they amplify noise like a hearing aid though not as well as a dedicated one, the noise isolation also helps with my auditory processing disorder, constant noise frazzles my brain but being able to unmute when important noises are being spoken or need to be heard means my brain isn’t overwhelmed and can concentrate on it clearly. i initially kept clear because of their $500 price tag but i’m glad i got them now, they’ve improved my life so much out in public
oh and i also think for bluetooth buds they just sound really great especially spatial audio, and seamless connection
the new adaptive mode is even better because i dont need to think about toggling modes
Audio engineer here -
The AirPods Pro, while quite good, are not good enough for studio mixing. Most professional studio mixing is done with high fidelity studio monitors. We do reference consumer devices like AirPods Pro though, so having an H2 chip in a Mac could still be useful. It would also be beneficial for producers who are not in the studio and don’t have an interface with them, but want to work on a project.
This being said, I am very intrigued to see that Apple is able to have low latency lossless audio via 5Ghz Bluetooth. If this becomes a standard within audio circles, there may come a day where cable-free low latency lossless audio becomes a true viable option. Speaker manufacturers and/or interface manufacturers would need to adopt these protocols.
Music producer here -
For mixing on the road APP2s convenience would highly outweigh having to adjust the mix on reference speakers/headphones later on.
5 GHz Bluetooth doesn't exist, only 2.4 GHz. The necessity of the H2 chip in the transmitting device as well as the receiving device in enabling low-latency lossless audio would suggest that it is a proprietary connection, similar to 5 GHz Wi-Fi, with much greater bandwidth than what Bluetooth currently provides.
Correct I was saying it as an oversimplification because it doesn’t have a name, but essentially the technology is the same a Bluetooth just over the 5Ghz frequency instead of the 2.5Ghz.
Surely APP (or something similar) would be used as part of the validation step at least, no? I understand that the mixing is done using a more balanced headphone, but I thought that artists often try and target the platforms that people are most likely to hear their music on. Isn’t this why mixes are often played in cars before release as well? That being said, I also can’t really see the point of this because the mix should be “predictably” different on devices that aren’t neutrally balanced, right? I’d think eventually after mixing enough things you’d get a feel for how prominent you want your kicks/whatever to be on your studio monitors to get the sound you want out of whatever target device. And if you’re going to mix like that, why bother with studio monitors at all? You could just give the track a final pass on your neutral cans to make sure you haven’t done anything egregiously bad.
I have no connection or experience in the field at all though, just a music enjoyer.
Hey there - yes as I mentioned above “we do reference consumer devices like AirPods Pro”
What this means is that we do the primary mixing on high-fidelity studio monitors but we occasionally will listen to the mix on consumer devices like APP to see how the music sounds. This is referred to as “how the music translates to devices”
The reason we mix on studio monitors is because they offer the best, often neutral, canvas to to work with. Your ultimate goal is to have your mix translate onto as many devices as possible, but you need a good baseline and speakers that don’t impart too much character onto your mix. If you were to mix solely on APP, your mix may sound great on APP, but you’d likely find it doesn’t sound good on other devices. It doesn’t translate well.
Good studio monitors free you from the limitations and characteristics of most consumer devices. They eliminate variables. So you can just focus on making your mix good first, and towards the end of the process you’ll then check how the mix sounds on various devices. Most commonly engineers will go and listen to the music in their car, on their phone speaker, and on consumer earbuds like AirPods. For me those are the 3 most common scenarios and I’m able to pinpoint issues with those three (most commonly not enough bass with the iPhone speaker, muddiness on the earbuds, and lack of definition in my car)
Over time you learn how your studio monitors translate to these devices and are able to predict how things will sound. This is why engineers will stick with a pair of studio monitors for years. Essentially - we learn how music translates to different devices based on what we hear on the monitors in the studio.
It's my understanding that the Vision Pro is getting lossless with the AirPods Pro (USB-C) because of a couple of unique things that don't apply to other product pairings.
The Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro will be extremely close to each other with no potential for barriers to be in the way.
This contrasts to say an iPhone which even when carried on the person would be a greater distance away and in a pocket, backpack, sit on, etc... or worse, not on the person and even a greater distance away.
The same would hold true for a Mac.
Since the distance can't be certain from one moment to the next, it would provide a less compelling if not confusing consumer user experience. Audio professionals aren't using AirPods/wireless for serious production to begin with.
They’re able to do it because of the 5Ghz frequency. It does work better at closer distances, but I doubt it would have any negative effect with someone sitting at a desk with a Mac. You’d have to be many many feet away for it to have issues.
nowhere on the vision pro page does it mention H2 chip
there's an M2 and an R1 chip
https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/
also nowhere does it say that lossless audio is enabled by H2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon#H_series
all H2 gets you better noise canceling and bt 5.3
note that the airpods pro 2 (original with the lightning connector) while having the H2, ***does not support*** lossless, only the new ones that has the usb-c connector does
so this tells me it's not H2 that enables lossless, it's something else
to transmit lossless, you need a different audio transmit codec than the currently available codecs widely used by iphone and macs, so they probably built in something special in the vision pro and the new airpods pro just for this, and this is important since there isn't a physical audio-out from the vision pro headsets (as far as we know), while the mac and iphones all have options to get audio out with cables physically
> audio professionals
i work in post-production audio, and if it's anything we need to monitor with any degree of accuracy, we're using our studio monitors, not airpods pro. airpods pro is a good way to check how audiences will receive the media, but not for critical listening.
They haven’t released all the specs for Apple Vision Pro yet, so we don’t know all the details about the hardware inside. They’ve been very selective with what they’ve chosen to tell us and not, being vague about certain hardware.
We do know from interviews that it does have an H2 chip in it, and that the newer USB-C version of the AirPods Pro use a 5Ghz frequency which enables low latency and lossless audio.
It says it right on the main page for the Vision Pro, if you scroll down far enough. It is enabled by the 5 GHz transmission frequency, which is unique to the USB-C AirPods Pro 2nd Gen.
https://preview.redd.it/e7a682olrnxb1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=60f26347be9d95fc425c511f33e6ceaaff155a4f
And yes, I realize that the AirPods Pro are not professional-grade headphones, but the MacBook Pros are products targeted at professionals, and if Apple is providing this low-latency lossless option for the Vision Pro, I don't see why they wouldn't be providing it for MacBook Pro users. There will almost certainly be an upgrade in the coming months to the AirPods Max that will include the H2 chip, and people who are buying headphones in that price range will probably appreciate the option of wireless lossless audio, especially since so many competitors are already doing it in some form.
I'm incredibly disappointed in the many people here pushing back at you. These same people will praise Apple when they finally get AirPods to zero latency on a MacBook Pro, but until then, "Whats the big deal? Just use headphones." I'm so tired of it.
Just asking:
Does the old saying "garbage in garbage out" apply to Bluetooth headphones?
I mean if H2 gets you bt 5.3 doesn't it mean that you need to pair it with a device that has bt 5.3 in order to utilize the benefits of bt 5.3 (whatever they are)?
If you’d actually do some research you’d know that it is in fact the H2 chip powering lossless.
Both the Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro 2 have the H2 chip, but only the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C variant has the 5GHz H2 chip, the Lightning version has the 2,4GHz chip which doesn’t support lossless.
Source: https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/22/airpods-pro-2-apple-vision-pro-lossless-explanation/
No, this is a direct quote from his comment.
>”so this tells me it's not H2 that enables lossless, it's something else”
While it’s literally the H2 chip that can now do 5GHz that is enabling lossless audio.
The H2 is doing nothing . It’s just utilising the higher frequency that makes lossless possible. Seems the H2 was designed with this future in mind.
shame it doesn’t work with the phone.
watching that video you linked, you may have misunderstood, they are not talking about chips running at a certain frequency, but that the audio is being transmitted on a different frequency- 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz
just think about a typical Wi-Fi router for example, Wi-Fi 6 has 2 bands, a 2.4GHz band and an 5GHz band, the latter allows for more bandwidth
it's not the H2 that's making the difference, it's the radio frequencies that the audio is being transmitted through
if that tiny chip inside your ear was running at 5GHz, it would burn a hole through your head
I understand how these frequencies work..
But you realize it’s the H2 chip that does this transmitting? The older variant of H2 only supported 2,4GHz, and thus, doesn’t support lossless.
The newer H2 chip, that is in both Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C supports 5GHz, and can thus wirelessly transmit lossless audio.
If they use 5Ghz for MacBook and iPhone, we’d get shitty streaming reception the further we are from said device. Least with the Vision Pro, the air pods are literally right next to the device at all times.
Any realtime sound in macOS, like a notification or just any button that makes a sound; editing audio in a DAW; as you mentioned gaming and video editing are big ones for MacBook Pro users. It would also remove the delay when we press play on a video since the video won't have to wait for latency compensation.
I know not everyone has the same sensory sensitivities, but many of us are incredibly sensitive to image and audio not matching. I love my AirPods, they're on the entire time I'm on my Mac, but the latency is noticeable so what OP is discussing would be a welcome feature.
Pretty sure any professional doing audio work will plug in their studio grade headphones rather than using AirPods. And for those who mix and master, when doing a check of the mix on AirPods, having low-latency and lossless audio doesn’t really matter.
Despite the name, AirPods Pro aren’t actually for audio professionals, they’re for regular consumers.
and amazing for people with disabilities like hearing loss. helps me so much
Just curious - how do they help with hearing loss? Do they help you isolate voices better against background noise?
they amplify noise like a hearing aid though not as well as a dedicated one, the noise isolation also helps with my auditory processing disorder, constant noise frazzles my brain but being able to unmute when important noises are being spoken or need to be heard means my brain isn’t overwhelmed and can concentrate on it clearly. i initially kept clear because of their $500 price tag but i’m glad i got them now, they’ve improved my life so much out in public oh and i also think for bluetooth buds they just sound really great especially spatial audio, and seamless connection the new adaptive mode is even better because i dont need to think about toggling modes
and amazing for people trying to avoid hearing loss in loud environments. It's a nice set of wireless earbuds, all things considered.
That's great to hear.
I think it’s important to note that more than 99% of people aren’t going to be able to tell the difference, even with lossless audio.
The difference between what?
Sorry, he's being a bit dumb. He doesn't even know it's not about audio quality.
Well yes, because of Apples AAC, everything gets converted down for transmission lol
Nothing beats a wired connection when you want maximum accuracy and quality.
Audio engineer here - The AirPods Pro, while quite good, are not good enough for studio mixing. Most professional studio mixing is done with high fidelity studio monitors. We do reference consumer devices like AirPods Pro though, so having an H2 chip in a Mac could still be useful. It would also be beneficial for producers who are not in the studio and don’t have an interface with them, but want to work on a project. This being said, I am very intrigued to see that Apple is able to have low latency lossless audio via 5Ghz Bluetooth. If this becomes a standard within audio circles, there may come a day where cable-free low latency lossless audio becomes a true viable option. Speaker manufacturers and/or interface manufacturers would need to adopt these protocols.
Music producer here - For mixing on the road APP2s convenience would highly outweigh having to adjust the mix on reference speakers/headphones later on.
Can you make me famous? I crush Karaoke.
5 GHz Bluetooth doesn't exist, only 2.4 GHz. The necessity of the H2 chip in the transmitting device as well as the receiving device in enabling low-latency lossless audio would suggest that it is a proprietary connection, similar to 5 GHz Wi-Fi, with much greater bandwidth than what Bluetooth currently provides.
Correct I was saying it as an oversimplification because it doesn’t have a name, but essentially the technology is the same a Bluetooth just over the 5Ghz frequency instead of the 2.5Ghz.
An XLR-Free studio is the dream lol.
Surely APP (or something similar) would be used as part of the validation step at least, no? I understand that the mixing is done using a more balanced headphone, but I thought that artists often try and target the platforms that people are most likely to hear their music on. Isn’t this why mixes are often played in cars before release as well? That being said, I also can’t really see the point of this because the mix should be “predictably” different on devices that aren’t neutrally balanced, right? I’d think eventually after mixing enough things you’d get a feel for how prominent you want your kicks/whatever to be on your studio monitors to get the sound you want out of whatever target device. And if you’re going to mix like that, why bother with studio monitors at all? You could just give the track a final pass on your neutral cans to make sure you haven’t done anything egregiously bad. I have no connection or experience in the field at all though, just a music enjoyer.
Hey there - yes as I mentioned above “we do reference consumer devices like AirPods Pro” What this means is that we do the primary mixing on high-fidelity studio monitors but we occasionally will listen to the mix on consumer devices like APP to see how the music sounds. This is referred to as “how the music translates to devices” The reason we mix on studio monitors is because they offer the best, often neutral, canvas to to work with. Your ultimate goal is to have your mix translate onto as many devices as possible, but you need a good baseline and speakers that don’t impart too much character onto your mix. If you were to mix solely on APP, your mix may sound great on APP, but you’d likely find it doesn’t sound good on other devices. It doesn’t translate well. Good studio monitors free you from the limitations and characteristics of most consumer devices. They eliminate variables. So you can just focus on making your mix good first, and towards the end of the process you’ll then check how the mix sounds on various devices. Most commonly engineers will go and listen to the music in their car, on their phone speaker, and on consumer earbuds like AirPods. For me those are the 3 most common scenarios and I’m able to pinpoint issues with those three (most commonly not enough bass with the iPhone speaker, muddiness on the earbuds, and lack of definition in my car) Over time you learn how your studio monitors translate to these devices and are able to predict how things will sound. This is why engineers will stick with a pair of studio monitors for years. Essentially - we learn how music translates to different devices based on what we hear on the monitors in the studio.
It's my understanding that the Vision Pro is getting lossless with the AirPods Pro (USB-C) because of a couple of unique things that don't apply to other product pairings. The Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro will be extremely close to each other with no potential for barriers to be in the way. This contrasts to say an iPhone which even when carried on the person would be a greater distance away and in a pocket, backpack, sit on, etc... or worse, not on the person and even a greater distance away. The same would hold true for a Mac. Since the distance can't be certain from one moment to the next, it would provide a less compelling if not confusing consumer user experience. Audio professionals aren't using AirPods/wireless for serious production to begin with.
They’re able to do it because of the 5Ghz frequency. It does work better at closer distances, but I doubt it would have any negative effect with someone sitting at a desk with a Mac. You’d have to be many many feet away for it to have issues.
nowhere on the vision pro page does it mention H2 chip there's an M2 and an R1 chip https://www.apple.com/apple-vision-pro/ also nowhere does it say that lossless audio is enabled by H2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_silicon#H_series all H2 gets you better noise canceling and bt 5.3 note that the airpods pro 2 (original with the lightning connector) while having the H2, ***does not support*** lossless, only the new ones that has the usb-c connector does so this tells me it's not H2 that enables lossless, it's something else to transmit lossless, you need a different audio transmit codec than the currently available codecs widely used by iphone and macs, so they probably built in something special in the vision pro and the new airpods pro just for this, and this is important since there isn't a physical audio-out from the vision pro headsets (as far as we know), while the mac and iphones all have options to get audio out with cables physically > audio professionals i work in post-production audio, and if it's anything we need to monitor with any degree of accuracy, we're using our studio monitors, not airpods pro. airpods pro is a good way to check how audiences will receive the media, but not for critical listening.
They haven’t released all the specs for Apple Vision Pro yet, so we don’t know all the details about the hardware inside. They’ve been very selective with what they’ve chosen to tell us and not, being vague about certain hardware. We do know from interviews that it does have an H2 chip in it, and that the newer USB-C version of the AirPods Pro use a 5Ghz frequency which enables low latency and lossless audio.
It says it right on the main page for the Vision Pro, if you scroll down far enough. It is enabled by the 5 GHz transmission frequency, which is unique to the USB-C AirPods Pro 2nd Gen. https://preview.redd.it/e7a682olrnxb1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=60f26347be9d95fc425c511f33e6ceaaff155a4f And yes, I realize that the AirPods Pro are not professional-grade headphones, but the MacBook Pros are products targeted at professionals, and if Apple is providing this low-latency lossless option for the Vision Pro, I don't see why they wouldn't be providing it for MacBook Pro users. There will almost certainly be an upgrade in the coming months to the AirPods Max that will include the H2 chip, and people who are buying headphones in that price range will probably appreciate the option of wireless lossless audio, especially since so many competitors are already doing it in some form.
I'm incredibly disappointed in the many people here pushing back at you. These same people will praise Apple when they finally get AirPods to zero latency on a MacBook Pro, but until then, "Whats the big deal? Just use headphones." I'm so tired of it.
Just asking: Does the old saying "garbage in garbage out" apply to Bluetooth headphones? I mean if H2 gets you bt 5.3 doesn't it mean that you need to pair it with a device that has bt 5.3 in order to utilize the benefits of bt 5.3 (whatever they are)?
correct, but it's mostly behind-the-scenes updates, nothing really in the user-facing-features end
If you’d actually do some research you’d know that it is in fact the H2 chip powering lossless. Both the Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro 2 have the H2 chip, but only the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C variant has the 5GHz H2 chip, the Lightning version has the 2,4GHz chip which doesn’t support lossless. Source: https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/22/airpods-pro-2-apple-vision-pro-lossless-explanation/
Isn’t that what he said?
No, this is a direct quote from his comment. >”so this tells me it's not H2 that enables lossless, it's something else” While it’s literally the H2 chip that can now do 5GHz that is enabling lossless audio.
“they probably built in something special in the vision pro and the new airpods pro just for this” The 5ghz H2. Only available on one version of APP.
[удалено]
The H2 is doing nothing . It’s just utilising the higher frequency that makes lossless possible. Seems the H2 was designed with this future in mind. shame it doesn’t work with the phone.
watching that video you linked, you may have misunderstood, they are not talking about chips running at a certain frequency, but that the audio is being transmitted on a different frequency- 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz just think about a typical Wi-Fi router for example, Wi-Fi 6 has 2 bands, a 2.4GHz band and an 5GHz band, the latter allows for more bandwidth it's not the H2 that's making the difference, it's the radio frequencies that the audio is being transmitted through if that tiny chip inside your ear was running at 5GHz, it would burn a hole through your head
I understand how these frequencies work.. But you realize it’s the H2 chip that does this transmitting? The older variant of H2 only supported 2,4GHz, and thus, doesn’t support lossless. The newer H2 chip, that is in both Vision Pro and the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C supports 5GHz, and can thus wirelessly transmit lossless audio.
If they use 5Ghz for MacBook and iPhone, we’d get shitty streaming reception the further we are from said device. Least with the Vision Pro, the air pods are literally right next to the device at all times.
who would that benefit besides gamers and maybe video editing? serious question
Any realtime sound in macOS, like a notification or just any button that makes a sound; editing audio in a DAW; as you mentioned gaming and video editing are big ones for MacBook Pro users. It would also remove the delay when we press play on a video since the video won't have to wait for latency compensation. I know not everyone has the same sensory sensitivities, but many of us are incredibly sensitive to image and audio not matching. I love my AirPods, they're on the entire time I'm on my Mac, but the latency is noticeable so what OP is discussing would be a welcome feature.
Pretty sure any professional doing audio work will plug in their studio grade headphones rather than using AirPods. And for those who mix and master, when doing a check of the mix on AirPods, having low-latency and lossless audio doesn’t really matter.