Is there an objective way to measure this so someone would know it's getting worse? Seems like it would be really subjective if not.
Under the Isolation section here they have leakage (sound spilling out to others) and isolation (noise canceling). Keep in mind that dB is nonlinear, and the test results depend a lot on how well the testers fit the headphones on the head - so I would only consider these to be approximations within 1-3 dB of the real value.
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tools/compare
Rtings hasn't (yet) done a pre/post update comparison for the AirPods but you could use the same methodology.
The HyperX Cloud II are a good (isolation/leakage-wise) set of 'normal' over-ear headphones which you can compare the numbers to if you've never used ANC and are curious. And the Sony WH-1000XM3 / Bose 700 are the leading noises canceling over-ear headphones.
Best 25k INR (was around 30% of my monthly salary == monthly rent) I ever spent.
And that rent is for a single room in a 4 room apartment. :(
The rent for the entire apartment equals my monthly salary.
The only thing that would make me happier is if they made a model with more passive sound isolation / insulation. The noise cancelling is awesome, but it can only do so much. I would gladly pay for this in increased size and weight. The amount of outside noise I want to hear is zero.
There are a couple of small things I’d change, primarily making it easier to connect/toggle between multiple Bluetooth devices (right now I either have to disconnect on the first device then connect on the second, or turn the headphones off and then on in pairing mode). Also it would be nice to have a clearer visual indication of whether they are on or not and what the battery level is - the battery life is great, but it’s quite easy to not realise they are low and/or leave them on by accident.
I’d highly recommend them anyway. Great for an office environment. Personally I did find a slight discomfort to the noise cancelling at first but very quickly adjusted, so this seems to be a very personal thing.
But apart from that they're very comfortable and the NC is awesome.
In principle it should be possible to do standardized testing of any set of headphones or earphones with a properly designed Dummy Head, similar or the same to what is used for things like generating binaural audio recordings. There at least were a number of major Dummy Head designers back when I last looked for something else, though I don't know what the current state of the market is. But basically you have something that physically simulates a human head, including both physically simulated ear pinnae and the ear canals, with microphones embedded within them that have a high enough res and response to completely cover the human discernible audio frequency range.
Obviously it won't tell the exact effect for any given individual because the shape of our ears varies. But it would be possible to have a completely open 3D/material/mic standard that would cover the max range, and could then be used to quantify and objectively compare all aspects of head mounted audio products, not just noise cancellation but audio reproduction. I assume this isn't a thing already in part because a lot of manufacturers are perfectly content without universal objective comparisons, since that would reveal a lot of high cost kit that isn't actually delivering any gains.
Audio has a huge array of analyses that can be performed, and the output can be interpreted in a huge number of ways, but Artemis had a fascinating data-flow architecture that made generating and interpreting audio, graphical and numerical data relatively easy (once you climbed the steep learning curve). It decoupled project management, input data, analyses, and output destinations in a way that made engineering easy.
I haven't worked with any software like it before or since, but would do another project in a heartbeat! Tragically, it's locked behind a proprietary $$,$$$ license, front-end, and calibrated recording hardware. But here's a screenshot to give you an idea: https://i.imgur.com/XXzlP2b.png. If you get serious about buying a head and fronted, call them up and get a demo.
You nailed it: https://www.soundstagesolo.com/index.php/features/178-eardru...
Maybe a seating problem?