The Non-Financial Ledger

Michael Pawson saved up and waited. He had been using cheap off-brand headphones for years and wanted something that would actually work. He read Apple’s promise of Active Noise Cancellation that adapts to the geometry of your ear. He visited Target’s website, which displayed the same words Apple had put on its own site. He paid $250 in November 2019 and felt, briefly, like he had made a smart decision.

Less than a year later, the right earbud started crackling. He went online and found other people complaining about the exact same thing. He called Apple, reported the problem, and was given a replacement earbud. That replacement earbud had the same defect. Then the left one started. He called again. Another replacement. Two years later, in November 2023, the replacement earbuds failed too, crackling and static arriving until he stopped using them altogether. He went to the Apple Galleria store in Houston. The technician confirmed both earbuds failed the sound test. The Apple employee’s suggestion: buy new replacement earbuds at $89 each, or buy a brand new pair for hundreds more dollars. He had already paid for this product three times in labor, time, and trust. Apple’s response was to ask for a fourth payment.

Stacey Rodgers bought hers from a BestBuy in Mentor, Ohio in July 2021. She paid over $250. Apple had already, at that point, quietly admitted the defect on a buried support page for nine months. Rodgers had no idea, because Apple never told her. She wasn’t looking for a support page she didn’t know existed. She was just buying headphones that Apple’s own retailer, displaying Apple-provided marketing copy, told her offered “active noise cancellation for immersive sound.” By September 2023, both of her earbuds were producing static and crackling. By November 2023, she couldn’t use either one. The Apple Store in Woodmere, Ohio confirmed both failed. The answer was the same: $89 per earbud.

Lindsey LaBella bought hers in April 2020 from the Apple online store, six months after launch. By May 2021, static and crackling had started in both earbuds. It began intermittently and worsened until neither earbud worked at all. She did not find out about the Service Program on her own. Apple never contacted her. When she finally made an appointment at an Apple Store in May 2024, nearly four years after her purchase, Apple’s own sound test confirmed both earbuds were defective. The price to fix them: $89 per earbud. The price for a new pair: $249, the same as she had paid for her defective ones.

These three people live in different states, bought their earbuds at different times, from different retailers, and had no connection to each other. They all ended up in the same Apple Store chair, hearing the same answer. What Apple’s technicians confirmed in each case is that the product failed exactly as described in the very complaint Apple had buried on a support page years earlier. The failure was not random. It was not user error. It was the product doing exactly what a product with that defect does. Apple knew this. Apple continued to advertise the opposite.

The people who read about a recall on a MacRumors forum years after buying their earbuds, the people who spent hours on hold with Apple support only to be told their manufacture date missed a cutoff by one month, the people who read the complaint about “the same thing” being “normal behaviour” and accepted that answer because Apple told them so: none of these people failed to be diligent. Apple designed a system that required them to find information Apple deliberately did not give them, and then denied them relief when they found it too late.

Legal Receipts

The following quotes are drawn verbatim from the class action complaint filed November 1, 2024 (Case 5:24-cv-07588-NC) and from consumer records cited within it. They document what Apple said publicly, what Apple admitted internally, and what Apple told its own customers.

Apple’s Own Advertising Promises

“Superior sound quality” with “pure, incredibly clear sound” that “cuts out the noise” for a “rich, consistent listening experience.” The AirPods Pro were “the only in-ear headphones with Active Noise Cancellation that continuously adapts to the geometry of your ear and the fit of your ear tips – blocking out the world so you can focus on what you are listening to.”

— Apple web advertisement, October 28, 2019

Apple’s Admission of the Defect

“AirPods Pro may experience sound issues” where AirPods Pro “may exhibit one or more of the following behaviors: Crackling or static sounds that increase in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone; Active Noise Cancellation not working as expected, such as a loss of bass sound, or an increase in background sounds, such as street or airplane noise.”

— Apple, “AirPods Pro Service Program for Sound Issues,” published October 30, 2020

Apple’s Response When Caught

“…[Apple] agreed to replace one of the AirPods (the one making the noise) but insisted that if it happens again, that’s ‘normal behaviour.'”

— Consumer post on Apple’s own discussion forum, January 10, 2020

Consumers Shut Out by Apple’s Arbitrary Cutoff

“Recently my AirPods Pro starting having crackling noises with noise cancellation mode and relatively loud surrounding noises. After reading online that it’s a known issue for those manufactured prior to October 2020, I took them to the Apple store. A sound test was performed, and they both failed. Was informed that my AirPods are doing the same thing, but they were manufactured about one month after October 2020. This has been extremely frustrating given that they are doing the same thing, but they were manufactured outside the ‘recognized timeframe’.”

— Consumer post, Apple Discussion Board, May 11, 2022

“I go and am told yes the left one is broken, the right one also failed. My serial number IS in the recall, but it was passed the 3 years. It has been broken for more than a year, but I just put them away because I had no idea about the recall. You want to tell me apple doesn’t know how to send out a message to let us know???”

— Consumer post, Apple Discussion Board, July 30, 2024

Apple’s Suppression Language in the Complaint

Apple claimed the defect “only affected a ‘small percentage of AirPods Pro,’ when in reality Apple knew the sound issues reflected a defect inherent in all AirPods Pro Gen 1.”

— Class Action Complaint, Case 5:24-cv-07588-NC, ¶112(b)

How the Defect Works: The Engineering Cover-Up in Plain Language

Apple’s advertising promised a processor so fast it adjusts 200 times per second. The actual processor in the Gen 1 was too slow to do its job. Here is what happens inside the earbud when that processor fails.

• Active Noise Cancellation works by analyzing incoming sound and generating an inverse “anti-noise” signal timed precisely to cancel the original. If the processor is too slow, it cannot generate that anti-noise signal quickly enough. The result: the processor creates white noise, a hiss containing all audible frequencies, as a byproduct of its failed cancellation attempts.
• The AirPods Pro Gen 1 contain an “error microphone” positioned in front of the speaker. Its job is to catch any residual ambient noise that slipped past the first cancellation pass and give the processor a second attempt. When the processor is too slow, this error microphone picks up parts of the intended audio (music, voice) and interprets them as noise to be cancelled. The processor then tries to cancel your music. The error microphone picks up that cancellation attempt. A feedback loop begins. The result is crackling, static, and what sounds like someone blowing into a microphone.
• Apple’s engineers knew this. When Gen 1 units started failing, Apple’s internal guidance to third-party support channels was to disable Active Noise Cancellation entirely as a workaround. A company confident its noise-cancellation processor worked correctly would not instruct people to turn it off.
• Microscopic examination conducted as part of the plaintiffs’ investigation shows that Apple briefly experimented after October 2020 with a MEMS microphone from Goertek with a different frequency response, the Goertek GWM1, to see if swapping one component would fix the problem without a full redesign. It did not. Apple quietly reverted to the original microphone specification. The core failure, the underpowered DSP processor, was never addressed in the Gen 1 line.
• Apple’s Gen 2 launch in September 2022 featured a new H2 chip that Apple claims delivers “2x more Active Noise Cancellation.” Microscopic examination confirms the Gen 2 also has a redesigned rear-facing microphone, a redesigned error microphone, and a redesigned speaker diaphragm with angular striations specifically to improve low-frequency response. Every component that failed in Gen 1 was replaced in Gen 2. Apple fixed the problem by building a new product, not by recalling the defective one.

Societal Impact Mapping

Public Health

The Audio Defect produced involuntary noise exposure in the devices consumers specifically purchased to reduce noise exposure. The documented harms include:

• Crackling and static sounds generated directly into the ear canal. These sounds are not ambient; they are produced by the earbud’s own circuitry and delivered at close range to the eardrum, the same delivery mechanism as intended audio. Extended or repeated exposure to unexpected high-frequency crackling sounds in an enclosed ear canal carries an elevated risk relative to ambient noise.
• The complaint documents that the crackling “increase[s] in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone.” Each of these is a scenario where the consumer has their auditory attention engaged and their hearing most vulnerable to startle-response harm from unexpected noise.
• Consumers who used these earbuds for calls in professional settings reported interruption and loss of sound during communication, a harm that extends beyond comfort to workplace function, accessibility for users with hearing impairments who relied on the devices, and safety in environments requiring clear audio communication.
• Apple’s own workaround of disabling Active Noise Cancellation, when implemented, removed the product’s primary noise-reduction protection from workers in loud environments who purchased specifically for that function.

Economic Inequality

The financial structure of this scheme concentrated losses on consumers who could least afford to absorb them, while protecting Apple’s revenue at every step.

• The entry price was $250 or more per pair. This is the premium end of the consumer headphone market. Purchasers like Pawson, who previously used off-brand headphones, made a specific financial sacrifice to access what they believed was a demonstrably better product. Apple’s advertising was designed to attract exactly this consumer segment.
• When earbuds failed, Apple’s offered resolution was $89 per earbud, or $178 for both, on top of the original $250 purchase. For consumers already at the ceiling of what they would spend on audio equipment, this is a compounding penalty that Apple created and then charged them for.
• The Service Program had arbitrary time cutoffs enforced by manufacture date, not by defect manifestation date. Consumers whose earbuds failed within the covered window but who did not find the support page in time were denied relief. The complaint includes a user whose serial number qualified but whose three-year window had lapsed because Apple never told them the program existed.
• Individual purchasers had no practical path to litigation. As the complaint acknowledges, the cost of individual suits against Apple would exceed any recovery available to a single consumer. Class action was the only viable mechanism. Apple’s resources, legal and financial, are structured to outlast individual challenges. Apple collected and kept the premium price on every pair sold through September 2022.
• In 2021 alone, Apple generated an estimated $12.1 billion in AirPods revenue across all models and held the largest share of the wireless headset market. The fine print harm was scaled across millions of consumers; the revenue benefit was concentrated at a single corporation with over $3 trillion in market capitalization.
• Retailers including Best Buy, Target, and Amazon were instructed by Apple to display Apple-provided marketing copy. These retailers, operating in good faith, became unpaid vectors for Apple’s misrepresentation, and their customers had no way to distinguish Apple’s claims from independently verified product performance.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now?

This case is active in the Northern District of California. Here is who is accountable, which agencies can hear complaints, and what you can do right now.

Who Is Legally Named

• Defendant: Apple Inc., incorporated in California, headquartered in Cupertino (Santa Clara County). All decisions relevant to the Audio Defect, the advertising campaign, and the Service Program were made at Apple’s California headquarters.
• Lead Counsel for Plaintiffs: Tycko & Zavareei LLP (Oakland, CA and Washington, DC) and Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A. (Cleveland, OH).
• Named Plaintiffs: Lindsey LaBella (Pennsylvania), Michael Pawson (Texas), Stacey Rodgers (Ohio), representing a proposed Nationwide Class of all U.S. purchasers of AirPods Pro Gen 1.

Regulatory Watchlist

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC): The FTC enforces federal consumer protection law against deceptive advertising. Apple’s continued use of demonstrably false advertising claims after knowing about the Audio Defect falls within the FTC’s mandate. File a report at ftc.gov/complaint.
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): If you financed your AirPods through Apple Card, Apple Pay Later, or any Apple financing product, the CFPB has jurisdiction over unfair, deceptive, or abusive financial product practices. File at consumerfinance.gov/complaint.
• State Attorneys General (CA, OH, PA, TX): Each state’s consumer protection division can investigate deceptive trade practices under state law. The complaint already names Ohio Revised Code, 13 Pa.C.S.A., and Texas Business & Commercial Code violations. Your state AG’s office can receive a complaint independent of the class action.
• Better Business Bureau: While not a regulator, documented complaint patterns at the BBB create public accountability records that surface in Apple’s business profile and are cited in regulatory proceedings.

Mutual Aid and Grassroots Action

• Document your defect before it gets worse. If your AirPods Pro Gen 1 are crackling or producing static, make an appointment at an Apple Store and request a formal sound test. Ask the technician to document the result in writing. That test result is evidence. Photograph the email or receipt Apple provides.
• Join the class action record. The case is Case 5:24-cv-07588-NC in the Northern District of California. Contact Tycko & Zavareei LLP or Dworken & Bernstein to provide your purchase information, failure timeline, and any Apple Store test documentation. Your individual record strengthens the class.
• Share your story publicly and specifically. Post your Apple Store test result, your manufacture date, and your purchase date on Apple’s Community forums and on Reddit threads where this issue is tracked. The complaint cites these records as evidence. Your post is part of the documented public record that researchers, journalists, and attorneys reference.
• Organize locally. If you know other AirPods Pro Gen 1 owners, create a shared document of your experiences and test results. Consumer organizations and state AGs respond more quickly to organized, multi-person complaints than to individual submissions. A local tenants union, neighborhood mutual aid group, or college consumer advocacy club can coordinate a batch submission to your state AG.
• Do not buy another Apple audio product until this is resolved. Apple’s decision to develop the Gen 2 instead of fixing the Gen 1 was an economic calculation. The only leverage consumers have over that calculation is purchasing power. If you are in the market for earbuds, buy from a competitor while this lawsuit is pending and tell Apple’s customer service exactly why.