airpods pro 2, or the sound of my radiator finally losing

There is a sound my radiator makes in january at 6am, like someone politely shaking a can of screws. My old apartment building and I have an arrangement: I pretend to ignore it, it keeps pretending to heat. In february I put in one airpod on a whim, turned on noise cancellation, and the can of screws was gone. I sat there in the dark with my coffee going cold because I did not want to break the seal to drink it.

That is the review. But I am going to fill the middle with things anyway, because you guys always ask.

the honest bit, including the timing

I paid $249 for the usb-c version in early 2024, full price, because I never once catch a sale on the thing I actually want. Priya K. got hers for $199 on black friday. I think about this regularly. Also, plainly: apple discontinued these in september 2025 when the AirPods Pro 3 arrived at the same $249. If you are shopping today you are deciding between newer buds and a big discount on these, and I cannot make that call for you, I can only tell you what mine cost me and what they gave back.

what i actually care about, in order of care

Noise cancellation is the main event. It is the best I have used, and I have used four pairs of white earbuds and one pair of neon orange ones I regret. The radiator, the neighbor's vacuum, the bus that idles outside my window: all of it just lowers like someone turned a dial on the world. On a plane to visit my sister it killed the engine drone almost completely. I am not going to be normal about this.

Transparency mode is the reason I trust it outside. I walk the dogs at night down a street with no streetlights and one reliable pothole, and transparency lets the world in so clearly I hear bikes before I see them. It does not sound like underwater audio through a wall, which is what my old pair did. It sounds like the room, slightly turned up.

Adaptive audio blends the two and I forgot it was a setting. It quietly lowers transparency when I start talking to the barista and raises it when I walk back out. I found out it was doing this when I asked my phone "why do my earbuds keep adjusting." The future is small and made of silicone.

The fit test is not a gimmick if you have small ears. My ears are small in a way that made every previous pair fall out during one specific yoga pose. The xs tips changed everything, and they cost $7.99 and two weeks of shipping, and now the buds stay in through everything except the handstand I cannot do anyway.

Battery is six honest hours, thirty with the case. Six hours is enough for a workday if I am disciplined, and I am not, so the case lives in my tote and I top up at lunch. The case charges on my apple watch puck too, which is the little detail that makes my nightstand one cable shorter.

The hearing features deserve their own paragraph, carefully. Apple added a hearing test and a hearing aid mode in 2024. I am not giving anyone medical advice, I am telling you what happened at dinner: my mom has mild hearing loss, she wore mine at a loud restaurant, and she followed the whole table's conversation and then asked me to order her a pair. What she did with that information is between her and her doctor. I just sat there feeling like my $249 did something.

the tangent with the chirp

One saturday the left airpod was gone. Not in the case, not in the tote, not in the bed. I used find my, which makes the case chirp, and I walked around my apartment like a person following a cricket. It was in the lining of my winter coat, in a pocket that does not exist, sewing itself into the fabric. Two days. I had already priced replacements in my head. The chirp found it in four minutes, and then I sat on the floor of my closet holding a $249 earbud and reflecting on my life choices.

The case scratches, by the way. White plastic, and mine has a constellation of bag scuffs. It matches the desk mat, which is not a compliment to the case.

the soft landing

Sometimes I put them in with nothing playing, just to hear the hallway go quiet, which is possibly the laziest meditation ever invented and I have no plans to stop

They are the first pair that made silence feel like a feature I paid for on purpose. Whatever you buy, buy the version of that. You know what I mean.

text me if your radiator screams too

ava