Apple

AirPods Pro 2

USD $249

Who'd be an Apple headphone engineer right now? I mean, sure, I would love a limitless R&D budget – but if you've already created the single best-selling headphone of all time, how do you improve upon it? And how do you know that your improvements aren't going to fall on deaf ears – or worse, upset the sacred user base?

Where there's a will, there's a way. Lo and behold, we have a new model – the AirPods Pro 2. Inside and out, there are some minor updates and decent improvements; a welcome upgrade but a very safe step forward. I would play it safe if I were the front-runner, too. So is it worth existing AirPods Pro users upgrading to this new model?

UP CLOSE

Visually, not much has changed from the last iteration. There's a new lanyard port, some speaker holes on the bottom of the case and a new vent on top of the earbuds themselves. Internally though, things are not business as usual. Apple has put new proprietary drivers into this latest model, presumably to once and for all eliminate the crackling issues that some had on the original AirPods Pro?

The case is where the most significant internal upgrades have happened. Finally, Apple has included 'Find My' features, so it now behaves like an AirTag so that you can hunt it down more quickly. It also includes an IPX4 rating in case you find it somewhere you rather it wasn't!

The buds are the usual brilliant design and some of the most comfortable I've ever worn, if I'm honest. They are lightweight and follow the ear's curvature to stay nice and snug even when I am running or boxing. This new model has touch volume control, which is valuable, albeit slightly too fiddly for my sausage fingers. Plus, many of my usual readers will know how I feel about touch controls on headphones; thankfully, the squeeze playback controls remain in place here.

THE LISTENING

This is the best true wireless experience you'll have for movies and TV shows. Hands down, nothing comes even close. The reason? Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. If you haven't tried these things together, you really should. The main summary is, think VR but for audio. You're placed in an imaginary room with the perfect speaker placement, and as you turn your head, the soundstage remains perfectly static, no matter where you look. Just like a true cinema!

With the newest iOS update, you can now enable 'personalised spatial audio', which uses the depth sensor in the iPhone to take a reading of the shape of your ear, to increase further the accuracy of using spatial audio. This authentic surround sound experience you can take with you on flights is incredible. Spatial audio is a neat novelty for music but not one I'm huge on personally, so thankfully, it's optional.

Yes, this is a mainstream product, but it's also among the best-sounding out there. The sound signature loosely follows the Diffuse Field target but with a nice meaty hump in the bass region to keep things fun and exciting. Adaptive EQ means the signature will change depending on the shape of your ear, so everyone is experiencing an ever-so-slightly different signature. It also makes them harder to measure. All the same, it's easy to see why the hype is so intense with these – there's a crisp, natural-sounding midrange, no painful sibilance up top, and a substantial dollop of sub-bass to boot.

My tests with call quality turned out positive; no complaints on either end of the line. And while I might dispute Apple's claim of noise cancelling being “twice as strong” as the older model, it's still one of the best performing noise cancelling buds I've used. The other notable change here is the ambient mode, which is now improved and one step further to feel like you're not wearing earbuds. Although it's still not perfect, and I still notice an amount of overall muffling, it is leagues ahead of many other brands attempting to pull this feature off.

THE VERDICT

The AirPods Pro 2 presents a new model with the same price, the same form factor, with some iterative updates. Those updates include new drivers, better battery life, improved noise cancelling and plenty of 'quality of life' upgrades. So is it worth the upgrade for existing AirPods Pro users? Probably not, if I'm honest. So yes, Apple has played it safe and made a fantastic product. I still hold the original AirPods Pro in very high regard and don't see any immediate need for someone to upgrade unless they must. But if you don't already own AirPods, what are you waiting for?

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