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Comment by laborcontract | Hacker News Reader

The horrible thumping is purely a fit issue. The solution to the thumping when running is to either size down the tips or to slightly dislodge the tips from your ear.

It’s not ideal, I’ll grant you that.

While we may have some overlap in issues, I would say that the Airpods Pro 3 are incredible. I’ve ditched my Airpods Max entirely. The noise cancellation works too well, the sleep detection is a godsend, and the battery life is so good. I use my airpods to sleep. before, i’d always wake up to dead airpods. now, they have like 70% batteries when i wake up, because the sleep detection kicks in.

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Seems odd to call it a fit issue when the solution is to make the fit worse by dislodging them from your ear. If it's a fit issue then improving the fit should make it go away!

I’ve tried with every set of tips except for the xs, same thumping with all of them. Zero issues running almost daily with the second gens for several years. I think it’s more than fit—either oversensitive ANC or something with the composition of the tips themselves. Oddly enough, it’s not present in both ears every time. Sometimes both, sometimes just one, rarely neither. I’ve stopped gathering data because I switched to a different set of headphones.

I’ll grant you that the ANC in the third gen is fantastic. I just felt like the second gen fit themselves into my routine, whereas I have to fiddle and futz with the third gen to get them just-so so that they don’t inhibit my routine.

It’s hard to argue with you about that. I think you’re right about the tip composition being the issue. Also, there’s definitely an alien feel to APP3.

Personal preference ofc but I'll never understand how people run with in-ear buds...

What you mean? How people are manage to run with noise cancelation? Or how it works that they don’t loose them?

I run with my AirPods Pro 2 and have no issues. I have some other in-ear buds where fit is also no issue but thumping sounds while running make them unusable.

Years ago I was a convert to open ear bone conduction by Shokz (then Aftershokz) but the band was a little annoying and now I use the Huawei Freeclips which I am very happy with. Bose also have an open ear product.

My priority with exercise is peripheral awareness so I would never compromise that with in-ears anymore

I understand. I think it very much depends on the environment. I usually run in parks not on the street. I also trust my eyes more than my ears when doing runs on more trafficked routes. The Apple AirPods have a great transparent mode. I tried bone conducting headphone and it wasn’t for me. I know that the new models are kind of hybrids now. But I also love the fact that I can listen to myself. I had tons of headphones over the years. And I think for me the AirPods Pro 2 are just the most versatile.

Weird POV considering your ears do 360 degrees which your eyes will never be able to do.

I mean people have different degrees of hearing.

Well in a big city sounds can be deceiving. Also depends how trained your hearing is. I guess I would have a hard time in case I end up going blind. In any case, what I meant is, that I use my eyes, and by that also turn my head, to look over my shoulder to check for cars etc. In most cases it’s best to have eye contact with a car driver who currently takes a turn to make sure their actually seeing you.

I am blind. So no eye contact with drivers. And I am still alive, despite usually going alone as pedestrian. However, I guess I benefit a lot from the austrian "Vertrauensgrundsatz", which basically translates as "principle of trust". When acquiring a drivers license, you are drilled to take extra care of disabled or obviously incapacitated pedestrians. That basically means, if you hit a blind person, or even an obviously drunk person, you are at fault, no matter what.

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