Apple Airpod Pros as active & "intelligent" earplugs

[Reezekeys]

I had a gig last night with a “little big band”, an ensemble of six horns & three rhythm, in a very small & live space. On my way there I realized I forgot my foam earplugs, then remembered my new 2nd-gen Apple Airpods Pro’s “adaptive transparency” feature. I decided to put it to the test rather than stuff my ears with toilet paper.

 

The transparency setting on Airpods Pros is where its built-in microphones send outside sounds to the bud’s drivers and gives you a few controls for what the DSP does with that outside sound. “Adaptive transparency” is Apple’s term for their update to the “regular” transparency setting of the original Airpods Pro. In not so many words, it’s a limiter; loud sounds are reduced in volume. That sounded like something that might work for a musician playing with a loud band! I hate wearing foam plugs as they muffle the highs, and I haven’t had good experiences with either custom-molded plugs or “musician’s earplugs” that claim even fr.

 

I’m here to say these beat the hell out of foam earpugs! I could hear everything with clarity (nothing sounded muffled) and the stage SPLs were much reduced - at one point I pulled one of the buds out of my ear to confirm that. Of course that’s mostly due to having these sealing your ears in the first place - same as in-ear monitors do. I didn’t hear anything that sounded “squashed” to me, as a traditional analog limiter might do. One strange thing I noticed is that these “DE”-verbed my sound! On certain slower pieces I like to add verb to my keys and despite cranking it up pretty high, I couldn’t hear any being applied. I think I know the parameter responsible, so will test with that backed off a bit or turned off. One thing I should probably mention is that to adjust these parameters you must use an iPhone or iPad - doesn't have to be yours though; all settings are retained in the buds.

 

This same “transparency” feature is what I use when I want these Airpods to be quasi-hearing aids, as I mentioned in the hearing aids thread. During the breaks, when I was chatting with people over the din of the crowd, I adjusted the settings a bit (turned up the gain and enabled “conversation boost”) and found I could talk to people in a crowd without asking them to repeat themselves.

 

I got these Airpods to enjoy the ANC on airplanes - not knowing I’d get to take advantage of these other features as well. Further tweaking will ensue, but for now I’m pretty optimistic they’ll make my gigs with louder bands much more enjoyable. I know I sound like an Apple shill but it can't be helped - this is my honest experience. I assume that real hearing aids do everything that I just described and a lot more, and do them better as well - but these were $200, not $2000!

[zephonic]

That’s great, and I would be all over that. But my regular airpods tend to give me headaches after a while. Anybody else have that?

[RABid]

I would love to be able to use the little Apple Airpods but they keep falling out of my ears. One Christmas I put the AirPods Max on my Amazon Christmas list and to my surprise my sister bought them for me. What a shock, but I use them often. Don't think I would use them on stage.

[kenheeter]

If the Bossa hearing aids don't work out, I'll be trying this next.

[Reezekeys]

55 minutes ago, RABid said:

I would love to be able to use the little Apple Airpods but they keep falling out of my ears.

 

The new G2 Pros ship with extra eartips, including a large. I use the mediums, which are what comes attached to the buds. I find them very comfortable and have worn them for extended periods without issue. They seem to stay in my ears just fine, though I don't do any heavy exercising.

 

55 minutes ago, RABid said:

One Christmas I put the AirPods Max on my Amazon Christmas list and to my surprise my sister bought them for me. What a shock, but I use them often. Don't think I would use them on stage.

 

Those things look like big earmuffs so I agree might not be suitable for stage! I bet you enjoy them on airplane trips though.

[Reezekeys]

5 hours ago, zephonic said:

That’s great, and I would be all over that. But my regular airpods tend to give me headaches after a while. Anybody else have that?

 

Not me, but a quick google search turned up a fair amount of hits on this subject. Possible causes I see are everything from allergies to the material in the eartips, sensitivity to EMF radiaton, "ear canal pressure" caused by the ears being blocked (I think the Airpods Pro have a small vent to help prevent that), "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity" (I never heard of that), and just a poorly-fit eartip.

 

If you wanted to try the Pros to see if they work better for you, get them from Amazon like I did; you'll save $50 off the Apple price and presumably have an easy way to return them if they don't solve your issue.

[zephonic]

4 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Not me, but a quick google search turned up a fair amount of hits on this subject. Possible causes I see are everything from allergies to the material in the eartips, sensitivity to EMF radiaton, "ear canal pressure" caused by the ears being blocked (I think the Airpods Pro have a small vent to help prevent that), "Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity" (I never heard of that), and just a poorly-fit eartip.

 

If you wanted to try the Pros to see if they work better for you, get them from Amazon like I did; you'll save $50 off the Apple price and presumably have an easy way to return them if they don't solve your issue.

 

I actually don't mind AirPods' shape, they sit in my ear quite comfortably, more so than the wired ones because the cord tends to pull at them.

 

I had the Pros, but never even took them out of the box because my experience with IEM's taught me that I don't like sticking things that deep into my ear. I ended up giving them to my wife, who lost hers and she absolutely loves them.

 

[DeltaJockey]

That's a very interesting story. I think I have the older Airpod Pros, and I mainly use them when playing my acoustic. They work so well over any other earplugs. They're my way of EQing the piano, as I have a bit of hyperacusis, and notes around 800Hz absolutely jar my right ear. The only drawback about the dynamic nature of them, is that if I stop playing for a few seconds, they mess the sound up for another few seconds until they get sorted again. I'm intrigued by the second gen adaptive transparency you mention.

I might have to do an update.👍

[Reezekeys]

5 hours ago, zephonic said:

I had the Pros, but never even took them out of the box because my experience with IEM's taught me that I don't like sticking things that deep into my ear.

 

Interesting you say that, because my sense is that the G2 Pros don't go that deep into my ear at all. AAMOF I'm surprised they stay in my ears as well as they do! After a while I barely know they're in there. Of course ears come in a very wide variety of shapes - I guess I got lucky.

[Motif88]

8 hours ago, RABid said:

I would love to be able to use the little Apple Airpods but they keep falling out of my ears. One Christmas I put the AirPods Max on my Amazon Christmas list and to my surprise my sister bought them for me. What a shock, but I use them often. Don't think I would use them on stage.

hmm, facts matter. AirPod Pro Gen 2 are in no way comparable to AirPods...and AirPods Max are a totally different product...

[zephonic]

3 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

 

Interesting you say that, because my sense is that the G2 Pros don't go that deep into my ear at all. AMAOF I'm surprised they stay in my ears as well as they do! After a while I barely know they're in there. Of course ears come in a very wide variety of shapes - I guess I got lucky.

 

How would you compare to IEMs in terms of fit?

[miden]

I'd like to ask what the latency is like?

Usage example? Getting the send from a mixer monitor channel. No backing trax.

 

Sorry for the OT question...

[Reezekeys]

34 minutes ago, zephonic said:

How would you compare to IEMs in terms of fit?

 

I've only used the low-end Shures (SE215) with Comply foam tips, so take this for what it's worth (maybe nothing!).

 

The Airpods are much less noticeable to me while wearing them than the Shures. I think that's to be expected since the Shures use an ear hook and have wires coming off them. The foam tips of the Shures do feel like they're going deeper into my ear than the Airpods' silicone tips. The Airpods feel almost weightless, but lacking the ear hooks & wires of the Shures probably has a lot to do with that. Also, the silicon tips on the Airpods are smaller and don't feel as intrusive as the foam tips on the Shures.

[Reezekeys]

47 minutes ago, miden said:

I'd like to ask what the latency is like?

Usage example? Getting the send from a mixer monitor channel. No backing trax.

 

I think you're misunderstanding how these Airpods work in the situation I've described. I'm not using them in the normal sense where they receive program material like music coming from your phone or computer. That uses bluetooth, which has latency. I tried playing my iPad and computer setup through them and it was a no-go; they won't work as any kind of wired or wireless in-ear monitor in the traditional sense. I'm only using them to process live audio using their built-in microphones, what Apple calls "adaptive transparency." It's intended for folks that like to listen to music from their phone on the go but need to hear sounds of the ouside world. I'm just using that mode without the "listen to music from their phone" part! There was no latency I could detect.

[aronnelson]

I was wondering about this. When there were fireworks and loud explosions, I put mine and on and it helped. I need to try it with music. 

[RABid]

11 hours ago, Motif88 said:

hmm, facts matter. AirPod Pro Gen 2 are in no way comparable to AirPods...and AirPods Max are a totally different product...

That is like saying an organ is not a piano, and a piano is not a synth. They are nothing alike. But actually they are all keys, and all in my setup. Air Pods, Gen 2, and Max are all systems to deliver sound into our ears. So I don't get why you needed to make that statement.

[D. Gauss]

been using these for years. 2 pairs of 'em for 5 bucks at walgreens.  i can't afford to have 200 dollars fall out of my ear and not come home with me

 

[octa]

Have been wanting a pair of AirPods for years. I use whatever cheap earplugs are around at practice (and hate the lack of treble) so I use nothing at shows. My ears are permanently ringing from this approach. Maybe AirPods will sound good enough for shows. Will give 'em a try. -- Watch out for knockoffs if you're looking for a deal. I see folks on Marketplace selling multiple units and they either robbed a truck, or might be selling replicants. 

[Reezekeys]

 

[Motif88]

9 hours ago, RABid said:

That is like saying an organ is not a piano, and a piano is not a synth. They are nothing alike. But actually they are all keys, and all in my setup. Air Pods, Gen 2, and Max are all systems to deliver sound into our ears. So I don't get why you needed to make that statement.

They are 3 different products at different price points and different features and benefits. Making broad statements that lump them together doesn’t help anyone…

[bfields]

Wirecutter had an article on the same subject recently, for what it's worth: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/can-airpods-pro-protect-your-hearing/

 

(They found the airpods in adaptive transparency mode made a loud concert more enjoyable; but that in the scenario they tried, the volume, though reduced, was still above safe levels.)

[Reezekeys]

That's a good article, thanks. I very much agree with what they mentioned near the end - "We were left wishing for an option that was quieter than the hear-through mode but louder than the noise-cancelling mode." IMO this would be a killer feature - I envision a slider that could continuously vary the balance between ANC and transparency. Maybe the G3 Airpods will do that.

 

I wonder if the testers experimented with the transparency settings the way I did on my gig. You're able to vary the level of the outside sound sent to the bud's drivers (while we were playing I had this slider at its minimum setting):

 

 

You can also vary what I'm guessing is the amount of high end with the "Darker - Brighter" slider. The effect of the parameter below that (ambient noise reduction) was to lower the din of the crowd between songs! I'm not sure what it does while we were playing, but I suspect it had something to do with hearing my sound "DE-verbed" as I mentioned in my original post here:

 

 

And finally, there is this parameter which I assume boosts a little around 2K, although Apple is also claiming the microphones are "focused" to an area in front of you - like a variable-pattern microphone? Who knows, but as I mentioned in my OP I did enable this and boost the amplification when talking to people during our breaks and it really does help:

 

 

 

[octa]

Picked up a pair of AirPods Pro G2 at Target on the way to band practice and gave them a go. I didn't have time to mess with settings other than turning on Noise Cancellation and tried Transparency a little. For the first couple of songs things went really well. These were a couple of our mid-tempo more laid back tunes and it was like listening to a cd, could hear everything more clearly than usual for sure. But then the loud songs started, and I'm right next to the drummer in the narrower end of a living room. His snare drum started clipping out or overloading the AirPods and I was fearful that something was going to blow so I switched back to the regular cheapo earplugs. I'm practicing with an even louder drummer in a couple of days, and will have time to tweak settings this time. Now that I've figured out which tips fit my ears best, I think the seal created by these AirPods would make for better-that-average ear plugs, even without noise cancellation turned on. -- Listened to an hour or so of music just now on the Airpods and I'm definitely happy with the sound quality. 

[Reezekeys]

48 minutes ago, octa said:

I didn't have time to mess with settings other than turning on Noise Cancellation and tried Transparency a little.

 

There is a learning curve with these guys. Of the two DSP modes (noise cancel and transparency) you should be using transparency. But as my graphics a few posts above show, I would put the "Amplification" at minimum! Also you must make sure "Adaptive Transparency" is ON (I didn't include a screengrab of that). If that switch isn't on then the pods will not limit the external sound!

 

There's a lot of menu diving to do and seeing you post "I didn't have time to mess with settings" has me guessing you didn't set things up correctly. 

 

Settings--->   (your name)'s Airpods Pro ---> (here is where you switch Adaptive Transparency ON and this MUST be on!)---> Accessibility--->   Audio Accessibility Settings ---> Headphone Accomodations (tap and turn ON in the next screen)---> Transparency Mode--> turn ON Custom Transparency.

 

I left out a lot of other parameters which don't have a direct effect on using these as active earplugs. This one might: on the same page where you turn Headphone Accomodations ON, I would probably choose "Balanced Tone" under "Tune Audio For" - for myself, I made an audiogram using the Mimi hearing test app.

 

 

NOW (finally!) you're on the page to turn down the amplification - you likely want this on the low end (as I said I turned mine down all the way - you don't need to amplify the other musicians!). I would probably put "TONE" towards the left ("darker") and turn OFF "Conversation Boost." Scroll all the way down to the bottom of this page to make sure you're actually in Transparency Mode:

 

 

If you do all this, you'll be in a much better position to give these things a fair shake. Good luck!

 

[EDIT - I'll add a suggestion to keep your phone near you with this Setting app for the Airpod Pros open so you can adjust the settings while you play - I found this necessary at my gig, especially since it was the first time I was trying it!]

[octa]

You’re correct. I basically opened package and off we went. Will dig into your suggested settings before next practice and report back afterwards. Thanks. 

[octa]

Reezekeys: Adjusted following your recommendations. I didn’t add the AirPods option to Control Center but glad it ended up there. Ready for Tues evening practice. 🤞👂

 

 

[MathOfInsects]

This is a really interesting thread. Thanks for sharing this idea. This may be the excuse I've been waiting for to pick the AirPods. My only hesitation is not necessarily wanting to have those hanging from my ears during gigs. But my current earplug situation is not completely satisfying either, so I've been curious about an option like this. 

Thanks again. 

[Reezekeys]

I'm glad this thread has spurred some interest in these little devices but I'd like to throw up a small caution flag, only because I'd hate to see anyone be unhappy after spending $200 or more on these based on my one experience (so far) on a gig! I do think these helped cut down the SPLs of the gig while letting me hear clearly - something regular earplugs never did. However I can't say that they attenuated levels enough to be called 100% safe. This is a really big "YMMV", I think. I don't play super-loud gigs anymore, if only for the reason that none of those bands are calling me to work with them! 🙂 

 

Today I had a little different experience - a duo gig with a singer, and on a real acoustic piano; the kind of gig I would consider safe to play without hearing protection (the singer had a small PA for herself but the piano was unamplified). I was reading charts on my iPad (using ForScore). Because there were some tunes I had never played before, I decided to enter the tempo information for each song (the singer gave me a sheet listing all the tempos). I connected the iPad to my Airpods and sent the metronome click to them. As she was introducing each tune I activated the metronome for a few seconds. This worked great and was really useful. You know what else is just insane? I found out I could use my Airpods to turn pages in ForScore! There is a setting for that - it uses the head tracking info that the Airpods generate for their "spatial audio" feature to tell ForScore if you're turning your head left or right, and will advance or go back a page when it detects that. I tried this at home and it worked, but I had too many instances of unintentional page turns for me to feel confident using it on the gig. There are some sensitivity settings that I can mess with so I may work on this more. I believe this is only doable on the Airpods Pro (1st & 2nd gen) or the 3rd-gen Airpods.

[aronnelson]

This could  be the plugs we have been waiting for. Been using the custom earplugs since forever (in SF) with varying success. Tried all sorts of different earplugs and none were worth anything other than taking  away any tone I had worked so hard to get. (Guitar and keyboard).

Good tips here!

[octa]

Used the AirPods at practice today with same loud band but used Reezekeys’ settings this time. Very happy with the results. Definitely going to continue wearing them at rehearsals and while I rarely use plugs at gigs, I may occasionally wear these AirPods if it’s an exceptionally loud situation. Thanks!

 

I’m hoping to find a way to get iPhone to display dB levels (and amount being attenuated) in real time. It displays these when background noise is activated but that comes along with white noise/waterfall sound efx so that’s no good.