Airpods Pro 2 noise cancellation worse after firmware update 7A294

I also have this same issue. So disappointing. Having it being so good to what it is now is shocking.

Maybe we'll get an answer from Apple one day..

No improvement, no communication.

I did factory reset by opening the case and holding the button for 15 sec. After I pair it back looks like ANC started to work again. At least loud TV became hardly heard. I will test it more next few days.

I experienced the same issues that others have posted here. I’m on version 7B19 and was still experiencing poor noise cancellation. The fit test often failing one or the other ear and after fiddling with it I could correct it. I am using the large tips. I then bought some memory foam tips, took the foam off its plastic tip and added it to the apple tips such that the original AirPod tip outer sleeve rolled back over the foam. The AirPods now fit in my ears firmly without any fear of them falling out and the noise cancellation is excellent. I can only summize that my AirPods did not fit right even when the fit test passed.

Do not use noice cancelling headphones as hearing protection! Because of the physics of the whole thing I suspect you can possibly cause more damage with noice cancelling headphones than no protection. Use plugs designed for hearing protection.

Same problem for months, it's tiring.

Apple has changed headphones several times, instead of acknowledging purely software changes (APP1 and APP2).

I love Apple's products (IPhone and AirPods Pro) but this culture of secrets is getting tiresome.

The new pair to come won't be AirPods Pro.

ANC is becoming essential in today's society. Without it, no matter how good the sound, headphones are worthless.

You’re right. The reversed polarity (in relation to natural sounds) signal of noise cancelling systems doesn’t do harm.

But the ear has muscles and they react to the environment to protect ones hearing. When you are exposed to loud sounds the muscles in your ear contracts to function as natural hearing protection. That’s why it’s more harmful to remove plugs from your ears in the middle of a loud concert than not wearing them in the first place. While wearing plugs, your ears ”thinks” this is the amplitude they are exposed to. And when you remove the plugs the sudden change in amplitude happens faster than your ears can adapt, leaving them more vulnerable to loud sounds.

Noise cancelling is a digital process and therefore it is impossible for it to react to sound instantly.

At a band rehersal setting there is always going to be transient material slipping through the noise cancellation. A transient from say a loudly hit snare drum at close proximity has great amplitude. Why I’m afraid this might be harmful is that since the tonal material you are hearing is significantly more quiet then its natural unfiltered version, your ear might adjust its natural protection to this level, still being exposed to almost full level transients.

Hope this helps!

I may have worded it incorrectly, so I’m sorry for that. But what I meant was to keep the ANC active. Yes, I do realize that adaptive means canceling out less noise, but there was a passive setting within the adaptive settings I was referring to that would somehow fix the issue that most of us are experiencing with ANC currently. However, I have since returned them because the fix didn’t last for very long, so I’m not even sure where to find the setting that I was referring to anymore. Best of luck though. I’m truly hoping they get it fixed, because I would love an updated pair! Went back to my first gen pros for now 🥲

Oh, I think I see the original confusion here. The Apple forum is quite bad at showing when someone replies to another comment here. My post about not using APP2s for protectioin was an answer to this post:

"Same here. It's so frustrating because I am a guitarist of a rock band, and I use my AirPods Pro as ear protection in loud shows. It used to have the perfect amount of noise reduction in adaptive mode. Now, even in noise reduction mode, I can hear much more noise than in adaptive mode. I was so happy to have found the perfect protection for my ears, and now Apple took this out of me."

Since noise cancellation is a digital process it cannot be instantaneous. There is an AD and DA conversion before the out of polarity (cancelling) signal hits your ear. An AD/DA conversion always takes time. At least a millisecond or two. With miniature consumer grade converters, probably a lot longer. That's why there is extremely loud transient material, like the attack of drums, that is not being cancelled.

My comment about using APPs for protection was not a comment on the OPs post about the development or worsening of the software. It was simply to warn the person using them as protection, so that they will not damage their hearing.

I noticed this morning that I have to put in both to activate the noise cancelling. I usually put one in at work to have my background noise and still hear when people approach me.

Now it says I have to put both in.

when just wearing the one the background noise is just too much. Very annoying, and amplified.

This stinks!

Actually when you have one AirPod in your ear and the other one in the case it won’t let you do noise canceling or transparent noise because it’s a function of the product. But if you just take one out and leave it out the case it can stay in noise cancelling once you press play for audio.

Sorry about assuming that the sudden lack of working ANC had anything to do with the introduction of the new hearing aid feature which coincidentally was introduced at the exact same time, but could we at least have some explanations from Apple themselves? Was it that they had been sued due to the use of a patented algorithm of a competitor? Is it correct that this downgrade happened with old AND brand new devices at the same time?

I thought I was going crazy. I kept checking to see if I had accidentally changed to transparency but it’s always on noise cancellation. Not only can I hear everything now, there’s a noticeable fan like sound when ANC is on for me. It’s ok when I’m listening to music but I listen to a lot of audiobooks and it just sounds bad now

User to user support forum.

Apple isn’t here and doesn’t respond to any posts here.

With tens of millions of AirPods being sold every year, a few disgruntled people on a user to user support forum means nothing.

mine are great and I’m very pleased with them.