AppleAirPods Pro 2 Wireless Earbuds, Active Noise Cancellation, Hearing Aid Feature, Bluetooth Headphones, Transparency, Personalized Spatial Audio, High-Fidelity Sound, H2 Chip, USB-C Charging

I’ve tried several hearing aid substitutes over the years, my past favorite being the now unavailable Bose Hearphones and costing $500. Rather than just a sound amplifier, these had several functions allowing you to filter and focus sounds in various ways and for various situations. They were pretty good.But now Apple has added some great features to their AirPods 2—features that function like far more expensive hearing aids and at less than half the price of the Bose product. I’ve owned these for a month or so and am now just getting the hang of how to use them. If there is a downside to these earbuds it is the rather deep and confusing tech included in them (or, at least confusing for a grandfatherly type like me). Once they are Bluetooth connected to your iPhone (They connect very easily with the button on the front of the EarPod’s charging case.) they should automatically connect every time you put them in your ears. You will then be able to access all the functions by tapping the “settings” app on your phone. You will find a heading near the top of the list just below the box with your name and iCloud options. Tapping on this will allow you to drill down through several pages of options. There are a lot of options there and it can be confusing, but experimenting with the various functions will help you figure out their purpose.The key here is to drill down to find the hearing test. This will quickly test for hearing loss by leading you through a series of tones of varying in pitch and volume. The end result will be an audiogram that can be used to program your EarPods as hearing aids. As stated before, it took me several weeks to find and activate this feature, but when I did a whole new experience dawned. Just be patient and search around for this function. It works very well.Of course, these things also serve as EarPods to listen to music or podcasts. (May I recommend “Pat Gray Unleashed!” if your bent is conservative commentary and just plain fooling around). The quality of sound is phenomenal and the buds are more comfortable than most to keep in your ears for an extended time. To control the volume for this function you can TRY to use the external control buttons located on those silly looking stems that hang out of your ears (good luck) OR just open the “Control Center” page (slide one finger upward on your iPhone screen to access this page) where you’ll find the volume slider. If your EarPods are connected and in your ears you’ll see the slider is marked as controlling the AirPods.I really like these things now that I’m a little more familiar with them. The quality and value are exquisite. If I discover more, I’ll edit this comment.4 MONTHS LATER: Apple has improved the controls for these in their latest iOS update. The functions I had to dig around to find are now more easily accessed. Getting to the hearing test is now fairly straight forward.

The AirPods Pro 2.0 earbuds are very close to perfection. I have four pairs. Two with the lightning connectors, and two with the now standard USB-C connectors. My USB-C pairs have the Mag-Lock charging as well. The sound is awesome! There are earbuds with more bass and higher volumes. But I believe for recreating quality live sound the Airpods produce clear sound that rivals listening to live music. They put out a reasonable amount of bass. I don’t honestly think that folks will be satisfied if you want ear shattering bass. The vocals are crisp. The battery life is pretty darn good too! Even the first pair that I purchased in 2023 still runs for at least 4.5 hours playing music. If the Airpods are totally dead, they’re recharged in about an hour. With the different sized silicone eartips, they will comfortably fit in most ears. Plus when they wear out, you can purchase replacements on Apple’s store, or right here on Amazon. I think one of the best features is the sound dampening ability. I usually have this feature on. I believe that even with no music playing the Airpods cut noise down by at least 50%-70%. You can have the microphones set to when you start talking, they let sounds through. I think the microphones are of wonderful quality. The clarity is really good. It is very rare that someone says they’re having a hard time hearing me. About the only negative is they are susceptible to interference from other devices every once in awhile. This is more prevalent in the summer than in the cooler months. They are discounted now to $169.00! This is much better than paying $249 or even $199. These are the best cordless earbuds I have ever purchased. I would definitely recommend these Airpods Pro 2.0 for the value they are. As I can’t afford $300+ for Seinheiser or Bose products.

WAY LONG REVIEW, BUT ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT, SO…TL;DR: Apple AirPods Pro 2s actually help “turn down the volume” of my life-long tinnitus. YMMV… So, for those of us crusty old codgers with beat up ears, here's an interesting discovery I made today:I (unsurprisingly) listen to a lot of stuff while working out in my shop. And as a DOACA ("Dude of a Certain Age") who worked as a roadie & stage tech in the age of Grunge, I have pretty pronounced tinnitus, so I'm doubly careful about my hearing when using some of my larger shop tools, like my cabinet saw, mill, etc, which means I'm often putting hearing protection on, and taking it off repeatedly. I have a decent "bone conduction" headset that allows for environmental awareness, but the protectors don't work with those on. I have tried a few wireless earbuds (most recently the well reviewed certain-Lab “Mini”s) but there was some problem or other with all of them (the Minis sound great, but have terrible connectivity).So I finally sucked it up and got a set of Apple AirPod Pro 2s (yeah, mostly after hearing Adam Savage rave about them in a recent video you can easily find.) An interesting thing about them is that Apple actually worked with the US FDA (for those of you not in America, that's the federal agency that regulates medical devices here in the States—you need to be certified by them to make any medical claims about a product or device) and got these to be certified as Class II hearing aids in the US and Canada. And in addition to a clinical-grade hearing test feature included that runs in the app, the Hearing Aid feature is easy to employ, and actually useful. But that's not what has me so jazzed about these.Aside from the Bluetooth being rather astounding (my wife took my phone to the other end of the house about 40' away, with our chimney stack between us, and stuck it in her sock drawer—totally fine), the noise cancellation is *shockingly* good. And this is where things get interesting, and where we get back around to my tinnitus.Putting these in my ears this morning while sitting in my dining area, next to our furnace closet with the HVAC running, the ANC immediately kicked in. And even with no music or sound playing, the furnace noise (I'd guess about ~50dB) just... *disappeared*. I literally had to take them out and put them back in a few times to see if I was going a bit bonkers. But not only did that sound disappear, but my tinnitus—a group of between five and seven tones of various frequencies between 4kHz - 8/9kHz that has a perceived volume of about 40dB all the time—suddenly had its volume "turned down" by about 10-15dB.It was rather startling.I've heard those tones from the age of 17 on (I'm now 57). Incessantly. Unforgivingly. Perpetually.For them to get quieter was pretty amazing.I suspect that the Active Noise Cancellation is at play here. If you're not aware, AirPods have microphones built into them. The main, obvious ones, are the little sticks that come off them outside your ears that listen to the environment around them. But there is a second set of microphones that detect the sounds *inside your ear canal when the buds are in them* that are likely the heroes here. The buds take both of those sound profiles (technically, it's *four* sound signatures—two for each ear) and then uses machine learning combined with Apple's H2 chip to create "anti-noise."Now, anti-noise is nothing new: I mean, *that's how ANC works*. It's also nothing new to tinnitus sufferers, either. "Noise generators" have been around for decades. There are even apps available that allow you to pump white, gray, pink, brown, or other noise "colors," or other environmental sounds (ocean waves, rain, fireplace crackling, etc) into your ears -via- buds throughout the day to "mask" tinnitus. Many people have decent luck with this kind of tinnitus self-treatment—I never have.I suspect that it's the inner microphones (Apple is one of a handful of current makers that have this) that are really helping to effectively mask the sound that gets past the bud seals, combined with (love 'em or hate 'em) Apple's crazy level of R&D that gets these buds to analyze not only the environmental noise profile *outside* the buds, but the sound that *gets past the buds*. This winds up being a broader noise profile, so the buds generate a broader palate of anti-noise, and then puts it *right in your ear*.Now to be clear, I can still hear my tinnitus tones. They're just less present in the... what? *"auditory mix"* in my head. But boy oh boy is the change noticeable. At least for now. It may be that in time my ears get used to the trick. But as of right now? I'm fine with being fooled.It may be that other buds with ANC also do this, but I can't speak to any other solutions except the comparison to my -Labs. I get nothing if you buy these or any other buds. This is just my experience, but as someone who's lived with this affliction for so long, ANY positive change is important enough for me to take time, write down, and share my experience. YMMV.If you have tinnitus, or hearing problems (or suspect you might) these are a serious consideration.