These are the AirPods Pro: the best of the best wireless earbuds and This is the Sony
XM3, the best of the best Noise Cancelling headphones.
Now these devices were made for very different reasons so it may seem….
What’s the word?
Outrageous.
It may seem outrageous to compare the two… but who cares?
They both play audio, so which one provides the better audio experience overall?
Let's start with which one sounds better.
Which has better audio quality?
Well they both sound good.
Actually, they both sound great.
When it comes to sound quality, they are both one of the best of the best in their respective
categories.
When you compare them to each other tho, and put them side by side, you'll see that the
AirPods Pro sound very very good.
But not as good as the Sony's.
You'd think This is kind of expected and you'd be right.
They're both top notch in their categories, but the Sony's category, the actual over-ear
noise cancelling headphone category, is overall better than the wireless earbud category where
the AirPods fall under.
Well, when it comes to sound quality at least.
And the prices show that too…
If the Airpods were to sound better than the Sony's, there'll be no reason to buy the Sony's.
In fact, it'll be embarrassing for the Sony's.
But the Airpods are good enough to embarrass some headphones, I mean they've done it before.
When You listen to a song on the AirPods Pro, they will sound very very good.
But when you switch to the Sony’s, they don’t just sound very good, but you start
to notice things you couldn’t hear before with the AirPods like the drums, the little
keyboard melodies added to the song, and even the separation of voices in the track you’re
listening to.
The sound is just more full on the Sony’s and it provides the kind of quality and listening
experience that the Airpods Pro or any other wireless earbud cannot.
And that’s with the standard out-of-the-box settings.
And with those same standard settings, the bass on the Sony’s are crazy.
You can really hear every BOOM BOOM BOOM.
The Airpods can’t match them with its standard settings.
They can’t match them with its bass booster Equalization setting or any other setting
too.
And that’s with the standard settings on the Sony’s.
If you want to customize the settings, then it won’t be close to fair anymore.
The Sony’s will go toe-to-toe with any other headphones because of how much you can customize
it to how you like.
You can mess with almost everything about it from the 360 sound, to the EQ settings
and more The 360 sound isn't fully developed tho.
You can pick what direction the sound comes on and they actually works pretty well but
for the full feature 360 sound that Sony has been talking about, the one that’s supposed
to sound like you’re in the actual studio of your favorite band?
Yeah it’s not there yet.
Not a lot Songs support it and it only works with 3 Apps and they all want you to pay for
a premium subscription or get on a free trial to use it.
I optimized the app and tried it myself on Tidal, and it actually sounded kinda bad to
me.
Actually kinda horrible.
Everything was just so sharp to my ears.
I then tried some of the same songs on Deezer, another so that supports 360 sound, and it
was mind blowing.
I don’t know if I felt like I was in the studio with the artist….
It just felt like there were 8 Britney Spears around me singing at me…. and it sounded
beautiful.
Until more songs have this feature tho, I’m not sure how useful 360 sound is, no matter
how much I liked it when it worked.
If you like bass tho, you can even turn it all the way up and add extra with the Sonys.
Till this day, I don’t know a device that can match the Sony’s when it comes to bass.
You can also mess with the Noise Cancellation settings and change the levels from Noise
Cancelling to up to 20 different levels of Transparency.
Speaking of Noise Canceling And Transparency, which does it better?
First, which cancels noise better?
Well, The AirPods do a great job again.
They’re actually very impressive and they even beat out some headphones more expensive
than the Sony’s but…. they’re not quite as good as the Sony’s when it comes to noise
canceling.
I'll say the Sony's are a good 30% better when it comes to noise cancellation and you
can even make it Optimize the noise cancelling for you so it can be the best it can in different
situations.
Transparency, on the other hand, is pretty good on the Sony's as well.
When you're in full transparency mode, or ambient level 20, the noise cancellation will
obviously be off but it also turns on the mics on the outside and plays whatever it
hears straight into your ears.
It's kinda cool and you'll be able to hear things around you but not like you're actually
there.
Like it won't sound natural.
You'll be able to tell it's a microphone assisting you.
Like you're not in your environment, but you're making a phone call to your environment…
but the phone call quality is pretty good.
The microphones do a good job.
You can also make them let you hear people's voices while it's simultaneously blocking
out the noise and it works pretty well.
If you want to call actual people, then you’ll want the microphones to be good.
Right now, you’re listening to me through the Sony -+’s and you can hear how they
sound for yourself, and these are how the Airpods sound.
Now I don’t have any complaints with either and to be honest, I don’t know exactly how
they sound.
I’ve never had to worry about phone call quality or whatever, and the people I talk
to never complain so I’ll say they’re both good enough here.
Now as far as transparency goes, You can't focus on just voices with the Airpods Pro
but as far as normal transparency goes, It's not a contest.
it's not a competition at all.
The Airpods Pro not only beats the Sony's, I'm telling you that if it was a contest between
the AirPods Pro vs. Your actual ears……… it'll be a tough one.
Tight call.
I'm not exaggerating either.
I've gone around searching for my AirPods while they were on my ear.
That's a bit of an insult to me….
But it's a big compliment to the Transparency mode of the Airpods Pro.
I'm not kidding, they sound like they're not even there.
Like you're just hearing normally.
As far as Transparency goes, the Airpod Pros are the best I've ever used.
I'll be surprised if they're not the best in the world.
But none of these would matter tho, if there's no power in your devices for Transparency
or noise cancelling to even work.
So how is the battery life of each?
Well let’s not focus on the specs Sony and Apple tell us.
We have something better: my extensive real world experience….
And in my experience, the Airpod Pros aren’t bad.
They last about 4 to 5 hours before needing to go in the case and the case charges them
back pretty quickly.
The case’s battery lasts about 2 days.
As for the Sony’s, they don’t know how to die.
The last time my AirPods battery was dead was… a couple days ago.
The last time my Sony’s were dead was….
I don’t even know.
Can’t remember.
It wasn’t this week tho, or last week either, also wasn’t the week before that, and the
week before that, I don’t even think it was last month.
AndI use them very much.
They're Supposed to last about 30 hours with Noise Cancelling on.
But In my experience, I find that I don’t even charge them much.
I find myself plugging them in occasionally.
Like every couple of days I just see them and think “I haven’t charged you in in
a while”.... then I plug them in.
With the AirPods Pro case, I have to charge it once every two days.
I use the AirPods Pro extensively as well and I’m not saying I charge it about every
two days.
I’m saying that I must charge it every two days, if not, the battery of the case and
the AirPods will be on zero.
So I worry about battery way more with the AirPod Pros.
It’s not even a thing for me with the Sony’s.
While making this video, I decided to use the heck out of my Sony's.
Like nonstop nonstop use and I found I had to charge it at the end of like every two
days.
That's pretty good.
To be honest, even the Airpods are pretty good cause with the case, they can last me
about two days as well.
48 Hours.
That’s a pretty long time to not worry about charging your device.
Imagine a long 48 hour trip and you have to pick either your AirPods or your Sony’s.
Your Sony’s will last you probably the entire trip and you’ll only kill it if you spend
every single second you’re not sleeping with it on your head, listening to music with
the volume turned all the way up with Noise Canceling on Maximum.
And to be honest, from my experience, you still might not be able to kill it.
I've used the Sony's for over a year, and I've only heard the voice prompt it gives
you when the battery dies like once or twice.
It's something like "Please recharge battery, Power Off" or something like that.
Ask any Sony user, I think there's a great chance they don't know what that prompt says
cause they haven't had it die while using it before.
Now Let’s say you picked the Airpods for the trip, you won’t be able to use them
nonstop for the whole trip.
They’ll die in the first 5 hours.
But that’s only if they literally stay on your ears for the Five hours playing music
nonstop with noise cancellation on and never going back into the case.
If you put it into the case at times tho, you’ll be able to listen to music for the
entire trip just like with the Sony’s but both your case and your airpods will be dead
at the end of the trip . You will still have to be using both the Airpods and the Sony’s
in this unrealistic never-stopping way for it to happen tho.
The Sony’s battery seems way more impressive on paper compared to the AirPods Pro and it
is in real life too but in real life use, they are both way past the good and acceptable
point that you don’t have to worry about battery life with both of them.
They’ll last during your trips just fine.What’s more important tho, is how enjoyable they’ll
be on the trip.
How comfortable they’ll be, how seamless they work and just the whole experience.
To be honest, you might not want to use the Sony’s for the Trip.
They’re great and comfortable, but you will notice it’s there.
You can’t use it with every outfit; they’ll get in the way of your hoodies and fancy hats.
And apart from the great listening experience, other parts of the experience would actually
be better on the Airpods Pro.
They won’t get in the way of any outfit you wanna wear.
In fact, you might even forget you have it on at times.
You won’t even notice it’s there.
It’ll almost just be like it’s a part of you.
The thing with the AirPod Pros is that they are the definition of seamless.
Nothing else can compete.
Not even the Sony’s.
The Sony’s do have some seamless qualities tho.
One of the ways it handles Transparency for example, is very clean and simple.
You just put your hand over the right surface of the headphones and... you can instantly
hear everything.
You take your hand off, and it’s back to silent.
With the AirPods, you have to squeeze and hold the bottom of either Pod.
They work consistently and are pretty seamless but this is one area I’ll say the Sony’s
are more seamless.
It even has a mode where it turns on noise canceling when you’re stationary and like
sitting in one place but turns on transparency when you’re moving again so you can hear
your surroundings.
With all the customizability settings of the Sony’s, you can really make them very seamless,
especially for you specifically.
The Airpods will probably still be the more seamless experience tho, I mean it was literally
designed with that purpose in mind.This will really show itself, if you wanna work out
while on your trip.
You’re not even gonna wanna think of using the Sony’s if your workout is more intense.
It’s too bulky and will just get in your way.
There’s another thing to worry about tho, cause this is my second pair of these Sony
Headphones.
My first basically stopped working right.
They would turn off after a while when I try to go workout with them.
This kept happening until they wouldn’t turn on anymore.
I think it was water damage cause I sweat A LOT and the Sony’s have no water resistance
rating whatsoever.
This isn’t an issue with the Airpods.
I work out with them ALL the time.
They have an IPX4 water resistant rating which is supposed to protect it against sweat, and
light splashing of water like in light rain, but this isn't exactly true.
See, one time, I remember when I was listening to music and having some me-time when I was
too relaxed and forgot I still had the AirPods on, like you normally do with the AirPods,
and I just went into the water completely.
But then I heard… music still playing.
So I jumped out and I was really really hoping nothing was wrong with the AirPods but the
music never stopped playing.
The Airpods didn’t even flinch for a second.
To them, nothing happened.
They just got a little cleaner.
Don't be stupid tho, don't do that.
That's not what I'm saying.
But….
If you were to be stupid one time, and maybe a second time for your YouTube video for the
sake of your subscribers, it seems like you'll be fine with the Airpods.
But Don't even think about trying it with the Sony's.
Now Apart from all I’ve talked about, They’re also some other little things to keep in mind
when comparing these devices.
Your AirPods Pro will be useless for gaming with your PS4.
The PS4 can’t connect to Bluetooth headphones.
It can connect to the Sony’s tho, not with Bluetooth but by using a 3.5mm cable.
Charging might also be an issue, depending on who you are and what cables you use.
The AirPods Pro case charges using Apple’s lightning cable and the Sony’s use USB C.
USB C is the future and these days you can charge just about all your devices with it
but some people might not be there yet.
Speaking of charging, both devices claim to have some quick charge feature where you charge
it for a short time, and have it last for a long time.
With exact timings aside, that is actually true.
If you charge both of them for just a couple minutes, they will provide way more than a
couple minutes of battery life.
I'm talking hours.
This is one of the many great things about these two devices.They do have some not-so-great
things about them tho.
The Sony's apparently start to act funny in really cold weather.
They start increasing the volume, playing and pausing songs and registering a bunch
of touches even though nobody's touching them.
Now I haven't experienced this at all and I've used them for over a year throughout
all the seasons, hot and cold….
But I stay in Texas and it doesn't get as cold here as it does in other places.
As far as the AirPods, well you know how they try to be seamless.
Like very very seamless?
Well they make mistakes at times.
Most of what the AirPods do is automatic.
It pauses your music when you take it off, plays it back when you put it back on, on
Apple devices only tho, you take off just one and put it in the case, that one's goes
off and starts charging while the other one continues to work just fine, but it won't
have noise cancellation on anymore tho, you'll need to have both of them on for that to work,
so you put it back in, and noise cancellation comes on automatically.
Everything's just seamless.
But then, as you still have it on, it might just think one's not in your ear and turn
off noise cancellation… but then it'll realize it IS in your ear and it'll turn it back on.
Some other times one will be on a table or something in just the right or rather wrong
position and it'll detect something's in the way and think it's your ear so it'll play
some music, then decide it's not your ear so it'll pause the music…. then maybe be
like no no no it IS your ear then play the music again.
It does this stuff like this pretty quickly and honestly, in real life it's not that big
a deal at all but it is a bigger deal on Android than on Apple devices I've noticed.
You also can't tell the battery level of the Airpods Pro on Android as opposed to Apple
devices….
But you can download an app to do this although it's not the cleanest.
At least not as clean as doing it straight on Apple devices.
The Sony's on the other hand, don't discriminate between Android and iOS.
So which is the better device for our audio listening needs…
Our audio listening experience…..
Taking everything into consideration, I can really see this being a tough one for some
people….
But for this comparison, we have to ask What would you be losing if you switch from Sonys
to AirPods?
Sound Quality?
Well Yes.
But how much?
Well, A decent amount.
You'll also be downgrading when it comes to Noise Cancelling and you'll be losing all
the cool features the Sony's have like the different levels of transparency, the ability
to only focus on voice and cancel all other noise, being able to quickly cover the side
of the headphones and hear instantly and seamlessly, although you won't miss this as much cause
the Airpods are pretty seamless too, even more so actually, The Sony’s are very seamless
for the headphones they are but they can’t really match earbuds especially the most seamless
and capable earbuds in the world, the Airpods Pro.
You won't be missing the 360 audio tho but you might in the future if they get pretty
good.
There's also all the other features you might've gotten used to.
Oh and don't forget you're gonna miss the battery cause now you'll actually have to
remember to charge your AirPods and use it with the case properly if you want good battery
life.
Okay but what would you lose if you switch from the AirPods to the Sony?
Well not sound quality.
You would lose a lot of seamlessness tho and now you'll actually know that you have headphones
on.
You'll definitely be downgrading when in comes to transparency mode also….
Oh And Everytime you wanna switch devices, you'll have to disconnect and reconnect and
disconnect and reconnect and disconnect and reconnect….
With the Airpods, as long as you've paired before, you can seamlessly switch between
all your devices.
Android, iOS, Windows, it doesn't matter.
So which is better for our sound experience?
Well the Sony's do A LOT for the sound part and isn't lacking in the seamless experience
part either.. but the Airpods are just about THE BEST for the seamless experience part
and although it isn't bad for the sound part, in fact it's good at it, but ….. it just
can't compete with the Sony's.
The sound part is THE most important part… and even when I wanna dress light and I go
out with the Airpods listening to music, I always wish it was the Sony's I was listening
to.
That's why the Sony's are the winner today.
Not outrageous.