Xiaomi is a long-time participant within the wi-fi earbuds market, and the Buds 5 Professional are its newest flagship providing. As such, they carry a jam-packed set of options, together with triple drivers, adaptive noise cancellation, aptX Lossless streaming, twin system pairing and head monitoring, simply to call a couple of.
We’ve already reviewed the semi in-ear Xiaomi Buds 5, which galvanized us with its sound and wealthy characteristic set, and we are actually turning our consideration to their Professional counterpart.
The visible resemblance between the 2 Buds 5 fashions is placing. The plain distinction is that the Professional go for the standard in-ear design with good outdated silicone ideas. This addition performs a significant function within the match and seal round your ear canal, which was one pitfall on the common Buds 5.
As you’d anticipate, the Professional moniker suggests a extra succesful system, which is the case right here. Buds 5 Professional provide higher sound, improved name high quality and higher battery life. So, is the upper asking worth value it? We’ve spent the final two weeks with the Xiaomi Buds 5 Professional and these are our findings.
Desk of Contents:
Design
Our Buds 5 Professional evaluation unit is available in Titan Grey. This colorway was additionally out there on the Buds 5, and it additionally contains a extremely reflective case lid that may double as a small pocket mirror. The underside half of the case contains a matte end, which does a significantly better job of warding off fingerprints.
Buds 5 Professional will get a extra rectangular-shaped charging case in comparison with the sq. one on the vanilla variant. The general footprint is wider than the case on the Buds 5, although it’s nonetheless slim sufficient to slip into smaller pockets comfortably. The buds keep upright within the case, with the lid appearing like a helmet visor.
Every earbud weighs 6.5 grams, with the case including one other 40 grams for a mixed weight of 53 grams. Buds 5 Professional characteristic an almost similar design to the Buds 5, with the one distinction being the silicone ideas that go in your ears. You continue to get the identical pinch gesture pad on the backside of every stem, which carried out properly sufficient in our testing interval.
Leaping to the in-ear match, we’re delighted to say that the Buds 5 Professional ship an incredible seal. They keep in place with out wobbling, and the contoured form of the speaker meeting is simple on the ear concha space even after longer listening periods.
This reviewer spent over two weeks with the Buds 5 Professional as his most important work and health club earbuds with none complaints by way of consolation. The Buds 5 Professional keep in place even throughout runs and different fast-paced actions with none drawback. Xiaomi additionally retained the IP54 mud and water resistance, that means the Buds 5 Professional can deal with sweat and light-weight drops of rain with none problem.
Options
Xiaomi Buds 5 Professional deliver coaxial triple drivers with 11mm dynamic drivers, an extra planar driver and PZT tweeters. The buds additionally characteristic twin DACs and canopy a frequency response vary of 15Hz to 50kHz, which is wider than the Buds 5.
Buds 5 Professional pair over Bluetooth 5.4 and assist Snapdragon Sound with aptX Lossless high-bitrate (48kHz/24bit) streaming at as much as 2.1Mbps. In addition they get customized sound tuning from Harman’s Golden Ears crew. Xiaomi can also be providing a particular version of the Buds 5 Professional, which hook up with newer Xiaomi telephones through Wi-Fi for 96kHz/24-bit lossless audio and a bitrate as much as 4.2Mbps. Sadly, our evaluation unit provides Bluetooth-only connectivity.
As for noise cancellation, Buds 5 Professional are rated to drown out as much as 55dB of noise because of the up to date triple microphone system inside every earbud. Xiaomi additionally claims the Buds 5 Professional can choose up your voice in noisier environments at as much as 100dB, because of its new AI noise discount algorithm. The buds are additionally marketed to cancel out excessive wind speeds of as much as 15m/s throughout calls. Newer Xiaomi telephones additionally get HD calling for clearer-sounding calls.
Buds 5 Professional get the usual array options discovered on most earbuds of this class, like put on detection sensors, twin system pairing, and Google Quick Pair, all of which labored flawlessly in our testing throughout a number of telephones and laptops.
Xiaomi Buds 5 Professional options contained in the Xiaomi Earbuds app
Xiaomi’s Earbuds app is your one-stop store for tweaking all elements of the Buds 5 Professional. You may assign single, double, and triple squeeze presses on the stems in addition to a press and maintain gesture. By way of media playback, you get play/pause, subsequent/earlier tune in addition to quantity controls through swipes. Xiaomi has perfected this squeeze management setup, although we’d nonetheless favor single-tap controls as an alternative of squeeze gestures.
The app dwelling display options toggles for the adaptive noise cancellation and ambient modes whereas the sound equalizer settings are buried underneath the Audio steadiness toggle.
Buds 5 Professional additionally assist dimensional audio with head monitoring, and the characteristic works no matter your system’s working system. We examined it on each an iPhone 15 Professional and Redmi Be aware 14 Professional+, in addition to a 14” MacBook Professional, and it labored equally properly. The characteristic did present added immersion for films, although we’d nonetheless contemplate it extra of a gimmick than one thing we’d use regularly.
Just like the Buds 5, the 5 Professional additionally characteristic built-in audio recording performance, which implies you should utilize both of the buds as a devoted voice recorder. This labored properly sufficient in our time with the buds although you’ll must export your recordings from the Xiaomi Earbuds app every time. You may also use the characteristic to file calls, and the Buds 5 Professional will play a warning message to tell the individual on the opposite aspect.
One other new addition is the improved low latency mode, which now drops to 50ms when linked to a Xiaomi 14 collection or newer cellphone through Bluetooth LE.
Sound high quality
Whereas bass was by no means a weak level on the non-Professional Buds 5, it’s in one other league on the Buds 5 Professional. That’s to not say that we’re coping with V-shaped tuning right here. The default soundstage on the Buds 5 Professional is favorably balanced between tonalities in comparison with most earbuds.
It exudes a punchier feeling, and also you positively really feel extra engaged when listening to music or watching movies in comparison with the Buds 5. Not solely that, however the lows really feel airier and extra direct with out overpowering the mids and highs.
The default sound profile is already fairly decently tuned, although a little bit of EQ tweaking contained in the Xiaomi Earphones app can deliver out barely extra element within the higher-end vary.
We even have to say the {hardware} benefit of the silicone ear ideas, which might correctly seal your ear canals. The improved seal additionally immediately interprets to superior sound high quality and higher noise cancellation. As anticipated, that is arguably the one space the place the Buds 5 Professional holds its largest benefit over the non-Professional mannequin.
With none media playback, the Professional mannequin was capable of maintain lower-frequency noises at bay with none battle, which was not the case on the Buds 5. Add in some tunes, and the ANC system takes care of the standard annoyances related to public transport and overcrowded gyms.
There’s an adjustable transparency mode, which helps you to toggle between common mode, improve voice and improve ambient sound modes. This setup was just like the Redmi Buds 6 Professional and the improve sound mode was the most suitable choice out of the three.
The triple mics on the Buds 5 Professional did an incredible job throughout calls, which sounded nice on my finish and other people on the opposite aspect reported clear reception of my voice. Stronger winds coupled with busier avenue noises proved difficult for the Buds 5 Professional, however they nonetheless managed a decent job at selecting up my voice.
Connectivity was stellar throughout our evaluation interval. We examined the Buds 5 Professional throughout Android, iOS and macOS with no limitation throughout all three and nil connectivity drops. The damage detection sensors labored as anticipated and the low latency mode delivered a noticeable enchancment when linked to Xiaomi and Redmi telephones.
Battery life
Xiaomi Buds 5 Professional characteristic 53mAh batteries contained in the buds, whereas the case boasts a 570mAh battery. Xiaomi claims you may anticipate 8 hours of battery life on a single cost from the buds with ANC off, whereas the case extends complete playtime to 40 hours.
In our testing interval, we acquired barely higher outcomes with 8 hours and quarter-hour from the buds with ANC off. In case you flip ANC on and choose to stream through the aptX Lossless codec, the battery endurance takes a noticeable hit, and we solely managed simply over 6 hours of playtime.
Buds 5 Professional additionally characteristic a fast cost characteristic which will get you over 4 hours of playback from a 10-minute top-up. A full recharge of the buds and the case from 0-100% takes roughly 70 minutes through the USB-C port. You may also go for wi-fi charging on any Qi wi-fi pad.
Verdict
The Xiaomi Buds 5 Professional are the very best wi-fi earbuds from the model to this point. They provide wonderful sound high quality, assist for high-bitrate streaming and a various characteristic set. The in-ear match was nice, and this alleviated our most important gripe with the Buds 5. Battery life is noticeably higher, although it is nonetheless not class-leading.
The onboard voice recorder is a pleasant contact, and we additionally loved the expansive of options contained in the Xiaomi Earphones app. Name high quality is noticeably improved over the Buds 5 and wi-fi charging on the charging case is one other overdue addition.
At €200 for the Bluetooth model and €220 for the model with Qualcomm XPAN Wi-Fi connectivity, the Buds 5 Professional will not be low cost. You can simply go for the Redmi 6 Professional, which deliver practically similar set of options at a a lot lower cost level.
We’d favor single-tap management gestures as an alternative of the squeeze implementation discovered right here however aside from that we don’t produce other gripes. In case you’re within the Xiaomi ecosystem, then the Buds 5 Professional are a simple advice that brings the very best of the model’s audio ambitions.
