The best headphone mic we've ever tested
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, and welcome to The Verge Cast, the flagship podcast of Active Noise Cancellation. I'm your friend David Pearce, and today on the show, we're talking about headphones. Specifically, we're talking about headphone microphones, which I have long believed are just a severely underrated bit of technology. We do a lot of headphone testing here at The Verge. We all wear headphones all day. We all care a lot about sound quality. And if you read a lot of headphone reviews, you can get super deep into noise cancellation features and you can get super deep into the interface. You can get super deep into sound quality. And then there's always just one line that's like a microphone does calls. I want to know more.
Why are headphone microphones often underrated?
And so every once in a while on this show, we get somebody to bring us a bunch of different devices and we test their microphones. I care about this just as a person, but also because I think this technology matters, right? Like we all make calls increasingly on these devices, increasingly out in the world. And knowing how you sound to other people is important, both because you want to be a good person who doesn't make everyone's lives miserable. And also because there is lots of evidence, scientific evidence that shows if you sound good, Thank you. So John Higgins, The Verge's senior reviewer, is going to come on. He's got a bunch of stuff. He is, I assume, somewhere very noisy. And we're going to do some tests.
But first, here's everything else happening on The Verge today. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Wednesday, June 17th, 2026. Big smart home day. The new Matter 1.6 smart home spec launched today. And stop me if you've heard of this before, but it is supposedly going to make it easier to control your smart home. Specifically, Matter 1.6 includes this new feature called Joint Fabric, which makes it easier to set up a smart device like a light or a sensor or whatever, and immediately have it be controlled by Alexa, Apple Home, Gemini, and all of your other stuff all at once. Supposedly, it all just works. There's also a new NFC setup feature that lets you tap a device to your phone to set it up rather than scanning a QR code.
As with all things Matter, these are good ideas, and I really hope they work. And as with all things Matter, I am not remotely holding my breath. Meanwhile, the Google Home speaker, Google's first smart speaker in six years, is finally up for pre-order and finally has a ship date next Thursday, June 25th. The speaker was announced last fall, and for $99, it promises to be the best way to get Gemini smart home control into your house. It also looks really good in red and apparently sounds really good. There is a remarkable, interesting smart speaker thing happening right now. Alexa Plus, Apple Home, Siri AI, and Gemini are all promising these big AI upgrades to how you control your home. It's all been kind of iffy so far, but we'll see how much these new things really change the game.
And finally, reviews for Toy Story 5 are starting to come out, a movie in which the bad guy is basically an iPad.
Hi there, I'm Lilypad. Let's play! Extinction, not extinction!
What is the importance of microphone quality in headphones?
What's not surprising is that virtually everyone, including my colleague Charles Pulliam Moore, seems to love it. What's more surprising is that it seems to be a remarkably, maybe uniquely thoughtful look at the good and bad of what it means to be a person in a world filled with screens. Leave it to Woody and Buzz, man. They get it. You can read more about all of this at TheVerge.com. That is 90 Seconds for Wednesday, June 17th.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:41
2
Why are headphone microphones often underrated?
0:41–3:16
3
What is the importance of microphone quality in headphones?
3:16–7:28
4
How do different environments affect microphone performance?
7:28–33:30
5
What are the AirPods Pro 3's microphone performance details?
33:30–35:59