macOS Sequoia Lets You Customize AirPods Audio in System Settings

Seriously, anybody over 40 with AirPods, regardless of whether you think you've got any hearing deterioration or not: do a full (free) hearing test with the mimi hearing test app, save the audiogram it generates, go into Accessibility>Headphone Accommodations, select Tune Audio for: Audiogram and upload the audiogram you generated from mimi. Your iPhone/Mac will then slightly boost frequencies that you may have lost some sensitivity to. Basically it corrects the sound to what it should sound like, based on your personal hearing profile.

My hearing's still pretty good for my age, but listening to music this was still transformational for me, I rediscovered so much detail in songs that I'd forgotten was there. At least try it!

Great advice. This is an amazing feature. I'm middle aged, and the Headphone Accomodations really fills out the highs for me that have gone flat with deterioration in my hearing over time.* I think Apple undersells this feature by having it buried in Accessibility. It's a lot more powerful than having a simple EQ to futz with.

* And now, a lecture: for you younger people, for the love of god use some hearing protection before you go out to super loud music venues. I seriously cringe when I remember how in my 20s I sonically raw-dogged a ton of punk shows and didn't think a thing of it when I'd walk out with my ears ringing. Now I've got a little tinnitus, which is awful, and generally my hearing is in worse shape than if I'd been smarter back then. They make really nice earplugs now which are acoustically neutral, but even jamming some wadded up tissue in there in a pinch is better than nothing.

Seriously, anybody over 40 with AirPods, regardless of whether you think you've got any hearing deterioration or not: do a full (free) hearing test with the mimi hearing test app, save the audiogram it generates, go into Accessibility>Headphone Accommodations, select Tune Audio for: Audiogram and upload the audiogram you generated from mimi. Your iPhone/Mac will then slightly boost frequencies that you may have lost some sensitivity to. Basically it corrects the sound to what it should sound like, based on your personal hearing profile.

My hearing's still pretty good for my age, but listening to music this was still transformational for me, I rediscovered so much detail in songs that I'd forgotten was there. At least try it!

Four years later this accessibility feature finally makes it to MacOS. It’s a very useful feature for users who have some hearing issues.

In iOS 14, Apple continues to build out its extensive accessibility features, and here we're going to show you how you can use the new Headphone Accommodations to amplify certain sounds if you're having difficulty hearing them.

I can't think of anything less cumbersome than "it happens without you doing anything at all".

Except when it doesn't. There's innumerable examples of people whose Airpod Pro's won't upgrade. I'm one of the lucky ones who can prompt an update 100% of the time but the "it just happens" isn't universal. Channels like Zollotech on YT have talked about the process being problematic for some people. Also, some people experience bugs, the products aren't infallible, and I'm sure they'd like to apply bug fixes asap.

People want an update method where the user can initiate it, like on almost every other Apple product, isn't too much to ask and seems to be a common request. So you can laugh emoji if you want but many people would like a better process to be implemented.

It would be super helpful if they would alphabetize everything in system settings...just a thought

That's great advice @NightFox. Thanks for posting that.