Apple AirPods 4 with (barely any) ANC but excellent sound quality

After using these for a few days now, I thought it was worthwhile sharing my opinion in this
review. In summary, this 4th generation product has a lot to live up too, especially given it has a very similar price to the extremely well-loved Apple Airpods Pro 2, at $179 for the ANC version these are not cheap, but as you will see there is a lot to love about them, especially if you are in the Apple Eco system.

The biggest compliment I can give the Airpods 4 is that, on multiple occasions, I completely forgot I wasn’t listening to an IEM, this is especially a compliment given these are open so have no right to sound as balanced as they sound.

But before I get into the details I thought I would give you a little background on why I decided to buy these. Feel free to skip this next section if you are only interested in the features, sound and some measurements.

Background

So I have a long history with Apple products maybe 15 years using Macbook Pro’s and various iPhones both with my day job and at home for my various nerdy hobbies (though I do have 2 Windows Laptops and a few Android devices as well as about 5 SBC linux computers running various things around my house).

Apple recent seamless ‘integration’ between their devices have made, for me at least, their products even more ‘sticky’ and this somewhat extends to their Audio products, sometimes the audio quality is not great or the Apple “only way” gets in the way. So for example, I have an Airpods Max and I didn’t like the audio quality so my Son mainly uses that device now, but a simple ‘onboard’ EQ (ideally PEQ) would probably have saved that device for me. I do like to have my own collection (typically hosted by one of those SBC’s I mentioned running Plex) and Apple have made it harder and harder to integrate your own music into their Apple Music experience, so I mostly just occasionally get a subscription to check out the latest spatial audio releases, but this is still not sticky enough for me to stay with Apple Music.

But the real reason I decided to buy the Airpods 4 with ANC was as a replacement for my Airpods Pro 2.

My experience with Airpods Pro 2

So initially I loved my Airpods Pro 2 - they worked perfectly in my Apple Eco system setup (as described above). They were amazing for work calls (seamless working on many Apple devices it can be a godsend to be able to take work calls on whatever device I am working using, without the usual ‘bluetooth’ confusion that devices not as a well integrated have). They also sounded excellent at least initially, but I did notice after a few weeks that ANC wasn’t always as effective as it was initially and the sub-bass quality started to be less impressive. So, I started checking Apple “Seal Test” almost obsessively, the Airpods Pro were sometimes failing the seal test especially after using them on a walk (where they obviously got slightly unseated).

And as the tips got older the likelihood of failing the seal test seemed to increase and the matching lack of sub-bass was disappointing. And it wasn’t just me, some of my friends (who mostly do not care about these things) also mentioned that the ANC started to get less effective. I also did try lots of third party ear tips but Apple very tight fit in their case and custom ear tip mechanism meant a very limited ear tip selection.

But the Airpods Pro 2 did still sound very good and the ANC even failing the seal test was effective enough to lower the background train noise if I was commuting into the office, but mainly I kept using it because the microphone was still super effective on work calls accross my devices.

So they were still the TWS I had in my pocket when away from the house (though I would much rather use headphones if working at home). But then disaster, they ended up in the washing machine by mistake. The audio quality was fine after I dried them out but microphone never worked right and this caused both the ANC to be even worse and of course make it useless for office calls.

Sealed or Open TWS ?

So I have been using (and reviewing) various ANC devices (both headphones and sealed TWS) over the past 12 months, some better than others. None for me were as good as the APP2 but some were very amazing for their price, e.g. the recent “Earfun Air Pro 4” has great sound quality, good enough ANC but only an ok microphone (fine in a quiet room not great on a busy street), I also thought Sennheiser Accentum Plus ANC headphone with a bit of EQ tweaking has a good sound quality (for the price) and a decent microphone but isn’t the most comfortable headphone, with the clamping force being used to assist the ANC in blocking out external noise.

So, I was sort of waiting to see what Apple would do next, e.g. maybe a new Airpods Max with better sound quality could be a game changer but when I spotted that Apple would add ANC to the Airpods I was intrigued, more because of the microphone but also the sound quality would not be affected by getting or keeping a “seal”, but as you will see later in the review, there can be fit / placement issues which can still greatly change the sound quality and ANC you achieve.

So, how do these AirPods stack up against the Airpods Pro 2? Let’s find out in this review.

Here is a non-affiliated link to Apple Airpods product page.

Retail Box and Unboxing

Apple continues its nice minimalist packaging with the AirPods 4. The back of the box:

Opening the box you get the usual Apple clean design:

The box comes with the earbuds, a compact charging case, a USB-C charging cable, and some basic documentation.

There are no surprises here, and the unboxing experience feels as smooth as ever.

Design and Build Quality

The design of the AirPods 4 resembles its predecessors but with notable improvements.

The charging case is smaller, square-shaped, and includes both a USB-C charging port and wireless charging:

Both the earbuds and the case have a premium build, with an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, ensuring durability for everyday use.

Features

Let’s get into some of the audio features

Special Audio Features

There are a couple of nice Audio features that are worth investigating especially if you are new to Airpods.

Firstly, Spatial Audio with the right tracks can sound fantastic with a wider sound stage that any song has the right to sound on an TWS:

There is also customised adaptive audio which tries to balance transparency and ANC: I ended up not using this rather just leaving on the ANC all the time since it wasn’t really blocking out peoples conversations I didn’t feel I needed to switch to transparency.

Personalised “Spatial” Audio - tries to measure your head for more realistic 3D sound:

While I would love some proper system-wide EQ (ideally PEQ) Airpods can take advantage of the “Headphone accommodations” Accessibility feature:

This is the nearest Apple allows to EQ:

Note: This is my biggest issue with the “Apple way” and Audio - a simple systemwide EQ saved to your Airpods / Pro / Max would be a godsend and make them even more sticky.

Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

So, ANC is one of the main selling points of the AirPods 4 with ANC, but in my personal experience it works but no better than a very cheap TWS “sealed” ANC or a cheap ANC headphone,
so it’s important to set realistic expectations for open-ear designs. The ANC does cut down the low-end noise reduction, such as muting the hum of engines or HVAC systems, but high-frequency and midrange / vocal sounds are not as effectively canceled at least in my fit.

Still, for “every day commuting” or general use, the ANC works well enough. I was in a supermarket the other day and while I could still hear most of the conversations going on around me, things like the noise from the refrigerators was totally muted and the music I was listening too was more enjoyable for it.

Integration into Apple Ecosystem

If you’re already an Apple user, the AirPods 4 will feel right at home. Seamless pairing, iCloud syncing, and access to Apple’s ecosystem features like “Find My” and Siri make the user experience intuitive and cohesive. For me personally it’s the automatically switching devices and handling of incoming calls that is most effective

Controls

The force sensors on the AirPods 4’s stems make controlling playback, calls, and ANC modes simple and responsive. Though the absence of onboard volume controls might be a slight inconvenience, but if you are as totally embedded in the Apple ecosystem you probably find your Apple Watch dial as a more convenient way to control the volume anyway.

The head-gestures is also an interesting feature, as someone who can get called for their day job while in the middle of another conversation or meeting this might come in handy:

Battery Life

Apple claims up to 4 hours of listening time with ANC enabled, which increases slightly with ANC off, I initially got about 3:00, but I was continuously switching modes and trying features like head-tracking and the Conversation awareness, head gestures, all of which I imagine eat a little into your battery life. The second full day with the Airpods I did get nearly 4 hours mainly just listening to music at normal volumes levels.

With the charging case, you can expect around 20-30 hours of playback depending on the usage scenario. Quick charging gives you up to an hour of listening time after just 5 minutes of charge.

Sound Quality

Overall I am very impressed with the sound quality and I would actually recommend getting the Airpods 4 with ANC even though the ANC is not that effective, but it does enough to lower the annoying background sounds of daily life that you can hear more detail in the music without having to increase the volume.

The biggest compliment I can say is for the last 2 days I have forgotten numerous times I was listening to an open earbud TWS - it sounds like a decent IEM - but with a sub-bass roll off.

I also think that small changes in the shape and position of the Airpods 4 in your ears will greatly change the sound profile you hear. This was especially evident during the measurements, I made, but I also found I could get better sub bass and slightly better ANC with a minor change of a few millimeters of placement. I even have a “hack” later which did help me and might help you.

Bass

The bass response on the AirPods 4 is excellent for an open earbud design, but it should go without saying this is not for “bassheads”. But on the vast majority of my test tracks the bass was excellent. A good track to highlight bass performance is usually “Limit to Your Love” by James Blake, and the bass here sounds clean and well-articulated without overpowering the rest of the track, but say in those places where the bass goes down to 20Hz (and you normally feel your ear ‘rumble’) it was subdued.

But, I sort of had to go out of my way and play tracks like “basshead” by “bassnectar” to really hear where the bass was lacking, that track missed the sub-bass rumble you can normally ‘feel’ when listening to it with a full range IEM or headphone.

So I think it might be a good analogy to say it has bass like a good speaker e.g. a LS50 Meta but one that stills need a subwoofer to get to the lowest possible subbass but Apple did a great job here getting a balanced bass and resisting the temptation of overly boosting the mid-bass to make up for lack of sub-bass.

Midrange

The midrange is pretty exceptional for an open earbud design being both clear and engaging. Vocals and instruments sit well in the mix, giving a natural and detailed presentation. “You Never Know” from Iron & Wine’s latest album is a fantastic example, where the midrange nuances of Sam Beam’s vocals shine through beautifully.

Treble

The treble on the AirPods 4 is well-extended and clear, though based on my own experience with fit, it may well be different in your ears. I got excellent treble detail most of my test tracks like “Tamacun” by Rodrigo y Gabriela, where the high-pitched guitar plucks come through with precision and clarity.

Soundstage and Imaging

While the soundstage is somewhat limited like every IEM and having an “open” earbud design doesn’t necessarily translate in the same way that it can for good open back headphone. Though while not for everyone or for every piece of music, the Spatial Audio with the right recorded track is exceptional fun. Just there isn’t enough well record Spatial Audio tracks at the moment.

So a nice feature of IOS is it remembers which streaming apps you have enabled Spatial audio for, so I sometimes stick on “Radio Paradise” while working (if I am not listening to some new music) and I believe RP already processes the tracks it streams already, but it mostly sounded amazing with the Airpods with Spatial Audio enabled just for that app that I have left it on in the background while working today.

Again with Spatial enabled the imaging can be exceptional, and it’s generally ok without Spatial.

Measurements

So these measurements were ultimately taken with my KB501X Soft ear Pinna with a 711 clone coupler. I could not use the 711 clone couple on its own, and using the KB501X itself was difficult. The main ’trick’ was to ‘prime’ the Airpods (a tip from ‘Oratory’) by playing some background noise / music first before measuring. But I also found differences by just moving the position of the Airpods inside the pinna, so it will definitely sound different for different shape ears.

All these measurements are available on my measurement db here

Frequency Response

So I took many measurements allot - but of the ones I felt were realistic (with alternative positions for the Airpods in the ear) this one was probably the nearest to what I hear when I listen to a frequency sweep:

Where the Bass rolls off at about 40Hz, but it has a bit of a Harman boost between 40Hz and 80Hz. I think the rest of the Frequency response is pretty well controlled.

Here are various measurements on the same graph - so you can see the extreme of variation you might get:

Here is the original REW Captures at different volumes:

Distortion

Mostly I think this distortion measurement is greatly affected by the ANC interfering with the frequency sweep but other than the bass distortion most of the distortion is well under control:

As a percentage it is below anything to worry about:

ANC Measurement

So here are Soundguys measurements of the ANC performance:

Subjectively, I don’t feel like I was getting this amount of ANC, but I do think the ANC performance is even more dependent on ear fit than the bass.

Anyway, check out their review

Hack

So as I mentioned I got slightly better ANC and fractionally better bass with a slightly different position for the airpods in my ear. So this got me thinking how would I guarantee to get the Airpods to sit slightly differently as ’normal’ in my ear, and then I noticed this little gap in the case for below each earbud:

So, to see what shape I could get into that gap I was tried some “blu tack” in that position and then when placing each earbud in my ears, and it mostly worked well giving me slightly better ANC just a slight change within your ear can make a big difference.

Using blu-tack is not a good long term solution, but it also has an advantage that could solve a problem that I heard MKBHD complain about i.e. that they can fall out of your ears too easily, this has made the Airpods that little bit ‘sticky’ in my ears. Anyway, it certainly isn’t a perfect and probably won’t be needed by most people, but I am going to use it for few weeks. Someone will no doubt find a better material than blu-tack for this ‘hack’.

Rating

I have given the Airpods 4 with ANC a personally pragmatic 5 stars. For me, knowing the limitations of open earbuds, I think these Airpods bring something new and unique and for me, they both work well and sound great.

But I can imagine for a lot of people they won’t work as well, if you are already in the Apple ecosystem I would recommend going into a local Apple Store and seeing can you try on and listen to some good reference tracks (like the bass ones I mentioned earlier).

Finally, When I asked my daughter why she preferred Airpods to being completely seal from the outside world with a closed TWS like the Airpods Pro 2, I was told in no uncertain terms that “1/2 the population does not feel safe walking in an isolation bubble and that hearing your surroundings makes you more aware of people around you and therefore feel safer”. So I guess for lots of people allowing a little of the outside world in while listening to your music can be a good option.

Conclusion

The Apple AirPods 4 with ANC deliver something that will no doubt only work well for a percentage of the population, but when they do work they are mostly excellent. If you can’t stand the feel of silicon in your ears, it doesn’t fit you or just don’t like that isolated feeling and are already in the Apple Eco-system these are an easy recommendation, especially for all the interesting audio features and the sound quality.