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The design changes help unlock improvements to sound quality, though a key component of those gains comes from a redesigned low-distortion 10.7mm driver and a new venting system that brings more airflow to the buds.  As I said in my full review of the AirPods Pro 3: "The bass has more definition and extension -- it hits harder and goes deeper -- and the earbuds sound clearer, more natural and open with more sparkle in the treble." It's a noticeable difference, and their sound now rivals that of the very best-sounding earbuds. Reviewing audio products is by its very nature a subjective experien

I personally don't feel that heart-rate monitoring is a must-have feature, particularly if you already own a smartwatch with the feature. But for some folks, it will be a welcome addition.  The heart-rate sensors have been custom-designed for the AirPods Pro 3 (they're Apple's smallest heart-rate sensors) and aren't identical to the ones in the Powerbeats Pro 2, but the experience using the heart-rate monitoring feature is the same. There may be more to come, as Apple has a habit of leaving off a few tricks when it first launches products (remember that the AirPods Pro 2 didn't have spatial au

Before we get too far into the specific settings, you need to make sure that your AirPods (and other Apple headphones and earbuds) can support the features we'll be adjusting. The main one is the Headphone Accommodations settings, and is available only on supported headphones like the most recent AirPods, EarPods and Beats. As long as you have iOS 14 and later (or iPadOS 14+), you can use Headphone Accommodations with the following: AirPods Pro (all versions)AirPods (2nd generation and later)AirPods Max (all versions)Apple EarPodsPowerbeatsPowerbeats FitPowerbeats Pro (all versions) Beats Solo

In my review of the AirPods Pro 3, I pitted them against Bose's $299 QuietComfort Earbuds (2nd gen), which were released in the US only a few weeks ago. Many reviewers said they had the best noise cancelling, and I felt that way, too, until I tried the AirPods Pro 3. Then, I wasn't so sure.  I didn't feel I could declare one better than the other without running my own lab tests on a rather expensive rig that CNET doesn't own, but I was quite impressed with the noise-canceling. Compared to the noise-canceling on the AirPods Pro 2, I could definitely hear the difference when I used the buds on