AirPods Pro active noise cancelling on human voices

[EA666]

I bought some Airpods Pro last week and both me and my wife were a little confused about the ANC performace of these headphones. When using the Active Noise Cancelling option both of us could still hear the TV playing in the backround and general conversations. I thought it was me at first but when my wife said the same thing I decided to return them back to Currys. The date on the box was 08/2020.

 

[Steven]

@EA666

Did you test the active noise cancelling with background sounds at a different (lower) frequency such as engine noise prior to returning?

I appreciate you have (had) a specific usage case in mind

 

[EA666]

@EA666

Did you test the active noise cancelling with background sounds at a different (lower) frequency such as engine noise prior to returning?

I appreciate you have (had) a specific usage case in mind

never got to take them outside however things like the extraction fan in our shower room was present with ANC activated.

I even tried them after updating the firmware and no improvement.

 

[noiseboy72]

Most active noise cancelling is designed to allow speech to still be heard while reducing constant or more distant noise. This allows you to wear them on a train and still hear someone trying to talk directly to you, but not the general cacophony of the train itself.

In short, any local point source noise will be heard, but more distant or less distinct sources will be significantly attenuated.

 

[EA666]

Most active noise cancelling is designed to allow speech to still be heard while reducing constant or more distant noise. This allows you to wear them on a train and still hear someone trying to talk directly to you, but not the general cacophony of the train itself.

In short, any local point source noise will be heard, but more distant or less distinct sources will be significantly attenuated.

interesting. I have since replaced the AirPods Pro with the Sony alternative and they are much better than the AirPods Pro with ANC. The issue with the Sony are they don’t fit as nicely as the apple AirPods Pro in my ears..... my wife has since inherited the Sony’s as she finds them more comfortable. I’ll wait till November manufactured stock of AirPods Pro start to surface in stores.

 

[ChuckMountain]

Did you toggle it to see the difference?

I find on my new ones that voices are reduced quite considerably but as @noiseboy72 states they are more for background noise. My old Bose over the ear ones were not as good as these. The higher frequencies require faster processing to combat effectively.

Transparency mode when you toggle that is quite bizarre at first

 

[electech]

I bought some Airpods Pro last week and both me and my wife were a little confused about the ANC performace of these headphones. When using the Active Noise Cancelling option both of us could still hear the TV playing in the backround and general conversations. I thought it was me at first but when my wife said the same thing I decided to return them back to Currys. The date on the box was 08/2020.

My new AirPods Pro arrived yesterday and I have experienced the same thing regarding still being able to hear the TV and general conversations. I will try them outside tomorrow when I go for a walk, perhaps they will work better outside. The Which website gives them a very high Best Buy rating.

 

[Rina1108]

I had the same issue, but thanks to you all for the information. It makes sense, that the noise-canceling system works only for indirect surrounding noises. I tried it out at least in my case it works.