mode.
That's why, the day after its "awe dropping" event on Sept. 9, the company gave me a peek at its audio lab and later invited me to chat with Matthew Costello, Apple VP of hardware and audio engineering (and chief operating officer of Beats Electronics), and Eric Treski, Apple director of home and audio product marketing, for an on-the-record conversation.
Enlarge Image I was shuttled to my meeting in a golf cart after a rare intense September rain shower in Cupertino. David Carnoy/CNET
'Reinvented AirPods'
The first thing Costello wants to make clear to me is that, despite sharing a similar design aesthetic to the AirPods Pro 2, the AirPods Pro 3 have been "reinvented." That is, completely redesigned inside and out. Even their eartips, foam-infused at the top, have been upgraded. The only thing that's really the same is Apple's H2 chip, which powers both models.
Costello says the performance improvements start with the new design. "This is the first time from a design perspective where sound is being directed directly into the ear canal," he explains. "The external geometry really facilitates that, and we're really proud of how it unlocks a number of different capabilities. We also improved the fit significantly. The improved fit is actually helping us to predict what's happening within the ear canal itself. We're actually better able to compensate for leakage and predict variability. And we're better able to understand what's happening in the ear canal and making ANC [active noise canceling] more precise. As ANC is more precise, it's able to create more headroom for transparency."
The AirPods Pro 3 (right) look similar to the AirPods Pro 2 (left), but their designs are distinctly different. David Carnoy/CNET
Both Costello and Treski like to highlight the yin and yang of noise canceling and transparency and how features first introduced in the AirPods Pro 2, including Adaptive Audio and Conversation Awareness, bridge the two, while also helping with overall hearing protection.
Costello says the Pro 3's new "geometry" and a better seal from the new ear tips deliver improved "passive attenuation" and even "porting of sound," making the ANC system better at compensating at higher frequencies, so the mids and highs, particularly human voices, are "much more profound." That, and upgraded low-noise microphones, actually help with the buds in transparency mode, allowing you to hear the outside world -- and voices in particular -- more clearly and naturally.
The design changes also help unlock the improvements to sound quality, though a key component of those gains comes from a redesigned low-distortion 10.7mm driver and a new venting system that brings more airflow to the buds. As I said in my full review of the AirPods Pro 3: "The bass has more definition and extension -- it hits harder and goes deeper -- and the earbuds sound clearer, more natural and open with more sparkle in the treble." It's a noticeable difference, and their sound now rivals what you get from the very best-sounding earbuds. That said, depending on what I'm listening to, I do slightly prefer the sound from the more expensive Bowers & Wilkins Pi8, Technics AZ-100 and Noble Fokus Amadeus earbuds.
Sitting inside Apple's ambisonic reproduction system in its audio labs. Engineers use the system to test directional audio for noise canceling, transparency and spatial audio. Results from the tests are used to recreate and regulate the AirPods' sound using computational audio. David Carnoy/CNET
Some folks are skeptical about those performance improvements. I'm always a little wary when a company says its product is the "world's best" at anything, though I did agree with Sony when it said its WH-1000XM6 headphones, released earlier this year, had the best noise canceling in a set of over-ear headphones.
Sony has seemingly been obsessed with surpassing Bose's noise canceling for the last several years, but Costello downplays that notion for Apple. "Of course, we're always benchmarking [against the competition]. We do try to run our own race in terms of how we measure and making sure our claims stack up, both based on our benchmarking but also the feedback we're getting in the real world from our 'internal' customers." By that, he means rank-and-file Apple employees, some of whom own Bose and Sony products and are able to offer up comparisons.
In my own review of the AirPods Pro 3, I pitted them against Bose's $299 QuietComfort Earbuds (2nd gen), which were only released a few weeks ago in the US. A lot of reviewers said they had the best noise canceling, and I felt that way, too, until I tried the AirPods Pro 3. Then I wasn't so sure. I didn't feel I could declare one better than the other without running my own lab tests on a rather expensive rig that CNET doesn't own.
Even after I told people all that in a YouTube video, several viewers didn't buy that the AirPods Pro 3's performance improvements were that meaningful. One commenter posted, "I tend to think that with the same H2 chip 90% of the ANC improvement comes from the new foam tips, and the rest is Apple marketing. The same may apply to sound quality. We all know a good seal will improve sound -- in particular, the bass. My 10 cents."
"Upgraded microphones also make a difference," I responded. "I get a good seal with both models [AirPods Pro 3 and AirPods Pro 2]. That said, I agree that the seal is a big factor, and small differences can have a big impact. I think Apple would agree with you, too."
The comment about the H2 chip goes to the heart of some quips I've seen from people saying, "No H3, no reason to upgrade." There's some truth to that, as many features of the AirPods Pro 3, including Live Translation, also work with the H2-powered AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4.
However, while certain AirPods Pro 3 features and enhancements are being made available to the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 through firmware updates, the AirPods Pro 3 have software written exclusively for the earbuds' hardware upgrades and new acoustic architecture. That means the AirPods 2's sound quality and noise-canceling capabilities won't be getting any better. Nor will their transparency.
Enlarge Image Testing the AirPods Pro 3's noise canceling in the streets of New York. I compared them to the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd gen). David Carnoy/CNET
Like a lot of other people, I bought into the rumor that the AirPods Pro 3 would have an H3 chip, perhaps swayed by the 3 in the name. But I've also heard hints in earlier AirPods meetings that Apple hadn't tapped into the full power of the H2 with the AirPods Pro 2. And it certainly sees using its own silicon (chipset) as a key advantage over its competitors because it allows for better control of software and hardware integration, and to create unique features for its earbuds and optimize performance.
One of the differences between the AirPods Pro 3 and so-called real hi-fi set-ups (and plenty of other earbuds and headphones) is that they're missing an equalizer that allows you to tweak the sound to your liking, adjusting the bass, treble and mids. Steve Jobs was an analog guy who preferred listening to vinyl and didn't think too highly of digital formats at the time, according to Neil Young. But the AirPods Pro and other Bluetooth true-wireless noise-canceling earbuds are all-digital and governed by their algorithms.
Noise canceling typically has an adverse effect on sound quality, and audiophile brands like UK-based Bowers & Wilkins (recently sold to Samsung) and French company Focal have prioritized sound quality over noise canceling. (The Focal Bathys headphones, for instance, feature great sound but relatively light noise canceling.)
But Costello says the AirPods Pro 3 have hit a sweet spot when it comes to noise-canceling performance and audio quality. Thanks to the Pro 3's next-generation adaptive EQ, which uses microphones that sit just inside your ears to not only optimize but personalize the sound in real-time, both he and Treski seem to consider the lack of an EQ a feature, not a bug.
Treski returns to what Costello was saying about the new geometry of the buds, the tight seal and how a "direct line-of-sight into your eardrum" rather than obstructing "against the sides of your ear canal" is about having the best "predictability" possible.
"That's been really important for the engineering team," Treski says, "because then they can essentially use the algorithms that are built on our silicon of H2 -- it's essentially designed in concert with the acoustic engineers, of course -- to ensure that it has all the DSPs [digital signal processors] and equalization and everything they need on it to manage this capability, which allows them to predict and manage the ANC system in conjunction with the audio system. So it's pretty remarkable to see how one chip is essentially managing both of those things, and it's all done together rather than having two separate components or SoCs [system on a chip] that are essentially separate from one another."
Reviewing audio products is by its very nature a subjective experience. Everybody has different ears and different audio preferences. You'll find various opinions about the AirPods Pro 3's sound, including those who prefer the sound quality of the AirPods Pro 2 to the AirPods Pro 3's. I saw a review from an "audiophile" who said the AirPods Pro 3 have "improved sound quality, especially in the bass and treble, but the mids are recessed and the AirPods Pro 2 are more balanced overall." Fair enough, I guess. But you may feel differently (I didn't find the AirPods Pro 3's mids recessed; in fact, they seemed slightly clearer and more natural to me).
Some people were critical of Sony when it moved from its popular WH-1000XM4 over-ear headphones to the WH-1000XM5 and changed the headphone's driver size (30mm instead of 40mm) and sound profile, favoring more clarity and definition over the XM4's meatier, energetic bass. (With the new XM6, it dialed up the bass energy while improving the definition).
Though I do like some warmth in the bass, I personally lean more toward clarity and accuracy, which includes precise imaging and separation, the second most important attribute on Jobs' list for home-stereo audio quality. And the best headphones have a pure, natural quality to their sound, whether they cost $200 or $2,000.
Like with the AirPods Max, you can certainly debate just how good the AirPods Pro 3 really sound, particularly in comparison to other top-sounding earbuds, and whether their noise canceling is better than what you get with Bose's QC Ultra Earbuds (2nd gen). But ultimately, it's the sum of their capabilities in such a tiny package that's most impressive about them. There also may be more to come, as Apple has a habit of leaving off a few tricks when it first launches products (remember that the AirPods Pro 2 didn't have spatial audio when they launched). I tend to think we're not done hearing about the heart-rate sensor and future health applications for the buds.
At Apple Expo Paris 20 years ago, Steve Jobs said, "Frankly, music is very big. We tend to forget how big it is. With Bluetooth, songs take a while to download. And if you have Bluetooth headphones, you have to charge them as well as the iPod. People don't want to do that. Also, the sound isn't good enough."
I suspect he'd feel a little differently about the AirPods Pro 3.