Status Audio Pro X Review: The Best High-End Earbuds? Leave a comment

The Professional X, just like the Between 3ANC earlier than them, use a number of drivers: a dynamic unit for the bottom frequencies paired with a twin set of Knowles balanced armatures for the upper-mids and highs. Identical to in a tower speaker that has a woofer, a midrange, and a tweeter, multi-driver earbuds divide and conquer by sending particular frequencies to a driver that’s been tuned to deal with them.

Out of the field, the earbuds are set to Standing Signature—the Professional X’s default tuning. It’s a properly balanced EQ that reinforces neither highs nor lows, but nonetheless possesses a heat tone. There’s easy element within the midrange, and the highs have wonderful readability. Bass is tightly managed; even when pushing the Professional X to 95 % quantity, Billie Eilish’s bass-tastic “Bad Guy” sounded good, with no discernible distortion.

Switching to the Knowles Most well-liked preset provides a giant bump to the higher mids and highs to indicate off what these balanced armatures can do. Usually, this sort of tuning doesn’t do it for me, however on the Professional X, I used to be impressed by how pleasurable it was. When you’ve discovered your self drawn to Bose’s high-energy sound signature up to now, this preset will get you very shut.

When you can’t discover your favourite steadiness from among the many 5 out there presets, you possibly can roll your individual. In reality, probably the greatest options is creating customized EQ presets by beginning with an current one. I goosed Standing Signature’s low finish only a tad and bought precisely the combo I wished. On that word, I’ve to provide Standing props for its app; it’s tremendous clear and really simple to make use of.

The soundstage isn’t particularly broad—I’d place its extremities about 3 to six inches exterior my head—nevertheless it’s bought wonderful precision. Particular person parts stand out from one another so clearly that you could mentally level on the varied musicians enjoying in entrance of you. A jazz basic like Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” advantages so much from the Professional X’s clear separation of sounds, letting you admire every instrument in its personal area.

I did most of my listening on an iPhone 16, nevertheless it’s price noting that the Professional X help Sony’s high-quality LDAC Bluetooth codec. When you’re on Android, be sure to’ve bought it enabled for a good smoother, extra refined efficiency.

Towards the Crowd

I in contrast the Professional X with Sony’s WF-1000XM5, Bose’s QuietComfort Extremely Earbuds, Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wi-fi 4, and Technics’ EAH-Z100. The Standing Professional X greater than held their very own on sound high quality. I personally nonetheless choose the XM5’s sound signature, due to its extra resonant bass response, however that’s extra about my style than any shortcomings of the Professional X—they’re wonderful.