I’ve been a naughty boy.
I picked up AirPods 4 with ANC this weekend and I am rather pleased with them. I can’t bear silicon tips in my ears canals and struggle to get any kind of seal with any kind of buds outside of Bose, so these seemed made for me.
ANC is as expected: working rather well for low frequency noise (think of a truck idling), but does not do much in the higher ranges. Convenient, but not sure I’d take these on an airplane flight.
Connectivity and ergonomics are a breath of fresh air: connectivity is painless, switching and operating is flawlessly with my Apple devices. They fit my ears ridiculously well.
Voice detection is great in an office environment: as soon as you raise your voice, music volume is lowered drastically and transparency mode is enabled. When you shut up, music gently fades back in in a few seconds and ANC is enabled again.
Out of the box however, the AirPods 4 sound comfortable but a bit bassy and dull. At work and on the run I mostly use Spotify for listening (long list of reasons, none is relevant here). So, for the first time: I enabled Audio Normalisation and fiddled a bit with the Equaliser, settling for the Treble Booster. Somehow it all appears to work out quite nicely.
Like I said, I’ve been a naughty boy. But one that is pretty well pleased at the moment. It’s the little things – and sometimes you need two.