We stress-tested the microphones of the new earbuds from Samsung and Google

A few months ago on The Vergecast, we wanted to answer a question: which wireless earbuds should you buy to use for phone calls, Zoom meetings, or chatting with your voice assistant? So The Verges Chris Welch went to a noisy coffee shop in Brooklyn and called… cast co-host David Pierce to test out some wireless earbuds in a noisy environment.

The fairly clear winners of that test were the Apple AirPods Pro and the Sony LinkBuds, which had the clearest detail in the voice and cut out a fair amount of background noise.

But since that test, two new pairs of flagship earbuds have launched: the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro and the Google Pixel Buds Pro. So of course we had to put them to the test along with the winners of the last round.

This time we wanted to raise the bar, so we put Chris on a boat. The New York City Ferry, to be exact – a very noisy environment, with engines, waves, chatter, helicopters and wind. It’s not a nice place to call.

You can listen to that full segment about 24 minutes after this Wednesday castbut I wanted to share some of the results we found here.

The first part of the test was at the dock waiting for the ferry, with bustling city noise coupled with nearby boat engines, a helipad, PA speaker announcements, and all the unpredictable sounds of downtown Manhattan. Here’s a raw audio clip from the dock, recorded with a stereo microphone:

Here’s how the Apple AirPods Pro handled the dock:

Here’s how the Sony LinkBuds handled the dock:

This is how the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro handled the dock:

Photo by JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images

Then we had to board the ferry. We sat down at a table in the boat quite close to the engine which is quite loud if you don’t wear noise canceling earplugs. Here’s an audio clip of the inside of the ferry, recorded with a stereo microphone:

This is how the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro traded in the ferry:

This is how the Google Pixel Buds Pro coped in the ferry:

Here’s how the Apple AirPods Pro handled the ferry:

This is how the Sony LinkBuds coped in the ferry:

After that test, we eliminated the Sony LinkBuds and the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro because they failed David’s stress test. Chris then went to an even worse location – the top of the ferry, in the open air – to compare the call quality of the AirPods Pro and the Pixel Buds Pro.

There was a strong wind on top of the boat – not an ideal situation for chatting on the phone with earbuds, although a boisterous phone call one day is certainly a scenario you might encounter while wearing these. Here’s an audio clip from the top of the ferry, recorded with a stereo microphone:

We heard a big difference between the two models. Here’s how the Apple AirPods Pro treated the top of the ferry:

And here’s how the Google Pixel Buds Pro treated the top of the ferry:

Let’s be clear: neither of those sounds great, and no one on the other end of your conversation is going to be psychic to talk to you in this situation. But you can hear the AirPods cutting out much of the speech and struggling with the wind and other elements on top of the boat. The Pixel Buds Pro held Chris’s voice surprisingly well and could take a phone call without much trouble.

Sure, the New York City Ferry isn’t a common place where a majority of the population would use their earplugs to make calls or join a Zoom meeting. But this scenario groups together multiple elements that you may have to deal with while interacting in the world: windy days, an active city, public transport and all kinds of machines around you. So if mic quality and isolating noise are your factor in your purchase, the Pixel Buds Pro seem to be a cut above the rest.

We’ll be sure to test more earbuds, headphones, and other microphones in future installments of The Vergecastso let us know what you want to hear!