I along with many others, have been facing a low frequency noise leak when ANC is fully on and music is playing. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256148548?sortBy=rank

Without playing any music the ANC is stellar, but this bug means the buds are basically unusable as they require reseating in the ear, or toggling to transparency and back to ANC, after a few seconds of listening (if in an environment which has any sort of constant low freq noise)

Anecdotal, but recently gave up on AirPods and moved over to Beats Fit Pro to get similar feature parity with my iPhone. Thus far, the Beats fit way better than either my AirPod 2 or AirPod Pro 1's ever did. ANC and the lack of an extra mic are ever so slightly worse, but the battery life and fit are so much better. My $250 AirPod Pros had to be exchanged for a battery defect within 3 months and were regularly falling out during runs... I don't think I will be buying AirPods again, but anyone struggling with them should scope the Beats line.

In my case (although I have not yet flown with APP3) the ANC works great, however, transparency mode (and adaptive mode) have issue with a noise. In a silent room I hear quiet noise in transparency mode (not present in ANC nor in "Off") which wasn't present in APP1. I tried different tips

Also, transparency mode felt more "natural" in APP1 in comparison to APP3. Currently it feels like a downgrade from APP1 (unfortunately my pair of APP1 broke recently), because I used transparency a lot and it feels worse

Glad to hear it's not just me. Happened repeatedly on my flights I took last week. I have had all 3 generations of the Pros, this is the first time experiencing this. Also left AirPod only.

This high pitched noise issue happened to me last week using noise cancellation on a flight, but I was using Airpods 4 (not Pro). I think this problem isn't only limited to the Pro models

God I have a similar problem with APP3 on flights only. They seem to allow in this deep rumble vibration that my APP2 did not :( Otherwise the APP3 are much better in office, home, etc.

I’ve also had this sound on my 3s, but only when handling them before putting them in my ears. I’d say it’s happened at least 10-15 times, and every time I’ve thought it’s so loud it’d do damage if it was in my ears.

Anecdotally I’ve done four 11+ hour flights with them so far and they’ve been super solid on the plane - no issues there.

Edit: here’s what I mean - https://youtube.com/shorts/VvEjetlYwa8

I became fed up with my airpods (and bluetooth earbuds in general) and switched to some great (albeit definitely not new and definitely not high end) IEMs and couldn't be happier. I was worried about losing the noise canceling but it turns out to not matter in the slightest with IEMs with proper tips on them, the isolation is unbelievable. Not dealing with battery life and charging issues anymore is worth it alone. The absurd price difference is a great bonus too.

I had something similar happen after sleeping a few times with my first-gen airpods pro. I think something must have gotten filled with earwax or something, because the noise cancelling got more and more broken and had more sudden sharp sounds until they were unusable

But since then I've had two pairs of airpods pro 2 and bought the 3s on the first day, and I've had no such issues with any of them, including sleeping, and flying twice with the 3's so far. YMMV

I recently went into an Apple store to try the new 3’s with my 2’s ready for a side-by-side comparison. I had heard mixed reviews about sound quality, fit, and the ANC. I was prepared to hear at best an incremental improvement, but boy was I surprised. To my ears, the sound stage is so much wider and the ANC is noticeably better. The fit is definitely different though and it took a bit of trial and error to get the correct size tips.