Summary
If you are looking to get the latest Apple Airpods, one of the questions you might be asking is how much bass do these earphones have. Apple released these Airpods with full wireless Bluetooth streaming so you can listen to music directly from your iPhone device without any wired connectivity, but how do they fare in the low-end frequency range?
We found that the Apple Airpods have decent and well-rounded bass. While it’s not bass that is going to overwhelm your ears, the bass hits hard and feels pretty solid. To give a comparison, the Airpods produce less bass than the 1More Triple Driver earbuds but more bass than the Sennheiser Momentum earbuds. It also delivers plenty of volume output and you can crank up the volume on these Airpods without hearing any distortion.
The bottom line is that while the Apple Airpods do not have as much bass as we liked, it still delivers some pretty decent beats and is a convenient option for listening to music from your iPhone device.
If you are looking for some of the best bass earbuds and earphones with better bass than the AirPods, be sure to check out our article as well.
How good is the bass on the AirPods?
We tested the AirPods (latest version) with the iPhone XS and played a variety of music genres from EDM, hip-hop to rock.
Some of our favorite EDM tracks sounded pretty crisp and clear, with very good highs and midrange performance. The bass from the Airpods feels like something you’d hear in the background with subtle impact. The bass feels nice and not too punchy, but is powerful enough to be noticed during normal listening. The beats from EDM music come across as nice and well-defined, and is definitely very good for music listening.
While the bass from the AirPods isn’t the deepest we’ve heard, they aren’t too bad either. In fact, they have slightly more bass than the Sennheiser Momentum earbuds and have very detailed sound quality. Depending on the type of fit you have in your ear, the AirPods can actually push out a decent amount of bass without any leakage to maximize the deep thumping impact.
For a set of true wireless earbuds, the AirPods definitely don’t disappoint in the bass low-end region.
Are Apple Airpods receptive to Bass EQ changes?
The short answer is yes, and we’d recommend changing the EQ settings to improve the low-end frequency response. This would make the AirPods sound bassier and much more suited for EDM and Rock music genres. The AirPods are pretty receptive to EQ bass changes and you will definitely notice the difference if you pull up the levels from the 5 to 100 Hz range.
That being said, we felt that enhancing the EQ settings may cause the AirPods to actually sound muddy with bloated bass. Up to a certain point, it’s better to enjoy the natural sound performance from the AirPods as they have very good crisp highs, midranges and timbre details.
You can crank up the volume pretty high on the Apple AirPods without hearing any hint of distortion.
Airpods vs Airpods Pro – Any difference in bass?
The only difference between the Airpods Pro and the Airpods is that the Airpods Pro have active noise cancellation and adaptive EQ settings.
We found that the bass output on both the Airpods and Airpods Pro sounds roughly equal – there isn’t any noticeable difference between both models. Although the Airpods Pro have adaptive EQ settings, you can achieve the same effect by adjusting the EQ settings on the Airpods through your smartphone device.
The noise cancellation on the Airpods Pro is most effective for hands free calls, and doesn’t really influence the overall quality of the bass from the Airpods.
The Verdict?
The bass from the Apple Airpods is decent and pretty good with a few tweaks to the EQ settings. We’d recommend boosting up the 5 to 100 Hz regions (or simply set the EQ mode to bass enhanced mode) to improve the bass response. The bass from the Airpods has a subtle background punch that makes it very satisfying to listen to – the bass does not feel overwhelming or bloated at all.
That being said, where the Apple Airpods shines is the crisp highs and treble ranges which gives it a smooth sound effect. The sound performance of the Airpods is clean and detailed, and you can hear a clear difference between the right and left channels while paired to your iPhone device.