AirPods Pro 2 Firmware 7E93 changed mic pickup... again! 😯 (How to update?)
A new update for the AirPods Pro 2 has dropped! This is firmware 7E93 replacing 7B21. No new features announced, just ‘bug fixes and improvements. But not so fast! We’re going to see if there are any changes to their sound, noise canceling transparency and mic pickup. Here’s a spoiler for you, yes there is. I will also be testing the AirPods Max’s new lossless audio features when the update drops, because according to Apple’s website, it’s been delayed.
Microphone Quality
In terms of mic quality, something weird has happened. On the one hand, just with voice recordings, my voice sounds a lot cleaner, but on the other hand, noise gating is now so aggressive that it cuts into my voice. It’s still a huge improvement compared to 7B21 when there was little to no noise gating, but it would be better if my voice was more intact coming through the mics.
(Tested in both quiet and noisy conditions using loud cafe noise and wind noise from a fan.)
But that is over a regular recording. If you’re making calls on an Apple device you can do Voice Isolation mode which should have delivered better results, but now there is barely any noise reduction when I was making a zoom call. A far cry to when it was running 7B21. But I was also on iOS 17 back then so maybe iOS18 has something to do with it. Hope Apple picks up on this and fixes it
Sound Quality
In terms of sound quality, frequency sweeps show that there are barely any changes on the Lightning connector version of the AirPods Pro 2, but on the USB-C version, there seems to be more emphasis now on the upper mids and treble region, so on paper, it should sound brighter. Listen to the samples and let me know what you think in the comments below.
Active Noise Cancellation
For noise canceling performance, The USB-C version has no significant change, but on the Lightning version, it seems like there’s some kind of variance here which showed the noise canceling to be a little weaker in the highs and the lows compared to firmware 7B21.
But if you compare it directly now with the USB-C version on 7E93, it seems to be a little stronger in the mids and weaker in the highs.
Overall you shouldn’t feel like there’s a huge difference. In my view the difference is small enough that this is something that can only be seen by running frequency sweeps. Listen to the samples and let me know what you think!
Transparency Mode
In terms of transparency, not much has changed compared to the previous firmware except that both versions now have increased brightness in their transparency in the 2khz region, which may slightly boost the crispness of ambient passthrough, but overall, not much of a change.
Verdict
So those are the changes I’ve picked up on from 7E93, and having tracked every single firmware of the AirPods Pro 2, these changes are usually very small so I was surprised at what happened with the mic pickup. It’s headed in the right direction but Voice Isolation mode doesn’t seem to work as well anymore.
