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Comment by dinkleberg | Hacker News Reader

They were such a game changer for me. I used to be a big “audiophile” and spent more than I’d care to admit on headphones.

AirPod pros sound very good. Not as good as a really good audio setup, but good enough for pretty much everyone out there. The noise cancelling is really good. And best of all they are so comfortable.

Idk if I’m gonna have some weird cancer in 40 years from wearing these all the time, but I love them so much.

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Can you elaborate on your previous auditory experiences? I'm checking for Steve Jobs/ Apple's reality distortion field. I've seen many recommendations from people who have upgraded to Apple from bad products (e.g. This iPhone 12 is so much better than the Android phone from 2017 which I paid $300 for), as opposed to a fair competitor. In this case, have you used other high-end headphones released recently?

Not OP but I have a pair of nice IEMs, open and closed back headphones and a headphone amp on my computer.

For serious listening sessions I will still plug my IEMs into my phone, but the Airpods Pro are just really convenient and sound good enough that at this point, 90% of my mobile listening is done through them. The sound cancellation is nice and better than my sennheiser momentum m2s (audio quality on those is better than the airpod pros but they have apt-x which is the difference maker, but does not exist on ios yet)

Same. 90% at ... 5x/10x the cost delta is more than good enough to prefer the AirPods.

I’ve owned and tried many headphones from different high end companies. Sennheiser HD800 were my staple for a while. But I’ve also had grado, Hifiman, and some “boutique” options.

Airpod pros don’t give you the same experience as a high end setup. But you come to realize you’re enjoying the headphones more than the music itself. Or at least I did.

With the airpod pros the quality and the overall experience is good enough that I don’t even think about them, just whatever music or audio I’m listening to.

Check out the frequency response curves yourself of the airpod pros [0] and say, an open-back sennheiser hd650 pair [1]. The airpods have a huge bump at about 1.5kHz to 3.5kHz (mids), while the sennheisers are more neutral in low frequencies but also have a bump at ~3kHz to ~7kHz.

Nothing will beat open-back headphones on a good system, but apple's stuff as of late is plenty good.

[0]: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/apple-airp...

[1]: https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/hp/sennheiser...

I had a similar experience, having used EarSonics IEMs and own a pair of custom Noble Audio ones too, alongside Hifiman open headphones with a nice DAC/amp. The sound doens't compete at the same level, but it's so convenient, feels way more comfortable than any of the above, and quality is adequate for me to enjoy the music I listen to, so in practice I've barely touched all the other cool audio gear I have since I bought the Airpods Pro.

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