AirPods Pro 3: absurdly good, still missing what we want

When the AirPods Pro 3 initially came out, I pretty much avoided even trying them out. I’ve heard AirPods before, right? How good can these be…

Well, sooner or later they made their way to my ears, and I have to say, I’ve been wearing them non-stop for the past week. And these are delightfully infuriating, just like every good Apple product is.

This fit is incredible

Take it from someone who typically has trouble wearing in-ear headphones. I have multiple sets of in-ear monitors for on-stage performances, just because I was looking for a decent fit. I also use multiple wireless earbuds for the same reasons, but also because I enjoy switching up to a different style of sound now and again.

Even if I do get the magical earbud that will stay in my ears, it is certain to fall off when I chew or at the very least get loosened off while I speak.

For example, I do enjoy Google’s Buds Pro 2 for their spin-to-lock-in action. But sometimes, on a bad day — I don’t know what it is, maybe when my skin is dry or something — the right earbud will just slip off. Regular shapes like the older AirPods Pros or Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 3 Pro are also in a constant negotiation with my ears.

Then I tried the AirPods Pro 3.

OK, Apple did say that it’s tested over 10,000 different ear shapes to fine-tune the design of the AirPods Pro 3, but I’ve heard that before on in-ear monitor marketing. But never have I gotten the effect that the AirPods Pro 3 give me.

These things just stay in. While I walk, run, speak, shout, chew, or shake my head. And after hours and hours of wearing them, there’s just a small amount of fatigue.

Pro tip!

I know that some people are reporting some stiffness from the ear tips and not such a good fit. But here’s the thing — the AirPods Pro 3 come with a total of five sizes of silicone tips. And I absolutely encourage you to try out all of them, even down to the smallest XXS size.



People are typically used to just using the M-sized tips and that being the best fit for them. However, since Apple uses this new fusion of silicone and foam for the AirPods Pro 3 tips, the sizes and feel will be different. I kept going down in size and am currently rocking the XXS size with complete outside world isolation and secure, locked-in fit.

Please, all we want is custom EQ

The second complaint that people, and especially audiophiles, have is that the sound here is even more V-shaped than before. The AirPods Pro 3 have even more low end and even more high-end shimmer than before.

I do not think that they sound boomy nor shrill, but yes, they do emphasize the bottom and top to create that illusion of big, arena-loud sound. And their midrange has been so precisely carved and sculpted that you could say they are a bit sterile. In the sense that whatever you play through them will sound at least a certain level of “good” — not boxy, not nasally, not grainy or scratchy, but also not super-exciting.

It would’ve been lovely — and this has been said time and time again — to have an EQ to fine-tune them. That would probably skyrocket them to being the best earbuds you can buy right now, to be honest.

But no, instead, Apple gives us automatic adjustments.

I was super-startled when I first heard the Personalized Volume in action. That’s a feature that came out with iOS 17 and works on the AirPods 4, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods Pro 3. What it does is, when it detects louder sounds in the environment, it will bring your music up. And conversely, if the outside quiets down, your music volume will drop.

Like, for why? I already have exceptional noise cancelation on these, rest assured that I’ve set my music to a volume that I find comfortable and enjoyable. Thankfully, you can turn this off (though the setting name doesn’t make much sense — “Personalized Volume”).

Then, there’s the new Adaptive ANC mode — also available since iOS 17 with the aforementioned AirPods models. It takes a while to wrap your head around — it still applies ANC to your earbuds… but also mixes in some transparency from the outside. Basically, if the hum and drum of the outside gets a bit too noisy, the AirPods will dial up the ANC. Conversely, in a quieter environment, they ease up and even let some speech get through if someone is talking to you.

This is a great feature for those that don’t like the pressure or vacuum feeling of complete silence that the AirPods can create. But also don’t want to run Transparency all the time because the office coffee machine or the trucks outside come on at random times.

On top of even more smart features…

And this is on top of a heart rate sensor embedded in the new AirPods Pros, hearing health features, live translation and transcripts, Spatial Audio with Head Tracking and a Find My chip in the case, and multi-device connectivity.

And I didn’t even talk about the microphones on them — they sound fantastic for calls or voice memos.

At this point it kind of feels like a “Give them everything but what they want”.

Which is why people are so… passionately irritated by the AirPods Pro 3 or any good Apple product in recent memory. “If I could adjust this tiny little thing about it, it would be perfect!”.

The AirPods Pro 3 fit fantastic, have exceptionally good ANC, and great extra smart features. And they sound a bit clinical. If that sounds fine to you, they are the earbuds to buy (granted — you get to enjoy their full featureset if you already have an iPhone or at least an iPad).