Bakeoff: Apple AirPods Pro Gen 1 vs Gen 2 vs Bose QC Earbuds Gen 1

So today we're gonna test out the uh new Apple AirPods, the second generation pro versus the first generation for noise cancellation and for uh for mic stuff. I'm doing it in the car because cars are one of the best places to do this sort of stuff because they're they're almost uh you know sound insulated a little bit. So let's get started. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna use this little sleep machine noise maker, and I'm also gonna turn on uh the sound detection on my Apple Watch.

So right now, okay. So let's do this. Let's start with a benchmark here. 34 decibels with nothing. So let's do 10 clicks on here.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. It's about forty-two decibels, so about ten more. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. About fifty-eight decibels. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

About seventy. So forty-four, fifty-eight, and seventy are sort of the where this thing goes. So that's the sort of three levels. Let's go ahead and do AirPods number one. Okay, here we go.

This is first ten. Yep, about 41 decibels. I can just start to hear it now. 54 decibels. Definitely hear it now, 69 decibels.

So this is the first air pods. Let's take those out. Okay, got the second set of air pods in now. Now this is where it's saying noise levels reduced by air pods on the watch. So I can't actually get a good reading, but I can count the number of clicks like we've been doing.

So here we go, first ten clicks. Now it's saying on here 24 decibels noise reduced by airpods, but that's the first 10. I can feel it, I can't really hear it. Let's go to the second ten. I can hear it, but it's definitely quieter than the other set of airpods.

Like I can I more feel it than hear it, but I can tell that there's a white noise there. Let's take it to the third set of 10. Now this is saying on here, noise level 4748 decibels. So we would set 70, so that's a pretty big reduction bias. Um when it's at max going here, this is about 70 decibels when it's the scale look at cranked up, and on here it's saying of 46, 47.

So it's chopping about 25 decibels off, which is pretty impressive. That's up there with actual hearing protection, right? Your average hearing protection noise reduction levels between 20 and 30 decibels, depending on how it goes. That's that's pretty impressive. For calibration, let's go ahead and do the Bose QC earbuds now.

Now I've switched over to the Bose uh QC earbuds, the first generation ones. So let's see how we're doing here. Okay, here we go. Hear it now. Fifty-five.

That's 70. I heard around 55 on that one. So this is sort of the third way in. Alright. Okay, next what we're gonna do is we're gonna try testing this um the microphones against some wind.

What I've done is I've set up a leaf blower on my grill here. I'm just gonna stand roughly up here to start. Uh line it up with this lollipope and see how it sounds. It's gonna be both the wind and the noise. Okay, next up we have the generation one airpods.

Also got some nice cross breeze here, but we'll see how this sounds with the Gen One AirPods. Okay, now we have the generation two airpods. We'll see how these sound. So that was the test to see how each of these three microphones sound in really adverse conditions. So you probably wouldn't be standing in front of a leaf blower, but if you had to be, let's see how they sound.

All right. Well there you have it. Uh that was the noise cancellation test inside the vehicle and then the uh microphone test. Uh in terms of my thoughts, these are pretty impressive. These are pretty impressive.

Uh the noise cancellation was good. I felt like they were definitely better than the gen ones in terms of the noise cancellation. I could pick up and detect the noise right around fifty-five, sixty decibels, but it was definitely more muted with the generation twos versus the generation ones for the same amount of of noise. So it was detectable, but it was less, but it was still there. Um and the bows uh you know around the same level as well.

The microphones is where these things stand out. The Gen 1 microphone is okay, right? It's it's decent. The Bose QC uh earbuds microphone is just awful. Uh it you sound like you're in a tin can all the time.

These the microphone sounds good. If you would listen to carefully, just between the Gen 1 and Gen 2, it is a big difference in the microphone. Uh, the quality to the point where if I was out and about and I was going to shoot some video uh impromptu, right? I hadn't planned a shoot or anything like that. The mic on these is good, right?

It's not as good as like you know the the wireless lavalier that I'm using, the road lavalier. But for out and about, this is good enough. This is good enough to make good quality audio that you would be happy to have in you know your YouTube videos or wherever else it is you use video. The other thing I think is really impressive about these is the noise cancellation, having the meter on the Apple Watch that tells you how much it's cutting the noise by 20 to 25 decibels. That is at the level of um actual hearing protection, right?

When you start cutting 20 to 25 decibels, you're at a point where you know real hearing protection that you know your earmuffs or earplugs cuts that noise down. So if you are again on the road at an event at a concert or something, and it suddenly gets really loud, pop pull these guys out and put them in your ears, and you will reduce the amount of noise and potentially take dangerous noise levels back down to safe noise levels. That's pretty cool. Right. So combination of hearing protection, good microphone, good microphone, and uh good noise cancellation.

Is it as good as Apple says? Is it double the previous versions? Not really. Um, you know, I would expect double to be because decibels are logarithmic. I would expect double to be um, you know, five or six decibels greater in terms of the ability to cut.

And they cut around in the same amount, but they cut it differently, so I can detect it, but it's less loud at the same decibel levels. If I had to pick one of the three uh as my everyday, this would be it. This is it now, because I we paid for these. Um that they're better than the Bose QC uh edition ones. Now I have not tested any of the Bose QC earbuds uh generation twos.

Um they just came out, and having heard this now, it's a tough sell. It is a tough sell because they're more expensive, at 50 bucks more expensive than these. They don't do the everything the Apple's devices do, you know, the instant pairing and stuff like that. And the noise cancellation on these is really good. Like it's it's better than the Gen 1s for the Bose side of things, and it's good enough that I would be happy just with this on an airplane.

Right, I wouldn't need to use the other ones, which do better on an airplane than the Gen 1s too. But this is pretty good. So uh, in terms of which one, if I had to just pick one, this is it, the Gen 2 AirPods Pro. Apple did an amazing job with these, and while it might not live up to marketing's claims, it certainly lives up to my expectations about what a second generation product should be able to do. And yeah, I like it.

I like it a whole bunch. So that's the show. I would love to hear your experiences if you're testing out this gear too. If you've got a better way of doing some of these tests, uh, certainly the leaf blower test. I mean, that was just ridiculous, right?

Um, no microphone is gonna do well in that environment where we're pumping 650 cubic feet of air uh per second uh at these microphones. But I will say, having reviewed the footage, it is most intelligible with these. It's still not intelligible, right? It's you know, it's like standing inside of a tornado. Um, it's still not intelligible.

But the other two sets, the the version ones and the Bose QCs, you couldn't hear anything. It was just pure noise. These you could make out some of my voice, and that again, pretty impressive for a ridiculous test condition. So that's um that's the show. Like to hear your thoughts, leave them in the comments.

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