First impressions, AirPods Pro 3 in London
Hiya,
Thought I’d share my experience for anyone else wondering how the AirPod Pro 3’s handle Londons’ noisy city life.
Was it worth the money, do they live up to the hype? Do they make life a bit more tolerable for an autistic person?
For reference, and a completely unfair comparison, I’ve upgraded from an entry level set of noise cancelling earbuds - £60 Earfun Air Pro 3.
They were good bang for buck, but I had problems using them in London… namely:
- The high pitch scraping produced by London Underground trains. I’m hypersensitive to that frequency and it drives me up the wall on my daily commute. That noise cuts straight through the Earfun Air Pro 3 on noise-cancelling mode, producing a weird mix of digital stutter and high pitched metallic scraping.
- Taking earbuds on / off constantly to talk to people at work and while shopping because the ambient sound mode isn’t clear enough for conversations.
Sooooo…. How do the AirPod Pro 3 change things for me?
Yes. To all the questions I asked at the top. Yes 😂
- Train noise. 80% reduced, completely tolerable, no digital artefacts, just a smooth and distant note of the train tracks with the sting taken out. Excellent. I can listen to music at 30% volume and forget about train noise… which used to make my daily commute very unpleasant… now, almost totally gone.
- London streets. I didn’t actually realise the extent to which busy London street noise… put me on edge in a state of tension. This might be an autistic / neurodivergent experience … but when I popped the AirPod Pro 3’s into my ears for the first time I was walking through the hubbub of Covent Garden shopping district… and boom - silence. I felt so relaxed, possibly for the first time ever, while walking a busy London street.
- Talking to people. Adaptive audio with transparency thingy. Yep, it’s a pretty slick experience. I just talk to someone in a shop and Transparency mode activates, I hear the persons voice very clearly, and noise cancelling activates when we stop the exchange. Boom, I’m back in my silent bubble of comfort free from the noise pollution.
I’ve worked as a podcast editor, obsessing over audio quality and digital vocal processing, and I have to say - Transparency mode sounds very natural, almost like I’m not wearing earbuds.
Still, for the sake of mindfulness and being a human in the world, I take the AirPods out when I’m walking in the park, having an extended conversation, or just need to “be present”.
So yeh, in conclusion - it was worth saving up for them and they solved some of my autistic challenges around noise pollution.
Hope that’s useful for someone in a similar situation, bye bye x