Puro BT2200 Plus

Verdict

The Puro BT2200 Plus are a pair of headphones for kids that offer a performance that’s much better than they need to be with good construction and fine sound quality.

Introduction

Hearing damage is something that afflicts many people, and with the BT2200 Plus, Puro Sound Labs is one of a few companies looking to address the issue for kids.

The Puro BT2200 Plus are headphones with the volume limited to 85dB under the World Health Organization’s guidelines to ensure ears aren’t damaged by loud audio over a prolonged period of time.

These headphones come with a few unexpected features, so let’s see if they’re worth investing in to maintain the health of your child’s hearing.

Design

• Comfortable to wear
• Surprisingly high standard of build quality
• Multiple colour options

It shouldn’t be a surprise that comfort is the core of the headphones’ design. The earpads are big and circular in nature – probably best suited to being worn by a child with smaller ears as on my ears they feel more like on-ears.

Considering the size of my adult ears, and the fit of the headphones, I do find that noise-isolation isn’t the best. The BT2200 Plus don’t really reduce the loudness of sounds, instead making them vaguer but no less louder. I imagine with a better seal (or smaller ears), they would clamp down on noise better.

They look and feel well made. The headband is bendy, but not the point of creaking and groaning, which is probably a good thing for kids who like to play with their ‘toys’. It looks better than I’d expect from a ‘kids’ pair of headphones, with its silver accents and the brushed material of earcups. The (vegan protein) earpads are replaceable in case they get damaged, and Puro includes an on-ear pair of earpads in the case.

Physical buttons are on the right earcup, with the Bluetooth button also functioning as playback, with a slider for power and a volume up and down. Buttons have a nice, tactile response to them.

The build quality is plastic, but it feels of a higher quality than usual, and the headphones are light and comfortable to wear. The clamping force is good and not in any way uncomfortable thanks to the soft padding of the earpads and headband.

Available in a variety of colours (I have the blue version), these headphones are way more stylish and classy than I’d ever expect kids headphones to be. A carry case to keep the headphones safe is also included.

Features

• aptX HD Bluetooth
• 20 hours battery
• Daisy chain cable to connect to other headphones

The highlight here is that these headphones are volume limited, which means they won’t reach louder than 85dB. That’s in line with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recommendations to safeguard the hearing health of not just youngsters but anyone.

Bluetooth support is version 5.1, and a surprise is that these headphones support aptX HD. In context, this is the type of Bluetooth codec people would use to stream (lossy) hi-res audio files over Bluetooth, so its inclusion here is a surprise.

In general, the Bluetooth performance is fine, but in certain areas it’s far from perfect. When walking through Waterloo and Victoria stations, the connection becomes very sporadic, to the point where audio endlessly skips. Even odder was that while waiting for the Tube, the connection became very spotty, which suggests these headphones are no fans of busy signal areas.

Battery life is quoted at 20 hours (200 hours on standby) and a battery drain of two hours at 50% volume resulted in no change of charge (100%). Twenty hours sounds the bare minimum you can expect from these headphones. There’s no mention of any fast charging.

Finally, the headphones come with a ‘daisy chain cable’ to hook two headphones together. That way, you can share the audio among your children if you have another Puro headphone to hand.

Sound Quality

• Clear, detailed sound
• Wide enough soundstage
• Little limp with bass at default volumes

These headphones are, quite honestly, better-sounding than I had any reasonable expectation for. Puro claims ‘Studio-grade audio quality’, and with the aptX HD support and tuning of these headphones, it’s a claim that’s not as far off as you may think.

That said, the Puro BT2200 Plus are limited to 85dB, and that will have an effect. There’s very little dynamism to speak of, but considering the target market that’s unlikely to be a particular concern. Bass rumbles in politely, not the biggest in size, and lacking a degree of weight and punch at default volumes.

But then I’m reminded these are kids headphones and heaving bass lines aren’t really what parents will be looking at for a child with growing ears. That said, push the volume up and bass has more of a presence when listening to Justice’s Genesis.

The clarity of audio is good, the levels of detail the Puro can conjure are not spectacular, but are engaging enough. Vocal clarity is good – your child won’t miss a word or lyric that’s said, while the soundstage is described in wide enough terms and gets wider when the volume is nudged up. However, it does appear that some clarity and definition is traded for opening up the soundstage.

The highs are decently bright and clear, though not always the most defined. There’s a slightly loose sense of definition to the treble with GoGo Penguin’s Raven, but fine enough. Listening to an album (Kids Songs for Back to School) and the Hello! Hello! Instrumental track offers good levels of clarity across the frequency range, while the treble stands out with clarity and shine.

Listening to these headphones, I’m constantly surprised at how good they sound, although this applies only to its wireless performance. When listening to them briefly through a wired connection, there’s a lack of detail and clarity as well as a shapeless soundstage. It’s odd how weak they sound on a wired connection.

Latest deals