Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Are Apple AirPods the Best? Let’s Compare To Sony and Bose”.
On the market for some new wireless earbuds, well, look no further than the airpods pro two. You mean the Sony wf1000x Mark 5. He definitely meant the Bose quiet, Comfort, Ultra earbuds. Well, we can’t all be right, whilst it’s clear that these three earbuds are some of the best on the market, what they do, it’s not as clear which of these three does it best so I’ll be looking at how they Stack Up in various categories to see, If we can find a winner just a quick caveat, these are the original airpods Pro 2, so no USB type-c. Luckily, the main difference between the two besides Port is the USBC unlocked lossless audio. You just need the 3500 Vision Pro to enable it with that.
Out of the way, let’s get down to it, let’s start with design. As you can see, all three buds take slightly different approaches. All three have glossy finishes, but the airpods are the only one with a long stem. The QC Ultras are the only ones with an extra security fin. Meanwhile, the xm5 don’t have any of these features, but do come with foam tips instead of the quite generic silicone tips.
Speaking of tips, you get the standard small, medium large sizes, with the QC Ultra, where you get an additional extra small tip with the airpods pro and xm5. In terms of cases, the airpods pro and the xm5 are pretty comparable. Both are perfectly pocketable. The airpods pro have a glossy finish and the xm5 a matte finish, which I think helps hide scuffs and scratches way better than airpods. The QC Ultra has the biggest case that still fits in the pocket, but it’s clearly bulkier than the other two another downside to the QC ultra’s case is its lack of wireless charging that is present in the airpods Pro and the xm5, which is particularly disappointing.
Considering the size and the price, another small consideration case, sturdiness the lids of the airpods Pro 2 and the Sony xm5 feel very sturdy and wellb built. The QC Ultra, on the other hand, feels flimsy by comparison and to prove that this is the quiet, Comfort, earbuds. 2, that shares 99.9 % of the QC ultra’s design and having dropped them on the floor.
The lid came flying off. So if you’re a butter fingered incline you’ll definitely want to get a case for it when it comes to fit. Each bud has its strengths and weaknesses. The airpods Pro 2 have a very comfy fit when they go in. You kind of forget that they’re there. After a few minutes, however, out of the three I found myself readjusting the airpods, the most after extended use, the XM 5 has the most passive noise cancelling thanks to those phone tips.
They stay in and hardly need readjusting, but with prolonged use. I found my ear canal would suffer fatigue as the foam tips are more rigid, they’re still miles better than the xm4. When it comes to ear fatigue, though the QC Ultra, in my opinion, has the most secure fit.
I regularly use them for my workouts and I find the sports fins do a great job to make sure I don’t have to readjust and just focus on what I’m doing, even though the QC Ultra are the bulkiest of the three. It really doesn’t feel like that. In the ear, but as always when it comes to fit, your mileage may vary moving on to sound quality and you’ll, be happy to know that all three buds produce excellent sound for their price tag. While listening to Ways by Joey Badass on repeat, I noticed subtle differences in their profiles. The airpods were pretty neutral with clean, sound reproduction.
Every instrument had clear separation from one another, and while the base wasn’t particularly strong, it was still well defined. The xm5 had a much warmer tone than the airpods. They also had a lot more punch in the base and while the instrument separation was very good, the airpods probably Edge out the xm5. In that regard, the QC Ultra, in my opinion, had the best sound quality. It sounded open, vibrant and, while the Basse wasn’t as meaty as the xm5, it still did perform better than the airpods. The addition of immersive audio really gives something extra to the QC Ultra and, while airpods Pro have a similar feature with spatial audio. It just sounds a a little more open and well immersive on the bows Sony’s answer to this is 360 audio. However, it doesn’t play nice with a lot of the mainstream platform, so it really just feels like an afterthought and while the xm5 and QC Ultra have apps to adjust EQ the airpods do not, but more on that later.
Another class leading feature on all three buds: are their noise cancelling? So I’m going to be here with my TV and I’m going to be listening to some music about 50 % volume and seeing how much of the TV’s volume comes into my music. Let’S give it a go, that’s a compression technique that sends audio over the air from your device to your earbuds without getting jumping around between different genres of music higher end earbuds are General, with a vocal Su and a detailed travel without sounding too tetiny or washed Out and just moving on to that transparency mode, all three buds perform ay, but I would say that the airpods pro probably have the more natural sounding Out of all three. All three buds come with a decent amount of features, some more than others, with the xm5 and QC Ultra. They get an accompanying app to help customize and manage your settings with apple.
There is no app and very limited settings cuz. You know that’s the apple way, but all three have some form of profile that can shift between full immersion to environmental awareness. The airpods pro use a feature called adaptive audio that will dynamically change the amount of the outside world that gets into your music, depending on how loud your environment is. I want in depth with that feature in a video that you can watch here, but just finish this video first, but in a nutshell, it will give you a level of transparency when you are out and about but will ramp up.
The noise canceling should a particular loud noise cross, your path in true Apple fashion. It’S no more than a toggle in your settings with no real way to dial. In the feature to your personal taste, the xm5 is adaptive, feature is less about sound and more about situational awareness. I would say in the accompanying app: you have the ability to specify how much noise, cancelling or transparency you get depending on four states while staying while walking while running while taking a ride in a vehicle. The notion is, you probably want to hear more of your environment when you’re out and about as opposed to when you’re stationary, so it gives you the option to dial in the exact amount you want in each instance while it works well, there is this notification sound That seems to strum every time your States change it can get annoying after a while. Luckily, you can disable the chime in settings, making the experience a whole lot smoother.
The QC ultra’s way of doing things is, in my opinion, A Little Less fluid Bose’s answer to the Adaptive mode on xm5 and the airpods is active sense, which is a mode that will boost up your noise. Cancelling should anything loud cross, your path, the QC Ultra, gives you the option to create different profiles with varying levels of noise, cancelling or awareness like the XM FS. But it’s fully manual you can cycle through the profiles with a long press of the earbuds.
So if you end up creating a bunch, cycling through them will definitely get tedious. After a while out of the three, the QC Ultra are the least intuitive the airpods pro and the xm5 get a speak to chat, feature slon, conversational awareness that allows you to talk to someone and will drop your music down and bring it right back up. Once you finish your conversation, the airpod pro do it in a much smoother manner when it lowers your decibels but continues playing while the 5 will completely pause your music, so you can pick up where you left off so which you prefer is down to personal preference.
The QC Ultra, on the other hand, doesn’t have this feature, so you’ll likely have to just remove a bud which will pause your music, a feature that the other two have as well. Another shortcoming of the QC Ultra is the lack of multi-point bluetooth, pairing that is present in the xm5 and the airpods pro again really disappointing, considering how pricey they are just a quick note on battery life and all three buds are relatively comparable, but the xm5 are Definitely the leader in this category, the xm5 have around 8 hours on a single charge, with noise, cancelling on at moderate volume levels and up to 12 hours with it off. The case holds an extra two Chargers: the airpods pro get up to 6 hours with noise.
Cancelling on and seven without it and an extra four charges in the case, the QC Ultra gets around 6 hours of battery life, withc on and moderate volume levels to about 4 4 hours, withc and immersive audio engaged. They also get an extra three charges from the case. All three buds produce solid core quality. Oh yeah. This is what the QC Ultra earbuds sound in pretty optimal conditions, where it’s very quiet.
So hopefully, what you hear is a very clear voice with not a lot of static, but you can, let me know what you think about it in the comments. So here’s the core quality of the aods Pro 2 see how that sounds. Um just to talk a little bit, so you can get a real uh like feel for it and see how you feel like it compares to the others in the same optimal conditions, and here we are with the xm5 once again. Quite Tim conditions are very quiet, so you can get real feel of how the mics work and how it kind of keeps everything.
Even you know. Let me know in the comments and see how you compare it to the, but when it comes to core quality and noise environments, is there one that is subjectively better to try and find out I’m going to test the best ears in the business, seeing at David Conor to see if he can discern any difference in quality – hey David – I am here with a we’ll call them and there’s a lot of traffic going by me, still quite strong winds. So I don’t know how much of that you can pick up with my voice and, speaking of my voice, is it clear, let me know all right with the first set of buds buds, a um, I’m hearing a a little bit of background noise and uh your Voice sounds a little bit recessed, but I can still hear it fairly clearly um, so overall, not bad, but not Stellar.
Okay, David, I’m here with earbuds B, the wind is still quite strong. So let me know if that is something that you’re picking up on the mics or so how my voice is with the traffic. In the background, is it still clear how does compare to buds a you? Let me know all right with the B buds uh slightly better than the a uh there’s a little bit of background noise, a little bit of a whoo uh.
But your voice is clear: all in all uh pretty good uh a little bit better than a okay B. I’M here with airbud C, the conditions are pretty much the same, still strong, the SS and lots of traffic going by, in the background how’s my voice compared to that of earbuds b and a any better any worse. I can’t wait to hear the rankings all right with the seab buds. I would say Your Voice Sounds the loudest and most clear, and these seem to be the best of the bunch uh. Barely any background, noise uh so a little bit louder overall and clear overall. So I’ve listened to three Buds and I would say it goes a b c uh a there’s a little bit of background noise, a little bit of whoo Your Voice Sounds slightly recessed, it’s clear enough: it’s decent uh, not stellar and then b gets slightly better again.
There’S a little bit of whoo in the background. Your voice is a little bit clearer, um and then C. Your voice is the loudest and clearest with very minimal background noise uh. So I would say C is the best overall all and all there’s a lot to love about these three buds, but they’re not without their flaws.
The airpod pro are good all rounders, but are really OS biased. So you don’t get all the great features if you pair them to an Android phone. The xm5 has great sound quality and customization, but the comfort is probably at the bottom of the pile of all three, the QC ultra sound amazing, but seriously lacking a lot of features of its competitors. That being said, if I had to choose my favorite, it would actually be the QC Ultra earbuds.
I know they lack a lot: no multi-point Bluetooth, pairing, no wireless charging, mid battery life and the most expensive as it’s harder to find them at discounted prices, but something about that sound and how comfortable they are makes me not care about any of that when it Comes to buying a new piece of tech, it’s easier to blast a product for all the features it doesn’t have, but when it Nails the things that it does have so well, it’s really hard for me to argue against it. Don’T get me wrong, they are spendy, but if what you desire in a pair of earbuds is first and foremost sound quality and comfort, I don’t think you can look past the QC Ultra earbuds. So those are my thoughts and I’m sure I have offended some of you out there. So do air your grievances in the comments.
Respectfully, of course, is that too much to ask from the internet – I don’t know, I think it’s a reasonable request, but if you liked the video please leave a like and if you want to see more product videos like this do subscribe too. So. Thank you.
So much for watching and I’ll catch you on the next one. .