Xiaomi has been busy planting their feet in every sector of the tech market. From smartphones to tablets, TVs to media boxes, the Chinese company has almost done it all. Audio is a department where Xiaomi is no stranger to as the company has put out a pair of very decent headphones and the Piston earphones. Now, they have a new entry into the earphone market; enter the Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro.
Design
Judging by the exterior of the Mi In Ear Headphones Pro, you would believe that this thing costs a lot more than its RM79 asking price. The main earpieces come with metal enclosure, giving it the much vaunted “premium” feel than most other earphones, or at least, much more “premium” than the default Apple earbuds.
Interestingly enough, Xiaomi has opted to use kevlar fibre for the cable in order to make it durable or break resistant. While I’m not sure how durable the cables are thanks to the kevlar, I’ll give Xiaomi the benefit of a doubt regarding that statement. Slightly below the earpieces is the three button remote and the microphone.
You will also find a packet full of rubber earpieces in the box the Headphones Pro comes in, allowing you to swap the pieces around to accommodate the size of your ears.
Performance
Looks aren’t the only thing that is impressive with the Xiaomi In-Ear Headphones Pro as the device sports some rather meaty components as well. The earphones sports a dynamic dual-armature driver in its earpieces. It has a frequency response of 20 to 20,000Hz, a sensitivity of 101dB, and an impedance of 32 ohms.
Usage
To test out the Headphones Pro, I simply stuck them into my laptop without any further modifications to it. After a few days of using it, I can say that the Headphones Pro is good, but it does have some flaws.
First, the good. The Headphones Pro is surprisingly powerful considering its price. For its size, I was surprised at how powerful the bass coming out from the earphones are. If you listen to precussion-heavy tracks, you would enjoy the Headphones Pro as the kicks in particular does pack a “punch” so to speak. Treble isn’t too shabby either, being clear and loud enough as to not get muddied by the bass.
The one part where the Headphones Pro fails to impress me has to be the mids. Due to the highs and lows of the earphones being as powerful as they are, this causes both sides of the sound spectrum to drown the mids, giving the headphones a V-shaped sound. As someone who prefers a more balanced sound (thereby making me “boring”), I find it to be just a tad bit disappointing. That said, I know people who want their earphones to have a unique sound characteristic, so a V-shaped sound is perfectly fine to some people.
