If I concentrate hard enough I can pick up classic rock.
I took my APP to the Apple Store today because they got so bad that anytime I talked with transparency mode on both earpieces would feed my voice back into the earpiece with it sounding like I was a robot, or talking through a Kazoo or had a piece of tinfoil stretched over a comb in front of my mouth (I'm dating myself there). I called Apple and they sent me a link to get an appointment, but I could not make an AirPods Pro appointment via the support app, so I went in.
This was my first trip out of the house to go to a store in ages, armed N95 mask, Clorox wipes, and sanitizer - all that I've had for ages due to my lung disease. I know, stupid to leave the house. I waited 3 hours for my appointment, much of it outside with 95 degree heat and a non-functioning left lung, trying to suck air thru a mask; so I had to go to Best Buy and the grocery store to get out of the heat while trying to avoid getting CoVid-19.
Once I got in I explained everything and mentioned this thread and the other on macrumors.com, and demonstrated that the issue didn't happen with their demo set + my tips; when I got the robot voice hear-thru that triggered my ASMR reflex it made me shiver and yank them out of my ears in front of them.
The "Genius" admitted it sounded like both sides were bad, but tried to tell me that a single bad one could make both act up, and since the left was worse that I should try that first. He gave me a story about how they treat each ear earpiece plus the case as 3 separate pieces, and can only do one exchange at a time. They wanted to replace just the left earpiece. I wasn't having it. With the left earpiece out and the music paused the right one still acted up.
I told them I'm too high risk to do this all over again, that I live on the farthest other end of town, and I'm going out of state next week for my daughter's birthday (she is self isolating too), and that I simply could not return in the next day or two and go through all of this over again and be exposed more just to get the other earpiece replaced (I was happy to keep my battery pack). I kindly asked for the manager.
He went to get her but came back 5 minutes later with a new sealed AirPods and no manager, and he did a "late exchange" for the entire thing, including another 2 years of Apple Care. I had brought in my box, unused charge cable, and unused tips, of which they kept all but the tips that I had actually used, and have me a new sealed package with a new 2 yr apple care warranty.
I thanked them profusely and told everyone to stay safe and went home very happy.
So far they are acting fine, but they're still on firmware 2D15. I know that when I put them in the case and charge the case that it will likely update to 2D27, and hope that wont cause any new issues. But my old ones on 2D27 sounded a little warmer and fuller, more solid. I'm still worried that I didn't have the "clicking" and the "buzzing/rattle" until after 2D27 was applied.
