My conclusion is right there in the title. I poured out all my headphone frustration onto the original AirPods. And it was trivially easy to explain that frustration. Today, I am pouring out all my headphone love onto the AirPods Pro. And it is frustratingly difficult to justify that love. Prior to this, I wrote nearly a thousand words on the matter, selected all, then hit Delete. Here’s to hoping this second attempt goes better:

The Ultimate Geek Worry Stone

Long before fidget spinners, there were worry stones. Some people simply cannot relax or focus without something in their hands helping them release all that fidgety, worry energy. People often use gemstones for this purpose. But any palm-sized, smooth rock will do the trick. There is no wrong way to use a worry stone. Your hand will know what to do. It is the sort of thing that compels you to pick it up.

And it is difficult to put down.

The AirPods case is just like that. It is the right size, smooth, rounded, and perfect for fidgeting. There is a button on the back that does nothing much if you press it without holding it for too long. It is hard to imagine the person designing that lid and hinge without being influenced by fidget tools. It it is made of pure appleantium: the most precious geek gemstone of all.

This might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but only a little. You can complain about it being easy to slip from a pocket or hand, it being a fingerprint and earwax magnet that is hard to clean. All these complaints are valid, but irrelevant. There is an ineffable quality about it that makes you want to pick it up and handle it all the time. If these were sitting next to a demonstrably better pair of headphones, you would still reach for the AirPods because of a tactile experience that cannot be fully explained with worlds, but once experienced, cannot be denied.

Fit and Finish

The biggest frustration of the previous AirPods was their fit, or lack thereof. It made people feel like there was something wrong with their ears. After all, Apple put in all that research to create something that would fit perfectly in the average, perfect human ear. If you were experiencing issues with fit, there must have been something wrong with you. That is exactly the wrong way a product should make you feel. A lot of people tried to use them and not complain because no one wants to be the one with the funny ears that ruins it for everyone else. For the sake of 2¢ worth of silicone, Apple could have eliminated that problem altogether.

It took them three generations to get the message and add that extra bit of silicone in the box, fully integrated with the product. The difference is night and day. Every aspect of the product is improved because of that simple and obvious design decision. Here are a few examples:

• 3 different sizes ensures a great fit for most of the world’s population. No third-party kludges required.
• Sound quality is vastly improved by improving the fit.
• Better fit makes noise-cancelation and other features possible.
• AirPods are more sanitary because one can just toss out the tips and replace them when needed.
• AirPods last longer because they become less impacted with bio-material.
• They make AirPods more comfortable and less fatiguing over long sessions.

The ear tips are replaceable. Apple will be selling replacements for less than $5. So you can feel free to replace them every few weeks for sanitation purposes. I will note that I have a hard time getting them off. They don’t just pop off without a fight. You don’t have to worry about them accidentally falling off with normal use.

There are plenty of other in-ear headphones with silicon tips. Yet AirPods Pro are more comfortable. I am at a loss for explanations. It could be that the AirPods Pro are lighter. It could be that there is no hard stem protruding into the ear. Both of these explanations are plausible, yet suspect. What I can say is that these headphones are highly likely to fit your ear and be more comfortable than similar offerings from the competition. Like everything else, Apple over-engineered the ear tips. That effort has definitely paid off.

That said, AirPods Pro are still smooth. You can easily drop them if you are not careful. They will still collect bio-material from your ear. And when they get lubricated, you will have to fiddle with them a little and reseat them in your ear. This is true of all in-ear configurations. There might be in-ear headphones with an even more secure fit during vigorous activity. But AirPods are now well beyond the threshold of acceptability.

Command and Control

The problem with super small headphones is user interface. They are too small for normal buttons. You can put buttons on AirPods. But because of the small size, they will either be difficult to press with confidence, or they will be activated accidentally. The other problem with buttons is that they can be uncomfortable to the ear when pressing and fiddling with them. The control scheme for the previous AirPods looked, sounded, and felt like you were pounding yourself on the side of your head for minimal benefit.

By way of contrast, PowerBeats Pros have actual buttons on each earpiece. But those ear pieces are quite large. The design of AirPods would have to be completely different to accommodate buttons. So Apple faked a button on the stem. Personally, I wish they had just used a real button. Instead, they over-engineered a touch surface so that it acts like a button when squeezed. The problem is that it isn’t reliable. An unacceptably high percentage of the time, your squeeze is not recognized. When it works, it is fantastic. But Apple needs to decrease the sensitivity.

Because of the reliability issues, you might want to use Siri to command your device. You can do anything with your voice that you would have done with the button. When you are walking down the street with your hands full, text messages can be read aloud and automatically if you choose to set it up that way. You can respond without lifting a finger.

The control scheme is my least favorite part of the product. One would think that would be a bigger deal. But it is strangely not a major issue. You get used to it. And there is hope that it can be improved with software updates. Till then, you will occasionally be forced to reposition your finger and try again. I can’t explain why that isn’t a problem. Yet there is little chance the control scheme will diminish your enjoyment of the product.

Good Enough Audio

To say that the key feature of a product is good enough is to damn it with faint praise. I understand this. Yet it is not what I am trying to do. I said of the Powerbeats Pro that they sounded like the $250 headphones they were. Airpods Pro sound like $200 headphones at $250. They do not produce the best sound you can hear at that price. But strangely, that is not a problem for these headphones.

I believe the reason is that few people buy truly wireless headphones for the audio quality. They are also not likely interested in active noise canceling headphones as that feature tends to slightly degrade the audio. That said, Apple did a lot of engineering to keep the audio from degrading while in noise cancelation or transparency mode. They included a mic that listens to the sound inside your ears. Then they adjust the sound equalization to counter the effects of cancelation and transparency. It works brilliantly.

The base isn’t as strong as the best audio you can get in this class. The mids are not as present. And the sound stage is not as wide. And there is an excellent chance that you simply wouldn’t notice any of these deficiencies. They are very slight. One has to listen carefully and critically to hear the difference between these and better headphones. For that, you would actually have to care. It is like comparing the pictures from two excellent smartphones. Extreme pixel-peeping will reveal the differences. But no real people care enough to bother doing it.

Your music and podcasts are going to sound fantastic. You will likely hear the difference from these and whatever headphones you are currently using. They sound better than previous AirPods. And that is more than good enough for the vast majority of people. Anyone who wouldn’t buy these for audio quality wouldn’t buy the competitor’s either. They would buy something in an entirely different class.

While some might wish the audio quality was even better than it is, no one is going to return them because of audio quality. And while the product is not worth the asking price for audio quality alone, it is more than worth it when everything else is taken into consideration. In this case, good enough is the equivalent of excellent.

Background Noise

Signal to noise is an industry term of art. With regard to noise-canceling headphones, it is not altogether clear which is the signal and which is the noise. Usually, we think of the signal as the thing we are piping into our ears on purpose. And the noise is everything else. In most cases the signal would be music or podcasts or videos. The noise would be the sounds of the restaurant, voices, cars, and the like.

Apple has finally added noise cancelation as one of the features. But they also included noise transparency, which is a way of adding the noise back into the mix so that it sounds perfectly natural. This is one of those efforts where over-engineering paid off in a significant way. Apple didn't just add noise-cancelation. They also added pressure reduction so that the discomfort associated with noise-cancelation is mitigated. At no point do you feel added pressure in your ears. There is no noise-canceling fatigue when using noise-cancelation all day.

The quality of the cancelation is already equal to what Bose offers in the same class. That is high praise. Apple has matched the best in the business on their first try. I can't wait to see what they manage a few years from now. I live in New Jersey and work in New York. I ride a train twice a day, and subways on the weekend when the occasion calls for it. New York is noisy. I spend a significant part of my life in environments where I need to increase the signal and reduce the noise. These days, noise-cancelation is a must-have feature for me.

There is also the benefit to one's long-term hearing health. When you are trying to listen to something through headphones in a noisy environment, you have no choice but to crank up the volume to what in most circumstances would be an uncomfortably loud and unsafe level. The problem is that you can't hear how loud it really is because there is so much noise competing with your signal. Noise cancelation allows you to use the same signal level in a loud environment that you would normally use in a quiet one. That is music, and long-term health to your ears.

That said, there are plenty of times when you need to hear your environment even more clearly than you hear your jams. Many people want to hear the city noise for safety reasons. There are plenty of times when you will want to hold a conversation with someone while wearing the headphones. If you are nearing your stop on the subway, you might want to be able to hear the announcements.

Fortunately, modern noise-canceling headphones have what Apple calls a transparency mode. That allows you to pipe in the background noise when that is the signal you are most interested in. You might wonder why this feature is needed when you can just turn off the music. Here's the thing: If you turn the AirPods completely off, you will notice how well they block out background noises passively. You will also go crazy due to the sound your teeth make when they snap together, and your breathing, and your voice. Oh, and there is also the pressure you feel when something is jammed in both your ears.

Apple uses the same tech with transparency mode as it does noise-cancelation. The vents equalize the pressure so you don’t feel it. The microphones are really good and make the sound of the outside world sound almost like you are not wearing anything in your ears at all. And the internal sounds in your head are also eliminated. If you are boing to have AirPods Pro in your ears while no music is playing, you want them on transparency mode rather than having them off. By default, turning them completely off with the touch controls is not even an option. I have used Bose for years. and this is the best transparency mode I have ever heard. It is well worth the price of admission.

Switching between cancelation and transparency is seamless and fast. It can be done in multiple ways. But it is most convenient just to do it from the touch-surface of the AriPods Pro. However, if you happen to be using your phone, there are at least two other ways to manage the trick. No matter how you do it, you will find that this feature alone more than makes up for any minor deficiencies you find in the product. Noise handling on AirPods Pro is really that good. There is nothing hard to explain about that.

Conclusion: Don't Worry About Justifications

Some people cannot bring themselves to spend a lot of money on a product unless they can fully justify the purchase with spreadsheet-like precision. You might find this a bit of a challenge with AirPods Pro. Nevertheless, you shouldn't let that stop you from going out and buying a pair. The benefits are not always easy to describe. Much of it is intangible. You might not be able to describe what makes a product great. But you know a great product when you see it. AirPods Pro are like that.

They are not necessarily the best in any category. Who is to say what the best size and material is? I can't. There are probably headphones that offer an even better fit and higher comfort. There are definitely headphones that are more secure during activity. There are plenty that get less grimy during the course of normal use. I know for a fact that plenty of headphones in that price range sound moderately better such as the PowerBeats Pro. Some offer longer battery life. While transparency mode is top of class, over ear headphones offer better cancelation.

And none of that matters one bit. AirPods Pro bring the complete package. They are fully integrated with the Apple ecosystem. And they greatly enhance your overall enjoyment of listening to media on the go. These are the headphones you've been looking for. And the most exciting part is the fact that they have room to get even better in the years to come.

David Johnson