I have been using Airpods Pro 2 for some time and I find the transparency mode set up specifically for my high frequency hearing loss is as good as my $6000 hearing aids! In noisy restaurant situations I find the adaptive mode is excellent for suppressing the high ambient noise level while still making speech intelligible. HOWEVER, for some reason there is no way to retain the transparency mode boost while using noise cancellation, so speech is still difficult for me to understand. I need to know whether the new Airpods Pro 3 can retain the transparency boost setting while in adaptive mode. This would be a wonderful enhancement for many of us who have difficulty communicating in noisy restaurants. Why is this issue not addressed by Apple specifically?
I don’t think so. From the support page:
The Hearing Aid feature amplifies sounds in your environment only when you’re in Transparency mode.
All that they offer is conversation boost. From the same support page,
Use Conversation Boost with Hearing Aid
To automatically detect if a conversation is happening in front of you and focus your AirPods Pro on the person speaking to you, turn on Conversation Boost. Conversation Boost is best for one-on-one conversations when the other person is right in front of you.
Perhaps the problem of boosting voice while reducing noise is a hard problem for AirPods right now. Maybe Apple will figure this problem out eventually so adaptive mode can also voice boost?
FWIW, almost everyone I’ve known with “real” hearing aids has complained of that very problem - too much noise when they are in a place like a restaurant.
I have very mild hearing loss and have played around a bit with hearing aid mode in AirPods Pro 2 but my hearing loss is not great enough and I’ve not had to time to try them out in a place like a party or restaurant. Based on my parents’ and my older sister’s experiences with hearing loss at ages not much more than mine right now, it shouldn’t be many more years before I’ll need to try them out far more often.