AirPods Pro 3: Insulation material in the earbuds improves ANC
Apple's ANC earbuds have never suppressed more noise: With the AirPods Pro 3, Apple also gets a helping hand from physics.
User with AirPods Pro 3: Apple advertises twice as good ANC, but doesn't achieve this through software alone.
(Image: Apple)
How much better is Apple's active noise cancellation (ANC) in the new AirPods Pro 3? After recent rumors suggested that sound and ANC had not improved significantly, Apple is now officially advertising that the devices can remove up to "twice as much noise" as the previous AirPods Pro 2 model. The company even refers to it as the "world's best active noise cancellation." However, as it now turns out, this was not achieved solely through software.
No new audio chip in the AirPods Pro 3
According to the specifications, the AirPods Pro 3 still contain the company's "H2 headphone chip." This chip is quite old, having been introduced in 2022 with the AirPods Pro 2. The only new feature is the U2 ultra-wideband chip, which is located in the MagSafe charging case and enables more accurate location tracking with certain other devices (such as the iPhone 17). So how did Apple manage to improve the ANC so much?
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The answer to this puzzle lies in the hardware itself. Apple has optimized the shape of the earbuds and tested them on more ears to cover as large a target group as possible. In addition, five different sizes of interchangeable "ear tips" are now included, and the iPhone's "Acoustic Seal Test" software can be used to determine the right size.
Foam-filled earbuds
The ear tips themselves improve ANC: they are now filled with foam. This ensures "better passive noise isolation," writes Apple. This enables "dramatically more immersive listening experiences" on the go. The company has not revealed what software optimizations have been made to ANC. However, there is room for improvement: this is the only way to prevent the transparency mode from sounding muffled due to the denser "Acoustic Seal."
The U2 find chip has a shortcoming that Apple only mentions in the fine print: the 1.5x improvement in the location radius via precision search only works with iPhone 17 models and the iPhone Air. The U2 is also already included in the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. The technical reasons for this omission (or any reasons at all) are currently unclear. The AirPods Pro 3 will go on sale this week.
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