Kuo: AirPods Pro 2 to Feature Lossless Support and Sound-Emitting Charging Case

[Fox_Vulpez]

Instead of going lossless, why don’t they just keep the current 256 kbps AAC for the audio playback but use additional 128 kbps AAC for the stereo microphone. When both active it’d exchange around 384 kbps which is totally doable under the current Bluetooth standards.

More people would instantly realizes that their earbuds no longer sounds garbage when on a call, than extra unnoticeable details the lossless audio on AirPods Pro would bring. For my personal use it’d allow me to play quiet music during online class with my AirPods without having to disable the “Handsfree Audio Profile“ and having to rely on my laptop‘s microphone.

The stereo microphone would allow the host machine to perform more advanced noise reduction algorithm, keep in mind that while AirPods has the dedicated IC for sound processing, the host machine has processing power that are two or three orders of magnitudes more powerful than ones on the AirPods, also to the POV of AirPods the host machine has access to unlimited amount of energy.

 

[jon3543]

Have a Siri type system. Say 'Hey buds, lower the volume'. Fumbling for the volume keys on the iPhone is awkward when the volume of some content is much louder. First world problems?

The earbuds need to have volume controls on the earbuds themselves. Most do. As for talking to Siri, just no for things that are better served by physical controls, especially given that so much of my headphones usage is with non-Apple products. As for Siri in general, I feel like an idiot repeatedly saying "What did he say?" and "Skip 3 and a half minutes" to my Apple TV. I have buttons on my universal remote to do those things and many more for Kodi and YouTube TV running in a browser, and I had to program the "What did he say?" feature because they don't implement it. Dedicated buttons are so much better than voice.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

FLAC over AptX is still NOT really lossless. It's bluetooth man.

• 576 Kbits (48 kHz sampling) for AptX HD,
• 24-bit, up to 48kHz sampling rate.

source: https://www.aptx.com/aptx-hd

Doesn't compare even to Sony's custom bluetooth bit-rates which is even unstable. Trust me I've tried and died over this argument on these boards.

Again not lossless - cannot happen over Bluetooth. not with 5.1/5.2 currently and there is nothing in the Bluetooth spec roadmap that says it can otherwise.

I literally called it dollar store lossless. What are you disagreeing with? I agree with you.

 

[McScooby]

Numbers, numbers, numbers. Practically no one can tell the difference between a good lossy format and lossless without pricey equipment and perfect hearing. Everyone but the deaf can tell the difference between the best cassette playback and a CD on normal equipment. There's more to it than sampling rate or max frequencies. Remember tape hiss?

People have been spoonfed crap lossy audio for years which is why they can’t tell the difference. Sure it’s numbers, everything obviously is. It was always the case that mp3 vs aac was due to the way the file was created from source (mp3 cut bass & treble frequencies in smaller formats whereas aac replicated frequencies which resulted in a flatter sounding recording) Now obviously I don’t need to tell you any of this as I assume you already know, but give me a lossless file any day over lossy, even just for that fuller sound especially if there’s no downside on battery life. I can’t believe that in 2022 we’re arguing over a format from the late 70’s, some 40 years ago.

 

[Apleeseed84]

I was really surprised when they actually updated the charging case to support MagSafe, but didn’t add any other features. My only guess would be iOS 16 supporting reverse MagSafe charging from iPhone to AirPods. God forbid they added Qi reverse wireless charging for older AirPods and non-Apple devices.

But yeah, they better add a sound-emitting case with U1.

The current Find My capabilities are basically useless and hardly work. I often get notifications that I left my AirPods behind when they’re actually still with me.

Broo, with applecare + I literally got sent the new magsafe case when I originally had first version, a surprise welcome indeed, i only noticed when i placed it on top of my MagSafe Duo Charger and notice the AirPods Pro case was acting like a magnet haha

Amazing lossless is much better quality I don’t care about virtual surround spacial audio I want higher quality audio

Seriously, it’s worse whenever I laydown to listen to music and hear the music come in from one side of the airpods haha

Two concerns for me:
1. Does lossless for Apple Music only? Does it support streaming local lossless music for lossless support? No, “download offline” does NOT count.

2. How much it will improve connectivity between apple devices? Will it work better than generic Bluetooth headphone in terms of connecting to a device?

Waiting to see how apple will answer these two issues.

1. They need lossless on itunes, I agree!!!

I'm guessing Apple will employ a proprietary derivative of their UWB tech to support wider bandwidths and much lower power consumption. It's tech Apple already has experience with.

They’ll learn, their previous lossless rollout made me second guess their experience with high res songs.

I have a love hate relationship with AirPods because they always die on me but at the same time they are so convenient.

AirPod Gen 1: left AirPod died
AirPod Gen 1: holds a charge of about 30 min now
AirPod Pro: left AirPod died
AirPod Pro: cracking sounds
AirPod Pro: now the charging case just died … first the little light did not work anymore and now it does not charge via cable anymore but it does seem to pass through the energy to the AirPods because they still charge inside the case. So weird

No more AirPods without AppleCare+ after this

I didn’t know they sold it for their airpods until a rep offered it, it was the best $29 bucks i have ever spent, I got all my airpods replaced everytime i had a Genius Bar appointment for Crackling sounds no questions asked, even got the new magsafe case when my case was acting up

What I am completely missing from this thread is the horrible, horrible quality of the mic of the current AirPod pros. I cannot do anything when I am on the phone with someone. Grabbing my keys? Sounds like someone is ringing churchbells inside your head if you are on the other side of the line. Opening a door? Sounds like the gates of hell themselves are opening up.

If the second generation is as horrible as the first, this will be a hard ***** pass for me.

For future reference Apple mic’s are top grade, but they also enhance the environment around you, i can legit hear my mechanical watch sometimes when I’m on the phone, I think they work as a parabolic mic.

Why is everyone so pressed about them possibly offering lossless? Like why does it matter that much if YOU cannot tell the difference. It’s subjective depending on the content itself and equipment but do not for a second think that others NEED to be happy or satisfied with compressed anything just because you don’t see the purpose. Don’t buy them, don’t listen to lossless, do or don’t do whatever you want, but we don’t need your links to the countless ABX comparisons. It’s not really a rigorous scientific standard anyway so any data gleemed from them is subjective at best. Reminds me of the 4K naysayers and now essentially every TV over 42” is 4K. Audiophiles do not care that you’re satisfied with a format that was really only created because the storage requirements were too costly 20 years ago. They will listen to lossless regardless of your opinion.

TLDR; Let’s stop compromising on quality, it’s unnecessary going into the 2020s. You are more than welcome to listen to MP3s for the rest of your life but if I can get something that hasn’t been compressed from recording to master than that’s great in my book. You are not personally affected by other people buying a pair of AirPods.

Seeing how they messed up the rollout is what making me doubt their plans. It took them a legit 4 months to iron out the lossless problems with Apple Music, i mean for sure better late than never but I STILL have sporadic problems playing lossless or not playing lossless at all.
I just think it’s funny because you know they weren’t planning for this until Spotify made their first move and then they scrambled into high gear to push this as fast as they can.
I understand what you are saying it’s like the majority of people can’t tell the difference between a good 1080P HD setup versus standard 4K but the difference comes when you compare surround sound to dolby atmos.
In my experience as an internet repair guy, Wired will always be faster than wireless.

My biggest complaint though is not that I don’t care about what people buy, but that the tech it’s being held back, the iphone is great and all but it’s not a dedicated music device, everything is set on cruise control with streaming and Apple Digital Remasters that even i was like whatever I’ll take it until they upgraded the music catalogs, especially half of my songs. We need a dedicated music player like an iPod classic or upgraded iPod touch I think, in my experience ios can only handle one audio source at a time especially with Bluetooh headphone’s/earphones that it’s annoying to even use the iphone to browse the internet or go to different apps without getting my music canceled every 10 seconds for a video ad that screams into my ears to get my attention.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if they should focus lossless on another device such as an ipod haha, sony has their walkman line up as glorified DAC’s and high res music players I’m leaning more into buying one for the right setup I need haha. That’s just My opinion, everyone here will be like that’s what’s an iPhone Is for…

I'm using the Apple charger that comes with it. I'm referring to this:

AirPods Pro Service Program for Sound Issues - Apple Support

AirPods Pro Service Program for Sound Issues

support.apple.com

There's a lot of people affected, and probably more than realize, but not everyone will notice. It's not like they stop working. The noise cancelling gets worse, and especially for me, the ability to cancel the *thumps* you get from the seal with every step you take when you walk - that gets way worse.

Try the "ear tip fit test" in Settings under bluetooth when you have them in your ears. If it fails, but it tested fine initially, you might be having this problem.

If you create a support case with crackling noises and sound sounds, they will replace them no questions asked. It was a memo they sent out back in 2020.

 

[TracesOfArsenic]

The only tech I care that Apple develops for me to enter the AirPod scene is the one that enables black AirPods. They might have to licence the tech from someone else though.

 

[samlikesmac]

Seeing how they messed up the rollout is what making me doubt their plans. It took them a legit 4 months to iron out the lossless problems with Apple Music, i mean for sure better late than never but I STILL have sporadic problems playing lossless or not playing lossless at all.
I just think it’s funny because you know they weren’t planning for this until Spotify made their first move and then they scrambled into high gear to push this as fast as they can.
I understand what you are saying it’s like the majority of people can’t tell the difference between a good 1080P HD setup versus standard 4K but the difference comes when you compare surround sound to dolby atmos.
In my experience as an internet repair guy, Wired will always be faster than wireless.

My biggest complaint though is not that I don’t care about what people buy, but that the tech it’s being held back, the iphone is great and all but it’s not a dedicated music device, everything is set on cruise control with streaming and Apple Digital Remasters that even i was like whatever I’ll take it until they upgraded the music catalogs, especially half of my songs. We need a dedicated music player like an iPod classic or upgraded iPod touch I think, in my experience ios can only handle one audio source at a time especially with Bluetooh headphone’s/earphones that it’s annoying to even use the iphone to browse the internet or go to different apps without getting my music canceled every 10 seconds for a video ad that screams into my ears to get my attention.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if they should focus lossless on another device such as an ipod haha, sony has their walkman line up as glorified DAC’s and high res music players I’m leaning more into buying one for the right setup I need haha. That’s just My opinion, everyone here will be like that’s what’s an iPhone Is for…

I agree, the rollout was horrid from the AirPods max to lossless support. Truly horrible and still not without sporadic issues. I have been listening to lossless via Tidal since 2014 and I NEVER experienced the type of problems Apple has with AM. Some tracks don’t play, crackle, stop, skip, etc. I’ve concluded that audio must be very difficult for Apple to master. They have never shown us that they are capable of making a flawless audio product. It’s been over 20 years since the introduction of the iPod and they’ve been pretty pleased with offering AAC while sitting on lossless masters since then. They’re AM interface is subpar compared to the competition and like I said, Tidal has pretty much had seamless low latency lossless playback for years now. I can tap a track on Tidal and it will immediately begin playing the track in HIFI whereas Apple Music usually takes about 5 seconds or so to even start playing the track and another few seconds or so to even load up the lossless version. Ridiculous that users can’t even disable the adaptive network quality. IMO, don’t even begin playing the track until you have the lossless version queued up. If I wanted to listen to the beginning of the song in lossy AAC, I would have selected that quality. Rant over sorry.

I think if they really put their weight behind these audio products (as they should seeing how ubiquitous AirPods are now) then we can be on the verge of a new era in wireless audio. I’m excited to see what they bring to the table and I think that ALL of us deserve better quality if it’s available. To each their own, but I would implore others to not discount others’ experiences just because it’s not something they’re interested in. Ask any audio professional if they would master a track form start to finish in a lossy format (we won’t talk about MQA ) and see what they say.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I literally called it dollar store lossless. What are you disagreeing with? I agree with you.

sorry I didn't catch any sarcasm there ... I thought you intended to say cheap implementation of lossless (as it still being a legit lossless just poor quality in your post). now I get it.

 

[McScooby]

I agree, the rollout was horrid from the AirPods max to lossless support. Truly horrible and still not without sporadic issues. I have been listening to lossless via Tidal since 2014 and I NEVER experienced the type of problems Apple has with AM. Some tracks don’t play, crackle, stop, skip, etc. I’ve concluded that audio must be very difficult for Apple to master. They have never shown us that they are capable of making a flawless audio product. It’s been over 20 years since the introduction of the iPod and they’ve been pretty pleased with offering AAC while sitting on lossless masters since then. They’re AM interface is subpar compared to the competition and like I said, Tidal has pretty much had seamless low latency lossless playback for years now. I can tap a track on Tidal and it will immediately begin playing the track in HIFI whereas Apple Music usually takes about 5 seconds or so to even start playing the track and another few seconds or so to even load up the lossless version. Ridiculous that users can’t even disable the adaptive network quality. IMO, don’t even begin playing the track until you have the lossless version queued up. If I wanted to listen to the beginning of the song in lossy AAC, I would have selected that quality. Rant over sorry.

I think if they really put their weight behind these audio products (as they should seeing how ubiquitous AirPods are now) then we can be on the verge of a new era in wireless audio. I’m excited to see what they bring to the table and I think that ALL of us deserve better quality if it’s available. To each their own, but I would implore others to not discount others’ experiences just because it’s not something they’re interested in. Ask any audio professional if they would master a track form start to finish in a lossy format (we won’t talk about MQA ) and see what they say.

& since my rant earlier, I found out tonight that AirPods Max I got don't play nicely with my 10.5" 2017 iPad Pro that was on sale until 2019 - Head tracking works ok with an iPhone 7 of the same year, which has the same bluetooth and a lesser chip yet the iPad appears to be gimped in favour of the 11 & 12.9 models. This is either just sheer greed on 's behalf or another example of the ineptitude of the roll out.

 

[xpxp2002]

& since my rant earlier, I found out tonight that AirPods Max I got don't play nicely with my 10.5" 2017 iPad Pro that was on sale until 2019 - Head tracking works ok with an iPhone 7 of the same year, which has the same bluetooth and a lesser chip yet the iPad appears to be gimped in favour of the 11 & 12.9 models. This is either just sheer greed on 's behalf or another example of the ineptitude of the roll out.

Same with AirPods Pro. I got the iPad Pro 10.5 in 2018, which is basically iPhone 7 hardware with a bigger battery and faster CPU. But for some reason the iPhone 7 is allowed to use the feature, but the slightly more capable iPad Pro is artificially blocked.

 

[jon3543]

People have been spoonfed crap lossy audio for years which is why they can’t tell the difference.

That makes even less sense than the usual false claim that there is a big difference.

I think it was McGill University in Canada that put "trained" and "expert" listeners to the test, and under ideal conditions in a dedicated, treated listening room with high end equipment, there was no benefit to > 256 Kbps MP3 vs CD. The people at hydrogenaudio would probably even be dubious of that claim.

It's just laughable that people care passionately about lossless audio when talking about AirPods and the like.

 

[God of Biscuits]

FLAC?

No, ALAC. Apple can implement ALAC in hardware with no worries.

 

[michaelant]

Sorry, I didn't elaborate on why I asked if you used a non-Apple wireless charging pad (I wasn't referring to the case fyi). I've included why in my original post.

Ah, thanks for the additional info. Nope, I'm just using the non-wireless case for the APPs to charge them, plugging that in. I think that pocketable case I have doesn't do wireless charging either.

 

[God of Biscuits]

It’s pretty pointless to use a lossless codec in earbuds such as the AirPods Pro: the benefit is too small compared to the cost.

AAC 256 is pretty transparent and difficult to spot even when using high end speakers in a perfect listening environment (no background noise).

Lossless on AirPods will only achieve <1% better sound while consuming 20-50% more battery.

Where are you getting these numbers? Decoding lossless is simpler than lossy, because the latter are more sophisticated. Compressors trade off space for computation. So it's probably a wash that the radios are busier, consuming relatively more power, but the decoding is cheaper, so less power.

 

[ChromeCloud]

Where are you getting these numbers? Decoding lossless is simpler than lossy, because the latter are more sophisticated. Compressors trade off space for computation. So it's probably a wash that the radios are busier, consuming relatively more power, but the decoding is cheaper, so less power.

AAC decoding consumes almost no power at all when implemented in hardware.

At around 2.5 mW (as this research paper from 2009 suggests), it accounts for around 8% of the total power consumption of the AirPods Pro (which is about 32 mW considering the 160 mWh battery is good for 5 hours of music playback).

So, realistically, battery life cannot improve more than 5-6 % by switching from AAC decoding to a less demanding codec such as ALAC.

On the other hand to achieve lossless you need more than double the bitrate (ALAC averages at 600-700 kbps depending on the content) which translates in roughly double the power required by the Bluetooth radio.

 

[McScooby]

That makes even less sense than the usual false claim that there is a big difference.

I think it was McGill University in Canada that put "trained" and "expert" listeners to the test, and under ideal conditions in a dedicated, treated listening room with high end equipment, there was no benefit to > 256 Kbps MP3 vs CD. The people at hydrogenaudio would probably even be dubious of that claim.

It's just laughable that people care passionately about lossless audio when talking about AirPods and the like.

Course it does, your average Joe public doesn’t give two hoots about the dynamic envelope they’re listening to, it’s what they’re used to that counts - if they’re used to listening to heavily compressed audio, it’s probably what they’d prefer not what’s technically best, if they’ve grown up listening to proper cd quality likewise that’s what they’d go for.
The survey you referenced has many counter claims to what you think, but tbh it used way way way less folk than you’d find in your average shampoo commercial, so forgive me for not agreeing & not all of us have a portable anechoic chamber that we can cart about with us either (where the tests were conducted)
You seem to be forgetting one huge thing though, it’s convenience vs quality.
Up until now I’ve accepted that with AirPods (pro & max) / Bluetooth, I have to suffer less quality for the convenience of the products & getting a lesser sound vs battery life with existing tech, it’s a trade off.
If apple were to introduce truly lossless audio with zero impact on battery & changed the tech to allow it, why wouldn’t you want it? That’s the real question.

 

[Apleeseed84]

Course it does, your average Joe public doesn’t give two hoots about the dynamic envelope they’re listening to, it’s what they’re used to that counts - if they’re used to listening to heavily compressed audio, it’s probably what they’d prefer not what’s technically best, if they’ve grown up listening to proper cd quality likewise that’s what they’d go for.
The survey you referenced has many counter claims to what you think, but tbh it used way way way less folk than you’d find in your average shampoo commercial, so forgive me for not agreeing & not all of us have a portable anechoic chamber that we can cart about with us either (where the tests were conducted)
You seem to be forgetting one huge thing though, it’s convenience vs quality.
Up until now I’ve accepted that with AirPods (pro & max) / Bluetooth, I have to suffer less quality for the convenience of the products & getting a lesser sound vs battery life with existing tech, it’s a trade off.
If apple were to introduce truly lossless audio with zero impact on battery & changed the tech to allow it, why wouldn’t you want it? That’s the real question.

It’s true, the general public buys into how easy it is to use the interface that they purchase brand headphones that are meant to work great with their ecosystem. I was fine with the current setup, Bluetooth headphones, , until they opened the floodgates into something better, but at the end of the day convenience vs quality wins all day everyday.

I would want it in a heartbeat, said device if it ever got released for sure!!! The thing is WE know they can do it but for some reason like always focus on the stuff they think it’s better for us.
I can’t complain, my music got upgraded for free to an extent, the problem is the software and current hardware is not all there to unlock it’s true potential, they say they want to create a technology that doesn’t exist in the “consumer” market so we will see.

 

[RobArtLyn]

I’ll keep that in mind if the APP ever go for under $100 new.

I have difficulty imagining that ever happening.