Linus, worry not about AirPods Pro's getting discontinued entirely

[RejZoR]

Obligatory new thread about Shortcircuit since I don't have Youtube account to comment there... Linus worried Apple would discontinue AirPods Pro in favor of regular AirPods without silicone tips. Worry not Linus, what I worry as someone who absolutely hates silicone tips on earphones is that Apple will one day discontinue regular AirPods. I've seen this dumb trend across entire earphones industry. I used to use regular wired earbuds without silicone tips from Sennheiser, Philips, Sony, AKG. And then suddenly they all just stopped doing them entirely and replaced their entire lineups with garbage silicone tipped earbuds. You literally couldn't buy normal ones at all and still can't. And as everything moved to wireless earbuds, nothing changed. Apple's original AirPods design was just few years back the only option without stupid silicone tips, which is why I got them in the first place despite the cost. The usual other brands just do silicone tipped earbuds and nothing else. They literally make NO earbuds without it.

 

Now, to my luck some (mostly Chinese) brands did start to make them without silicone tips, but they are in huge minority of options. Someone here on LTT forums recommended me SoundPeats which is a total no name brand as far as name goes, but they were 24€ so I took them and they are actually pretty decent. Case is a bit cheap feeling and light, but does the job and is actually easier to take earbuds in and out of case. And they fit and sound decent enough to be a direct AirPods replacement for way less. But the issue is, a lot of these cheaper ones sound tinny and suck with bass. With AirPods you can always know for sure they'll sound good to a point it's irrelevant. With really cheap ones from no names, it can be surprising like with SoundPeats or totally disappointing like with 300 billion AirPods clones on AliExpress that all use fake specs and use same graphics to present it on webpage and adding more zeroes to the iTWS 100000000000 name. If AKG or Sennheiser had TWS earbuds without silicone tips you'd be assured they'll sound good. You never can with no names. SoundPeats surprised me and they released new version of True Air model recently, but that's again about it. They offer a handful of different silicone tipped versions and like 2 without. At least something...

 

So, bottom line, Linus, don't worry that AirPods Pro will be gone, I'm worrying regular ones will... There is just NO way Apple will ever discontinue the AirPods Pro. Just no way that will ever happen. They offer more features as noise cancellation, better drivers and also higher price which means there is more profit in them for the Apple. And they seem pretty popular, more than regular ones it seems.

[8tg]

I think the reason you’d see tipless, “ear resting” style earbuds vanish is because they suck.

Sound is vastly improved by using your ear canal as part of the actual acoustic design. Hence the huge growing market of IEMs for average consumers, and more common manufacturers moving to sealed designs or iems themselves

 

 

[Blademaster91]

In ear headphones sound significantly better than the ones that don't have a silicone ear tip to seal onto the ear, and hold the IEM's from falling out.

Theres also tons of ear tip designs, and memory foam ear tips which can isolate more sound than silicone ear tips.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

You may not like it, but tips make them objectivly better.

They seal in the ear better, so better sound isolation, so better sound in general, and they dont fall out of your ears all the time.

I really dont see how you could like the tipless AirPod or EarPods, those things suck, the tips always scratch against me ear when I pu them in, and the fall out all the time

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

You may not like it, but tips make them objectivly better.

They seal in the ear better, so better sound isolation, so better sound in general, and they dont fall out of your ears all the time.

I really dont see how you could like the tipless AirPod or EarPods, those things suck, the tips always scratch against me ear when I pu them in, and the fall out all the time

I disagree.

 

If you really wanted the best sound quality, you should probably buy headphones. I use earphones/earpods for comfort. The half moon shape is awesome for me. Silicone tips irritate my skin and I hate them. Those foam tips seemed nicer, but the half moon shape is just perfect. I used to buy apple ear pods even though I was an android user, and rn am using some cheapo earphones. 

 

I am using some sony xb900n's as my headphones and probably deliver much better noise cancellation than any earphones.

[RejZoR]

2 hours ago, 8tg said:

I think the reason you’d see tipless, “ear resting” style earbuds vanish is because they suck.

Sound is vastly improved by using your ear canal as part of the actual acoustic design. Hence the huge growing market of IEMs for average consumers, and more common manufacturers moving to sealed designs or iems themselves

 

 

No they don't. The feeling of having something stuck in your ear canal is horrible and I tried them few times and never liked them. I seem to have "special ears" because smaller tips were too loose and bigger ones created pressure inside ear and were physically painful over quite short time.

 

I can wear AirPods 2 or SoundPeats True Air 2 for many hours and I have ZERO issues with them. Pop them in and out easily. I also don't care about noise cancellation or other fancy features. In fact I like hearing some of the ambient sound without having to sacrifice battery for it by having bunch of mics constantly live to do the job of simply not having absolute seal in the ears. No issues with bass because of that. Both, AirPods and TrueAir's have enough of it that I'm happy gaming with them and I do a lot of it. I have wired earphones hooked to custom modded Sound Blaster AE-9 with highest end MUSES Op-Amps swap and I just like the convenience of BT earbuds more. And sound really isn't that much worse as everyone is trying to present it.

[JZStudios]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

No they don't. The feeling of having something stuck in your ear canal is horrible and I tried them few times and never liked them. I seem to have "special ears" because smaller tips were too loose and bigger ones created pressure inside ear and were physically painful over quite short time.

Try medium then. I just remember the old Apple headphones and how suckass they were. Sounded garbage, hurt like hell to wear, and fell out all the time. The newer version hair dryers are better though. My earbuds I now rarely use, but they have comply foam tips and are roughly equivalent to ear plugs. If you're really bothered by it you should be able to go to an aurologist and have custom ones made.

[Roswell]

AirPods Pro definitely sound way better than the regular model.
 

That said… I’ve had nothing but issues with them. I’m on my third pair after only 5 months or so. The vents that control EQ and noise cancellation constantly get obstructed with oil or wax and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. You can clean the outside but whatever’s inside stays there and eventually causes those functions to fail.

[Mihle]

And there is me, that only want to use headphones, I don't like any kind of earbuds.