This is Pamu Slide 2, 2nd gen ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) earbuds made by Padmate. A little bit of a back story: two years ago, Padmate launched the first generation called Pamu Slide, a crowdfunding campaign also. The second generation is finally here and it’s ready to ship as the Indiegogo is almost over. Just like its predecessor, Pamu Slide 2 claims to have super-comfortable, ‘Never Fall Out’ fit earbuds all this combined with powerful bass and soaring treble.
Inside the box
In addition to the common accessories, you are going to find a Pamu branded protective drawstring pouch that will allow you to protect the case when carrying the case around.
Design
As the name suggests the case features a slide design. The lid slides up and reveals the earbuds. A cool interesting detail is the branding on the lid, it features the Pamu logo that resembles a vinyl record. At the first impression, the case feels a little chunky compared with other brands. Another interesting detail on the case is the led indicator bar that will show you the battery level. The top of the case has a type C USB charging port and supports wireless charging.
The earbuds have a similar design to other Pamu earbuds. They feature the logo branding that resembles a miniature vinyl also. We are noticing a consistency in the design here. They are touch sensitive to controls and the good news is that you can control almost everything just by touch. In ear detection is a must-have these days and those earbuds are not lacking that. If the earbuds are removed from the ear the music will automatically pause and resume as soon as you put them back in the ear.
Features
Pamu Slide 2 is running Bluetooth 5.0 they do support independent use so you can use either the left or the right ear while the other remains inside of the case. As far as battery life you’re looking at roughly 6 1/2 hours on a single charge with a total of 26 hours. They do have an IPX rating for water resistant sweat resistant as well as light splashes of water but might not be a good idea to completely submerge them in water.
The ear fit on these is pretty straightforward I’m as long as you have the right size ear tips they should stay in place relatively well and are also pretty comfortable now. I took them out for a running exercise and they did pretty well, never felt like they will fall off or anything close to that.
In order to take full advantage of the earbuds, you’ll have to download the Pamu App (Play Store, App Store) and pair them up so that you can gain access to helpful information like your battery life and you can also adjust your ambient sound control. There is ANC to transparency mode and they even have a wind noise reduction feature. As for the sound and you do have access to three different presets: Pop, Normal, and Vocal. What is really interesting here is a feature called gaming mode and it gives you two different settings so you have a low latency as well as an ultra-low latency. There you have the vocal enhancement setting that amplifies the ambient sound so that you can hear voices and have conversations a little bit easier and I will say on the higher setting it does introduce paid a bit of white noise. You do have the option to customize the touch controls like the double tap as well as depressing hold for both the left and the right earbud. It’s a nice touch to have access to all of the controls and some increased level of customization.
Sound quality
The earbuds have a very well-balanced type of sound and I did notice that the profile of the sound does change depending on if you’re using active noise cancellation or not. I do recommend experimenting with that but overall you’re getting a good amount of bass. The treble will definitely shine through very nicely and gives you a good amount of clarity in detail. I would say that maybe there could be a little bit more separation between mids in the highs but really not a big deal. All together you are getting some very solid sound quality with these earbuds and on top of that, you’re not getting any distortion either even when hitting max volume.
Active Noise Cancellation
These are claiming around 42 dB of noise reduction and overall the performance is pretty good. They do really shine on lower frequency sounds like engines, refrigerators, plane jets, and things like that. They do pretty well with the ambient sounds just a little bit of white noise on the higher settings.
