ANC Affected? 🤔 AirPods Pro 2 Firmware 7B19 on iOS 18.1 - How to Update?
New Features With iOS 18.1
The new update for the AirPods Pro 2 7B19 is directly related to three new hearing aid features, which are only available with devices running iOS 18.1 and later.
The first new feature is a Hearing Test which will measure the sensitivity of your ears against 4 specific frequencies. This test takes around 10 minutes, and it creates an audiogram which can be accessed from the Health app.
The second feature is called Hearing Aid, which uses that same audiogram to personalize the tuning signature of the earbuds for videos, music and calls. It also improves transparency mode to help you hear even more of the ambient sounds and voices around you. However, if the measurement senses that your hearing is not impaired, these changes aren’t applied.
The third feature is Hearing Protection, is currently only available in the US and Canada, so I’m not able to test it. It essentially limits loud environmental noises, not so different from active noise cancelling, but applied across different listening modes. (Found out that I could set the phone’s region to US, and access Loud Sound Protection. Will publish the results on my main channel.)
Beyond these features, we also want to see if there are any performance-related changes to its sound, noise cancelling and mic pickup compared to the previous firmware 7A305, both on the Lightning connector and USB-C versions of the AirPods Pro 2.
AirPods Pro 2
Mic Test
In terms of microphone pickup, the USB-C version seems to react a little slower to background noise, while the lightning version maintained the same performance as on the previous firmware. This was tested with a voice recording because the results will be more consistent whether on iPhone, Android, Mac or PC.
👉 Have a listen to the microphone samples.
(The recording was made under both quiet and noise conditions using really loud cafe noise and wind noise from a fan.)
ANC Test
For active noise cancelling on the lightning version, if we observe the decibel meter, it seems to be cancelling more noise, but the recording itself seems to be a little louder. Most likely it is cancelling more noise, but in the lower frequencies, while a little bit more midrange noise seems to be getting through. On the USB-C version, similarly , a little more noise in the mids seem to be getting past the filters. However, since the mics do tend to amplify the difference, most people likely won’t notice.
👉 Have a listen to the ANC samples.
Sound Quality Comparison
As for sound quality, frequency sweeps show that there are no major changes to the overall sound signature. But we do see some small changes in the 2khz region and the region beyond 16 khz. On the lightning connector version, there’s a little more change above 9khz compared to the previous firmware, which brings it closer to the sound profile of the USB-C version on 7B19 compared to firmware 7A305.
👉 Have a listen to the sound quality samples.
Conclusion
Overall, I am picking up some changes in the noise cancelling and sound, while mic pickup remains largely the same, except for the USB-C version seeming a little less reactive to noise. If you guys detected any change that wasn’t covered in this review, comment down below.
