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The PaMu Explore is the first headphones from PadMate, and they've got quite a bit right, from solid base-forward sound to a funky and unique steampunk-inspired design. Tech expert Dave Taylor auditions them and finds a lot to appreciate, and one or two things to consider before you make a purchase decision. Includes recorded voice demo!
Check them out at Amazon - https://amzn.to/3T5SDa3
or go straight to https://www.PadMate-Tech.com/
Then visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
#padmate #pamu #explore #headphones #pamuexplore #aptx #aac #askdavetaylor
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0:00
Steampunk style headphones with solid sound. Let's check these out
0:04
Dave Taylor here and I'm checking out these. These are the Padmate Pamu Explore HD headphones
0:18
and these are the first headphones that Padmates made. They do a lot of wireless gear, they do a
0:23
lot of audio gear, but this is their first shot at headphones and they did a pretty darn nice job
0:30
Now, what's most distinctive and notable here is the lighting on the side. They call this their
0:36
rocket lights and it is pretty cool. Kind of cyberpunk. In fact, the whole design, if you look
0:42
especially in this close-up, you can see there's a sort of cyberpunk energy to what they have here
0:50
and it's pretty cool. Now, there's also lots to talk about because the earpieces themselves
0:58
feature 40 millimeter dynamic drivers with a 40 micron composite diaphragm, giving them a pretty
1:04
remarkable 10 to 30,000 hertz frequency response. That's a lot. Now, Bluetooth 5.0, so it's not the
1:13
very latest generation of Bluetooth, but it is certainly modern enough that you're going to get
1:19
great connectivity and good range if you want to walk around and leave your device sitting somewhere
1:24
You're not going to have any problem with that. Supports pretty much all the codecs
1:28
aptX, aptX HD, AAC, SBC, basically any device you want to pair this with you're going to get the
1:37
best possible sound, always important. And they have some pretty wicked battery life because it's
1:42
a fairly big heavy headphone, as you can see, but that gives them the ability to drop in a 500
1:48
milliamp hour battery, which gives it 27 hours of battery life and charge it for 10 minutes. There
1:56
is a USB-C plug here, charge it for 10 minutes and you will have five hours of playback time. So
2:05
pretty solid. Takes about two hours to get a full charge and I'm having a little bit of an issue
2:10
here because the side is a touch sensor. So, turns out it's a touch control earpiece, which is
2:19
very convenient once you have them on. So, I can play music and pause music and all sorts of things
2:28
but when I'm trying to demonstrate it, it's a little annoying to have it keep switching into
2:32
different modes. I know in the big picture, probably that's not an issue. Now, also has a
2:38
built-in microphone powered by the Qualcomm 3034 chip, which means you have pretty decent sound
2:44
We're going to have a quick demo of that in a moment. There is a karaoke version of this that's
2:49
called the Pamu Karaoke. It's $10 more, but in addition to the built-in mic, it has some ability
2:56
for you to hook up a boom mic. So, that's much more of a sort of gamer style, but this is just
3:03
I think I'll just turn the volume down, that'll alleviate that. This is the built-in microphone
3:09
So, that's what you get. So, let's give it a demo, right? So, let's see. I'll switch it around so that
3:14
I have it in the right orientation and I have it paired to my iPhone 13 Pro and I'm going to go
3:21
into voice and voice memos and one thing I've found is I do have to talk at a higher volume
3:31
to get good audio quality, but as you can see, I am recording the audio and you're hearing what
3:38
these microphones are picking up. So, it's not bad. You just have to talk at a decent volume
3:44
Now, let me switch back. So, there's your demo. Now, the rocket lights, if you don't like the lights
3:52
not sure why you would, but if you don't like it, you can tap and hold and then it will turn on
3:59
or turn off. I had them turned off. Now, I've turned them on again. They don't react to the music
4:04
you're listening to. You can't change the colors. It's just a simple blue pulsing light if it's on
4:10
and as you turn the device off, if I turn it off, you'll see that it gets you purple just for a second
4:17
and I think it goes into red when it's in pairing mode. So, pretty darn fun. In terms of the controls
4:24
there is a manual. I'll show you what's in the box in just a second. There is a manual. There's a lot
4:30
of complex touch sensor options. You will want to fine-tune what you're doing because, as I said
4:38
you know, a lot of people probably aren't even going to use that and it is a little annoying
4:42
If I do something like this, then I've accidentally actually touched the sensors. So, this is true of
4:48
every device that gives you a sensor and a large sensor space like this. So, part of it is you have
4:54
to learn to touch the edges rather than to touch the back and I'm just turning it on and off
5:01
non-stop here, which is probably so optimal, but it's cool. Now, it comes with a really nice travel
5:07
case. This is a hard case. I'm not usually a fan of these because of how big they are, but they did make
5:13
it the smallest possible size for these headphones and they do close up a bit and it's pretty neat
5:21
There's actually a gradation to show you how far you've opened it to get that perfect fit
5:26
You're probably never going to write down that number, but it's kind of cool, right? In fact
5:30
let me show you. Here are the different controls. They're really all on one side. They're all on the
5:37
right ear. It has volume up and volume down and then on the bottom, you can see there's that USB-C
5:44
for charging. There's an on-off switch, which I really like. It's not something you're going to
5:49
accidentally turn on. And then there's that 3.5 millimeter jack because in the box, you actually
5:57
have, let's see which one's which, you have a 3.5 millimeter cable so you can use it wired if you
6:05
want. I think this is the, here we go, so this is the 3.5 millimeter cable and not only can you use
6:11
it wired, but then it comes with some inline controls, which is a really nice surprise. I did
6:17
not expect to see that. And then what else is in here? Well, let's see. There is a carrying strap
6:25
if you want to have this and then sling this over your shoulder or something. And in the smallest of
6:31
the three containers is, no surprise, USB-C to USB-A for charging. And there's instruction
6:39
booklet, which gives you the details on the different tap sequences. So that's everything
6:45
in the box and you've heard a demo of the microphone. So what we need to talk about is, we
6:51
need to talk about the sound. And these are fairly bass forward. What I mean by that is, if you were
6:58
to listen to music that's perfectly even, you would find that it's giving you more bass than it is
7:03
treble. A lot of people really like their headphones tuned that way. I will say if you're listening to
7:09
some like industrial or electronica and it has a great drop, this is going to give you a great drop
7:17
So I went back and listened to some old Howard Jones and it's just really well engineered albums
7:23
and the music sounded really good. There's not a huge soundstage. It's a fairly modest soundstage
7:30
but the whole music reproduction is warm and lively and very responsive. So it felt like I was
7:37
in a night club or a dance club or something and it was pretty hard not to get up and start
7:42
dancing because that's just the kind of music and that's the kind of reproduction it's giving you
7:47
So it's not a really precise studio monitor. That's not what they're trying to do, nor is
7:53
that the design style. But in terms of it being something that's very listenable, then this is
7:59
definitely one to check out. Now, having said that, I don't find it super comfortable and it's kind of
8:07
plasticky when you're actually touching it in person. All of this is plastic, so be aware it
8:13
might look like it's sort of metal and steampunk and everything, but it's all injection molding
8:19
Now, that's not necessarily a problem and I will say the moving parts like here, this is metal. So
8:26
I feel like this is going to last a long time, but you might be surprised at the quality of the
8:32
components that they've used to try to give a look as opposed to actually being made out of
8:39
like metals or something like that. Now, again, these are also not $700 headphones that would
8:47
be what would be required if you wanted to have it be really high-end with super fancy
8:52
metals and everything. So it is an observation more than a criticism. It's just something that
8:58
you'll want to know if you pick up these headphones. But really, like any headphones, it's all about the
9:04
music and it's all about the sound and they sound really good. I really enjoyed listening to the
9:09
music with these and was just bouncing around through a lot of the classic music I have for
9:14
auditioning headphones. Steely Dan Asia, great, great song for headphones and it just sounded
9:21
beautiful here. Dire Straits, again, such a well-engineered album, all their stuff and it just
9:28
all sounded really, really good. There's lots to like here. Now, we do need to talk about the price
9:36
but before we get to the price, I want to ask you if you could subscribe to my channel
9:40
Click or tap on that subscribe button, turn on notifications and we're connected
9:45
How easy is that? Cool. Now, let me turn this on so we can get the cool light effects
9:51
And there we go. These are the Padmate Pamu Explore HD headphones and they're $109 at amazon.com
10:01
But if you check out padmatetech.com, you'll find they're $89. So either you go to Amazon and you
10:10
find out that they have a discount or promo running or you can go straight to Padmate's website and
10:16
get them for $89 minus 10% for signing up for their list. So that's probably your best option
10:23
But either way, these are definitely ones worth checking out. The fact that these are the very
10:28
first headphones Padmate's ever made makes me really interested in what they're going to do
10:33
for the next generation. Because, you know, it always takes a couple of generations to learn
10:38
what your customers really like and what features people are excited about. I really like the light
10:44
I really like the music reproduction. I'm not sure they couldn't have made them a little more
10:50
comfortable though. So that's everything I got. I think I'm going to go back to Howard Jones
10:55
So let me get that going. There we go. Which means I'll catch you in my next video
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