Conclusion

Google’s earbud evolution is nearly complete. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 are a highly refined product, with excellent tech features, and charming design. This will be a crowd pleasing product, and an excellent sidekick for many Pixel phone owners. These buds get a very positive recommendation, and what follows in this article is why I personally am not using them.

For all the positives this product represents, there is one SMALL issue that might impact a segment of consumers. Let’s discuss…

Disclaimer

The folks at #TeamPixel sent these my way to review. They were not a #GiftFromGoogle. I am a reviewer. I’m not much of an influencer. Despite Google PR’s protests recently that #TeamPixel has always been influencer marketing, that is simply not true. The #TeamPixel community was originally built by photographers and tech reviewers. No influence over my editorial was offered or requested from Google or any associated PR. These are my earnest thoughts on the product, free of any marketing interactions.

Patreon and Support!

The folks on Patreon.com/SomeGadgetGuy got early access to this review, and were reading it two weeks early! These reviews would not be possible without the generosity of those awesome geeks! If you have the means, I would appreciate you checking out the community and becoming a member! If not, I can ALWAYS use more help spreading the word and sharing these articles!

Design

I’m happy to see a consistent approach to Pixel Bud design. After the abortive neckband first entry, Google honed in on an excellent case and presentation. We like novel products with a unique feel. It would have been all too easy for the “iPhone of Android” product line to crib the look and feel of AirPods, and thankfully Google has avoided any such direct comparison with their earbuds (their newest phones maybe being a different situation now in copying Apple).

The charging case maintains that delightful polished stone feel, and is one of the nicest cases you can carry around in a pants pocket. Iterating over the years, I like the little sounds that alert users to things like battery and charging. I accidentally let them drain, and getting a little “sad chirp” that the battery was dead, in addition to a little yellow light, was excellent conveyance. No one likes grabbing some earbuds in a rush, and THEN finding their audio is out of battery.

This is a wonderful first party solution that also contributes to things like Google’s blossoming tracker network. Leading by example, all our connected devices should be able to report to this network. Things like earbuds should eventually be able to pull double duty as devices that could ALSO help us find a lost purse or bag.

Getting to the buds themselves, the casing is impressively small and light. These have been out for a while now, so I’m not reporting any mind-blowing news here, but folks sensitive to weight in their ear will really enjoy this little button shape. I can wear them for long periods of time with little fatigue.

It’s also worth highlighting the cute button shape. Where many companies have decided to ape the “cut off cable” design of AirPods, the Pixel Buds are discrete buttons without any overhang outside the ear. This design fits my ear better, and reduces some of the silly issues with stalks. My OnePlus Buds Pro 3 have that little stalk that sticks out, and when I wear hoop earrings, they can “clang” into that stalk. It’s an irritating sound, and the Pixel Buds avoid those kinds of issues.

Google marketing has made a lot of noise about the ear lock in “twist stabilizer”, and the design team here deserves a lot of credit. When there’s a “stalk” on an earbud (usually with a shallow insert ear tip) it turns into a bit of a wedge on my ear, that pushes the ear tip out of my ear canal as I move my jaw. Pixel Buds avoid that issue.

The tech and controls are top tier. Google is presenting this as a premium option, and the interactions are nicely organic. Swipes and taps are lightly activated, and avoid the issues with taps “jamming” the bud into your ear.

Of course, this is also a showcase for Google’s AI efforts, and the buds pair very well with your phone’s assistant. I’ll save my ranting on AI Hype for another article, but unsurprisingly, the connection between buds and phone fulfill what Google is marketing. I still feel we lack the simplicity of practical interactions we used to have on older LG neckbands, the ability to hear messages and reply, but the Pixel Buds are heading in a direction which should start replacing that functionality.

I will point out though, that the competition for this idea is a lot more brutal than many people might realize. Getting a notification, and organically replying to it is a difficult task. WearOS and WatchOS smartwatches are still somewhat clumsy in this task, where the AI features on other brands are catching up. Earbuds are an overlooked accessory which should even further streamline these interactions. We want our accessories to reduce the need to ALWAYS turn to our phones to complete these tasks.

For all my praise though, the design introduces one of my two core concerns. I have large ear canals. I regularly wear the largest ear tips comfortably. The Pixel Buds Pro 2 were easy for me to wedge in and lock in place.

I worry though, that the smaller outer casing might confuse people about how they might fit smaller ears.

The actual nozzle which vents sound and attaches to an ear tip is surprisingly large. That means the base of ANY ear tip, even the smallest size tip, also needs to have more material to attach to the bud. The oval shape might help, but after a point, a larger nozzle is still a larger nozzle.

To compare, my all time favorite “small nozzle” buds were the original 1More Color Buds. The general idea was similar. To make a tiny, lightweight, button-shaped earbud. The nozzle difference between these two is significant. For any given ear tip, the largest part of the ColorBuds ear tip is slightly smaller than the smallest part of a Pixel Bud ear tip.

For how well the Pixel Buds can lock in place, if the can’t fully insert in the canal, you end up with a “half seated” bud that just presses up against the ear canal. This reduces the effectiveness of the noise reduction and the quality of the audio directed into the ear.

My Wife is a prime example of this. Marie has ridiculously tiny pixie ear canals. She was excited to see how small the Pixel Buds were, and trying them on the smallest ear tips, they popped out of her ears almost like they were spring loaded.

The claims of comfort are absolutely accurate, IF the earbuds can fit and seat inside your ear. If you struggle to fit earbuds with “regular” circular nozzles, the Pixel Buds might not be a better fit.

Just as a personal preference, while the Pixel Buds Pro 2 completely achieve what Google is claiming on MY ears, I tend to prefer in-ear buds that seat deeper in my ear canal. I understand why we have so many shallow-insert ear tips, but I prefer tips that work in farther, especially when they’re paired with foam tips that expand and seal the ear even better.

Thankfully, given the popularity of Pixel phones now, it shouldn’t be too difficult getting replacement ear tips. I will try some 3rd party solutions soon to see if foam tips make a difference.

ANC and Sound Quality

Google is marketing a new Tensor A1 chip for the Buds Pro 2. It’s another step on Google’s path in developing proprietary solutions instead of using the broader options from companies like Qualcomm. It’s computing tech that’s kind of impossible to test in a setup like mine. When Google claims:

“Built for Google AI, the Tensor A1 chip runs 90 times faster than the speed of sound to power twice the Active Noise Cancellation and deliver premium sound.”

That’s sort of a meaningless “feelings” metric that can’t be observed or compared against other options. It would be silly to pretend that Qualcomm isn’t making some of the best wireless audio hardware on the market, and a bunch of nebulous marketing materials from Google won’t change that.

Using the Buds Pro 2, we do get excellent noise reduction that feels natural. The mark of a good premium bud, we’re getting less of that “stuffy ear” feeling when turning up ANC to higher levels. More isolation, with a more comfortable feel. I would place these near the top of the premium pile, even slightly outpacing the recent improvements from companies like OnePlus.

The features here remind me a lot of Sony style noise cancelling. Both in effectiveness in reducing noise, but also speech recognition. There’s a delightful and organic fade in and fade out when the buds detect the user is speaking. The audio pass through is natural and represents space and direction well.

I still prefer bone conduction for the practical situations someone might need situational awareness, but the Pixel Buds pass through is quite good.

Other tricks like Spatial Audio are well represented. There are lists of apps that might work with head tracking, but these days I just want to make sure my precious Plex will work. I like that effect of having a directional source for audio as I watch movies while cooking in my kitchen. I would prefer ANY audio source track my head, similar to how my old Audeze gaming headset worked independently of specific apps and games, but the Pixel Buds support a broad range of media apps.

Of course, these are earbuds, and the most important aspect is, how do they sound?

I don’t love them. I like them, but I don’t love them.

Color me spoiled by other multi-driver solutions, but the Pixel Buds are surprisingly lean.

I need to make this clear. EVERY ear is different. It’s hilariously stupid trying to just talk or write about audio experiences, for how funky and weird ears can be. I do NOT believe personal anecdotal descriptions should be used as the “make or break” for a purchasing recommendation.

Similarly, EQ and frequency response charts are also difficult to use as purchasing recommendations. How a microphone measures the sound quality of an earbud is also insufficient as the unique bends in your ear WILL change how the earbud sounds to you.

You can follow my patterns in previous reviews, and if you try the things I like, and you like them too, that MIGHT help you in purchasing future audio products. That’s really the best I can offer. The best way to go about fitting an earbud is to try them yourself.

I LOVE a good “mids-forward” sound curve. I like mids and articulation almost to the point of fatiguing details. I LOVE bass that extends like a shelf, but is a touch under-represented in the overall sound, and doesn’t roll off significantly into the sub bass. It’s one reason I like funky planar magnetic headphones. This is admittedly, a somewhat “unique” audio preference.

Even for my “mids” bias, the Pixel Buds on my ears are really lean.

I can’t blame the driver, as plenty of solutions employ a single 11mm dynamic driver. I can only point to the tuning choices Google engineers made for this product.

It’s not to say there is “no bass”, but what I get is underrepresented. An example, the opening bass hits in ‘JU$T’ from RTJ4, the articulation of each bass hit is wonderfully sharp, but there’s very little decay as the bass tapers and fades. We get the “pop” but not the “roll” that keeps rumbling our ears and vibrating our skulls.

I’m going to break one of my rules for reviewing, in that I feel a review should not be a comparison. For all the above reasons I listed, I do NOT believe you can just take a headphone COMPARISON at face value. I like one product more than another, but that does NOT mean YOUR ears will equally prefer one product over another. It’s even MORE complicated as one ear bud shape might REALLY work for you, and another shape might totally fail. That being said…

I couldn’t help firing up the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 along side the Pixel Buds Pro 2. On my ears, going dual driver, even with the looser overall fit on the OP Buds, the sound was significantly richer. You can see some of my comments on the OP Buds, and it’s clear that OP has companies like Soundcore in their sights. The OP Buds now directly approach “skull rumbler” if you turn the bass tuning up enough.

I don’t like skull rumblers though, so shouldn’t I prefer the Pixel Buds?

You might also remember how I talk about tuning in my reviews, whether a bud “has room” to make EQ adjustments, or help tailor fit the sound better to our specific tastes. Ultimately, we want an earbud that arrives out of the box, perfect for our preferences, but that’s honestly pretty rare once you start digging a bit deeper into audio tech. Most headphones will benefit from a slight tweak or nudge into flavors we individually like better.

Often, I’m pleased enough with the ability to customize on premium buds, but for my ears, I couldn’t get the Pixel Buds up to a point where I liked the bass.

Using the built in tuning options, the Pixel Buds in their “heavy bass” mode were still lighter than the OP Buds in their “Balanced” or “Serenade” modes, which tend to roll off the lows to emphasize detail.

The Pixel Buds at their bass-iest were still leaner than the OP Buds in their LEAST bass-y mode.

The design of a well-tuned dual driver earbud just gives us more room to tweak and adjust. Even if you don’t MAXIMIZE the effect of a bass-y driver, the representation of lows should still be fuller or richer when you have a separate balanced armature handling the mids and highs.

And of course, your mileage WILL vary.

Lastly, you might have noticed in this section, I’ve yet to bring up “HIGH SUPER DOOPER RES CODECS”.

It’s tricky assigning a “value” to this feature, as I feel context and listening environment matter as much (or sometimes more) than the literal amount of data streaming to the ear. In any area where you would need to rely on noise reduction, you’re not really participating in an “audiophile” experience. The environment contributes to the sound “quality”, maybe almost as much as the digital file quality and the headphones themselves.

However, in Android-Land, we’ve come to expect expensive headphones will include support for higher resolution codecs. Google’s hardware team seems motivated to reduce the use of Qualcomm hardware and software in Pixel products, so that means we get limited support for services like APTX in the Pixel. We shouldn’t be surprised the Pixel Buds don’t utilize APTX HD or Snapdragon Sound.

Yet, we might have seen some support for LDAC or LHDC as other solutions for streaming higher data rates to consumers’ ears.

The Pixel Buds Pro 2 top out at AAC as the high-quality codec. AAC certainly does not sound bad, but we know it’s a more restrictive codec, squishing more information as it transfers data from your phone to your ears.

My least preferred solution would be for Google to roll their own codec similar to how Samsung is creating a small consumer pain point with their Galaxy Buds. The Galaxy Buds are only able to receive a hi-res signal when paired with a Galaxy phone to use Samsung’s proprietary hi-res audio codec. I would prefer Google NOT travel this path, but I know have to debate myself in my brain, what strategy might be better.

Do we want an expensive earbud with no hi-res codec support, or a Pixel earbud WITH hi-res, but hi-res is only available with Pixel phones? Yeesh…

The Wrap Up

I preach: “Use the right audio tool for the correct audio job”.

There is no one “bestest” recommendation that applies to everyone. Everyone has unique ears and unique needs, and even my insights on audio tech shouldn’t be held to any conclusive standard in making purchasing recommendations.

For my personal experiences, Google deserves a tremendous amount of praise for refining the Pixel Buds gen over gen. This is a brilliant “tech earbud” and immediately becomes a great companion gadget to an Android phone. It corrects for the teething pains of the original Pixel Buds Pro, and brings competitive features to the premium space.

Someone shopping a great fitness and communication bud will be well served by the Pixel Buds, and I believe a lot of those folks will enjoy assistant and spatial fun features.

I have concerns for folks looking for the best audio quality in this price, or the most consumer pleasing tuning, but the fit might be a more serious issue for some folks, even given how small and light the casing is.

These are not the earbuds for me, but I think a lot of people will like them.

Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4agoLAC
Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 on BestBuy https://howl.link/xxg5a9bbwbs9x

Are you using the Pixel Buds Pro 2? How have you enjoyed them? Drop some comments below!