PaMu Quiet Mini Bluetooth Earbuds Review

Buy direct from Padmate: PaMu Quiet Mini Bluetooth 5.2 active noise-cancelling earbuds [paid link]

When I think back to the days of my first Sony Walkman and the earphones that came with it, or indeed the Discman that replaced it or the MiniDisc player that replaced that… it amazes me how far we’ve come, to think that it’s now so common to see a package such as this one which gets rid of the wires altogether, provides very respectable playback time, great sound quality and really effective Active Noise Cancellation – all for an affordable price. Such things would have been completely unbelievable to my teenage self, but then maybe the days of my skipping Discman (yup, I should have spent a bit more and got an anti-skip model) really were a long time ago and I need to admit to myself that I’m now just… old.

I still regret selling my Discman, though…

Full Disclosure: Padmate sent us these earbuds for free to review and keep. Other than that, they’ve not paid us for this review, haven’t told us what to say, aren’t getting advanced sight of the review and there’s no “approval process” before this gets published. This is nothing but my own, honest opinions with an affiliate link thrown in for good measure if you decide you want to buy a pair (which will earn this site a small commission, at no extra cost to you).

The PaMu Quiet Mini is available in 3 colours; black, white and blue.

PaMu Quiet Mini: In the Box

The PaMu Quiet Mini comes well packaged in a nice, premium feeling box with magnetised side catch. Inside you’ll find the eadbuds themselves, inside the charging and carry case. You also get a little pouch to carry the case plus the supplied USB-C charging cable in, although I suspect most people won’t bother with these two items and will just use another charging cable (eg. phone charger) they already have with them to keep topped up with charge when out and about.

Other than that, you also get some smaller and some larger silicone earbuds which you can swap as per your preference and ear size (the pre-fitted M size felt fine for me) as well as something called “instructions”, although I didn’t try those out so they’re outside the scope of this review.

PaMu Quiet Mini: Sound Quality

OK, I’ll be honest (because I always am). I wasn’t expecting much from these earbuds. They’re low-cost, and made by a brand I’d never heard of who are based on the other side of the world. Whilst none of those things precludes quality in any way, shape or form… I just wasn’t expecting them to be that great.

How wrong was I!

The sound quality is surprisingly good. Impressive, even! For comparison, I recently bought (with my own money) the Anker Life Dot 2 Wireless Earbuds [#ad] which are, y’know, alright… and these buds from PadMate completely blow them out of the water when it comes to sound quality.

Now don’t get me wrong, they’re not on a par with my (much more expensive) Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones [#ad] (I don’t have Sony’s earbuds to compare) but the bass and clarity was really very acceptable and far nicer to listen to than on the Ankers. Listening to Foo Fighters via Bluetooth on my OnePlus NORD [#ad] I could turn the volume up to full for short periods of time and the PaMu Quiet Mini earbuds maintained their impressive sound quality with a crisp, clear sound. By comparison, the Ankers just turn to mush after about 70-80% whereas the PaMu stays sounding good, especially in the midtones.

Like with most earbuds, you can also remove one ear and use just a single earbud, which might be useful if you want to use them for phone calls and also keep fully aware of your surroundings too. This can also be achieved using the app – you can choose between having ANC on or off, as well as enabling Transparency mode so that the outside world gets mixed in with your music or phone call.

PaMu Quiet Mini: Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

Here, I compared the Active Noise Cancellation with the only other noise cancelling tech I had to hand, which is once again my trusty Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones [#ad]. It would be a bit unreasonable to expect a much smaller device at a much lower price point to compete with such an industry-leading behemoth, but they held their own surprisingly well.

One advantage that in-ear buds have over over-ear headphones is that they can do a more precise job of employing passive noise cancellation as well as the active kind. In other words, the Active element of noise cancelling (ambient sound picked up by microphones, then inversions of those sound waves are pumped into your ear to cancel it out) can be given a helping hand by the fact that your ear is also sealed, stopping as much ambient noise from getting in.

I remember the very first time I put on the Sony headphones last summer. I was sat at my desk, which (amongst the general clutter) sports a multi-monitor setup and my Desktop computer lives up top. It’s quite an old system, built in 2012, overclocked and with some pretty beefy Noctua fans as well as a triple-fanned CPU cooler. So when it’s going, it’s pretty loud. Even when idling, there’s a low, background hum which you don’t really notice unless you’re listening out for it. So when I first put on the Sonys, and everything went quiet, I immediately thought there had been a power cut as my computer had instantly shut down. Except, the monitors were still on. Hmm. Weird. And… half a second later my brain realised it was the ANC which had just made the sound, go… poof!

So do the PaMu earbuds live up to that level? Nearly. I spent a while with both the Sony headphones and the PaMu earbuds, flicking the ANC off in their respective apps and I came to the conclusion that the Sony headphones still reign supreme in terms of pure noise cancellation, but I must say I was very impressed with the PaMu and if they were the only ANC tech I owned or used, I’d be very happy indeed.

PaMu Quiet Mini: Comfort & Looks

Hands down, these are the most comfortable earbuds I’ve worn. They may not be quite as discreet-looking as the Anker earbuds I mentioned earlier, with their Apple-style straight lines which aren’t to my personal taste, but they slot in the ears a whole lot easier and are much easier to forget about once they’re in. This is partly down to their light weight, and partly down to the different shape which means they take up less real estate inside your ear.

They feel really firm and sturdy, and you certainly don’t ever feel like they’re in danger of falling out whilst exercising. And of course being earbuds rather than headphones, you don’t have a headband going over the top of your head which can sometimes become uncomfortable after a long session wearing.

PaMu Quiet Mini: Charging Case / Battery Life

Like most similar wireless earphones, the PaMu Quiet Mini earbuds live in the charging case when you’re not using them. As well as their own tiny internal batteries, the case also has a battery itself so it’s this one that you charge via the USB-C cable supplied, and the earbuds charge off the battery in the case via the metal contacts which align automatically as they snap into place with little magnets to ensure alignment.

Be sure to remove the tiny protective film on both earbuds covering the contacts; I must be getting old, as my eyesight failed me here and despite the notice on the inside of the box instructing me to remove them, I didn’t spot them so I was scratching my head at first wondering why they weren’t automatically turning off, disconnecting from my phone and beginning to charge when I put them in the case. Silly me…!

The case is the only part of this package where I felt it could have benefited from a bit more of a “premium” feel. It’s quite chunky and yet pretty light – and the lid feels especially cheap and flimsy, so I’d be very careful not to let that come to any harm. This is where I much prefer the feel and style of the case that the Anker Life Dot 2 Wireless Earbuds [#ad] come in.

So far, the battery life on a single charge of the earbuds themselves seems reasonable and the use of Bluetooth 5.2 should help to stop them being too power thirsty. The case is compatible with Qi-certified wireless chargers, but unfortunately Padmate couldn’t send me one of those to test it out on.

PaMu Quiet Mini: Final Thoughts

As I said, I wasn’t expecting much from these but they delivered anyway! Good sound quality, great ANC and a nice little package mean I have no hesitation in recommending the PaMu Quiet Mini if you’re in the market for some good wireless ANC earbuds that won’t break the bank.

Buy direct from Padmate: PaMu Quiet Mini Bluetooth 5.2 active noise-cancelling earbuds [paid link]