“Do you have any empirical evidence…”

Ask yourself, “how easy would it be to test this myself?”

Now ask yourself, “how hard would it be for someone else to prove this and give me something that convinces me?”

Even people working in academia don’t say “show me empirical evidence!” This just feels standoffish.

The Macbook Pro's have good in-built mics, probably the same for higher end windows laptops.

But I imagine the average cheap windows laptop has quite poor quality mics. It would be hard to test though as there are so many models out there.

Wireless earbuds microphones are famous for poor quality audio, even in the top of the line models. The microphone is indeed closer to your mouth, but the sound in the human speech range is quite directional, and does not travel to your ears as well as it does to a microphone in front of you.

Not to mention the quality of the parts itself is usually much lower than those in the external mics, or the MacBook ones for that matter.

There's a YouTuber called DankPods, reviewing all sorts of headphones lately, along with their mics. Can't recommend any particular video, as the microphone tests are only a tiny fraction of the content, but after watching a few tests this issue become very apparent. Easiest thing to do would be, as other commenter suggested, to test it out for yourself in the voice memo app.

It depends if you sit for a long meeting or short but important, I’d definitively change the mic to use MacBook it’s not only your quality of mic for them, you’ll hear them much better too. Now if you want to be walking around while talking then obviously keep the default mic on the AirPods.

I'm stupefied by this comment thread. I routinely have meetings where my microphone quality (built-in MacBook Pro or iPhone 14 in speaker mode) is absolute shit and the person on the other side tells me to put on my AirPods, at which point my audio becomes crystal clear for them.

I don't know if it depends on specific models because some people seems to be using Macbook Pros without headset and their voice is crystal clear while other seem to be talking from an old airplane microphone.

Anyway I guess it depends where the macbook is positionned. I am not using a macbook but my laptop is stashed away on a shelf[1] when plugged to my usb-c docking station using external screens so using the embedded mic would be a no starter anyway.

[1] it seems to be cooling and running quieter vertically when its bottom fans aren't obstructed.

It appears from some google searching that this problem seems to be specific to the AirPod pros. I’ve never used those as I hate the silicone tips.

Give it a try and see it for yourself. Open the voice memos and record a short message, change the input source and record again. Play the recordings and see which one you like.

To change the input source you can go into System Settings->Sound->Input

Mac microphones are quite good, see if that's the case for you too.

I do a lot of zoom meetings with people with lots of different mics including mac ones and various business headsets and laptops and yes, Airpod mics are pretty much the worst of the bunch.