Audiophile YouTuber says AirPods Pro are the 'best wireless earbuds on the market'

Air Pods Pro Unboxed
Air Pods Pro Unboxed (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • AirPods Pro are Apple's first noise cancelling earbuds.
  • One audiophile calls the sound "fine."
  • But they're still worthy of the crown of "best" earbuds around.

Apple's AirPods Pro have been around for a couple of days now and people are starting to form their opinions on how they perform. One of those is self-confessed audiophile Quinn Nelson who took to his Snazzy Labs YouTube channel to explain his thoughts.

The video is absolutely worth a watch because it steps beyond the usual Apple tech reviewer perspective and goes into things more deeply than you might have previously seen. That means Nelson is able to compare how AirPods Pro really sound when put up against their closest competition, the Sony WF-1000XM3.

On that note it's clear Nelson believes that the Sony earbuds sound better and if they're anywhere near as great as my Sony WH-1000XM3 that's probably the case. But the Sony offerings can't compete on what made the original AirPods so popular – their connectivity and instant pairing abilities.

Overall despite AirPods Pro only sounding "fine" Nelson does conclude that they are the "best wireless earbuds on the market" which is no mean feat. I'd expected that to come with a caveat of "for iPhone users," but it never arrived. So there we have it, even my friends at Android Central should be picking up AirPods Pro.

I didn't see that one coming.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.