The Apple AirPods are undoubtedly one of the most popular audio devices on the planet, but behind their runaway success is obviously a ton of research and innovation involved. And that’s something Gary Geaves, Apple‘s vice president of acoustics, has talked about through an interview with What HiFi (via 9to5Mac), providing insights into some of the challenges faced while designing the latest AirPods.
But perhaps the most interesting takeaway from the interview was the bit about Bluetooth’s low max bandwidth actually holding back AirPods from achieving their true potential.
According to Geaves, AirPods are built using custom-made components entirely with plenty of stuff in the hardware department optimized for outputting the perfect sound, including a “complicated acoustic system,” “carefully tuned bass port,” and a new custom amplifier.
However, while AirPods do sport hardware capable of achieving the best possible sound quality, Bluetooth acts as a hindrance on the software end:
“Obviously the wireless technology is critical for the content delivery that you talk about”, he says, “but also things like the amount of latency you get when you move your head, and if that’s too long, between you moving your head and the sound changing or remaining static, it will make you feel quite ill, so we have to concentrate very hard on squeezing the most that we can out of the Bluetooth technology, and there’s a number of tricks we can play to maximise or get around some of the limits of Bluetooth. But it’s fair to say that we would like more bandwidth and…I’ll stop right there. We would like more bandwidth.”
When conceptualizing the AirPods 3, Geaves said that the AirPods team “looked very closely” at the strengths of the second-generation AirPods. The “effortless open fit” that doesn’t create a seal in the ear is a big draw of the AirPods, but designing around the lack of a seal “creates challenges for the audio team.”
Geeves then went on to explain the real reason behind adding Adaptive EQ, which is an AirPods 3 feature, to the AirPods 3. Turns out that it’s actually the seal-less design of the AirPods that’s to blame. According to the acoustics VP, the sound people experience will be “significantly different, especially the bass” because no two ears are the same. The solution for the limitation was a piece of tech that would tailor audio to the shape of one’s ear — and that’s exactly what Adaptive EQ does.
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