Ever since the original AirPods were released in 2016, I’ve found myself gravitating toward truly wireless earbuds as opposed to large, over-the-ear headphones for just about everything from listening to music and podcasts to watching movies. Thankfully, it seems that the gaming peripheral market is finally catching up and releasing a variety of AirPods-like solutions for those who still want to enjoy a surround sound experience without the bulk. The HyperX Cirro Buds Pro are a good solution for those looking to pare down their audio experience and consolidate everything into something that can easily fit into your pocket.
HyperX Cirro Buds Pro – Design and Features
The HyperX Cirro Buds Pro are designed to work with PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices over a Bluetooth 5.2 connection. This allows you to pair your earbuds to multiple devices and seamlessly swap between them without going through the pairing process each time. This flexibility is great for an on-the-go lifestyle that encompasses everything from playing games to listening to music, podcasts, or watching movies.
Similar to many other truly wireless earbuds, the HyperX Cirro Buds Pro come packaged in a pocket-sized flip-top case that charges them while not in use. The case itself has a slightly translucent look to it and features a single button on the front that can be pressed to activate a small indicator light that displays pairing or charge status. The flip-top lid feels a bit flimsy when opened, but closes nicely thanks to a magnet built into the front of the case. This ensures the case doesn’t accidentally open up in your pocket when the buds are being charged.
By default, the Cirro Buds Pro have the Active Noise Cancellation mode enabled, which helps to eliminate unwanted noise from the outside world, but you can also swap to an Ambient mode to help you keep an ear out for your surroundings. Additionally, there’s a 90ms low-latency Gaming Mode that helps to reduce audio sync issues between devices while playing games. If you’re looking to maximize battery life, though, you can always disable the noise control settings.
As far as battery life goes, the HyperX Cirro Buds Pro can get up to 7 hours of use on a single charge with ANC and the other noise control features disabled. Combined with the charging case, you can expect up to 35 hours of total listening time. During my testing, I was getting about 4 hours of charge time with ANC enabled before the earbuds needed to be recharged. Thankfully, they can be charged back up to full in about 40 minutes of time spent in the case.
The earbuds feature a stemless design that nestles comfortably into your ear canal and includes three different silicone ear tip attachments to accommodate a variety of different ear sizes. Despite not having any way to properly secure the earbuds, they actually feel surprisingly snug and don’t seem to move during light physical activity or simply just wearing them during normal daily use. They are also very lightweight, with each earbud weighing about 4g, and the case weighing in at about 42g.
The exterior of each earbud features a haptic touch sensor that allows you to control media playback with a variety of different taps and presses. A single press on either the left or right earbud will play or pause the current media, or pick up an incoming call. Each earbud also has unique gestures for double- and triple-presses, as well as a separate long press gesture. Remembering the individual earbud controls takes a bit to get used to, but once you’ve gotten them down it’s pretty straightforward to control. The biggest issue I found during testing is that there’s no way to adjust the volume from the earbuds. Instead, you’ll need to manually adjust the playback volume on your mobile device, Nintendo Switch, or PC – the latter of which can be a bit cumbersome if you’re in the middle of a game. There’s also no way to customize the gestures, so you’re stuck with the default controls.
HyperX Cirro Buds Pro – Software
Since the Cirro Buds Pro connect over Bluetooth, there’s no additional software required to use them out of the box.
HyperX Cirro Buds Pro – Gaming
While many people may associate HyperX with traditional gaming peripherals and headphones, the Cirro Buds Pro feel more like they are aimed at mainstream folks who also happen to dabble in games from time to time. That’s not to say they won’t work well for gaming, but being strictly Bluetooth-based has its limitations.
With multiplayer games being so popular these days, the rise of apps such as Discord to communicate with players across platforms is crucial. When pairing the Cirro Buds Pro to a Windows 10 PC, the audio will be broken into two profiles: a higher-quality stereo audio channel that can’t take advantage of the microphone, or an abysmal-sounding mono option that allows you to chat while still being able to hear the audio through your computer.
This is less so a limitation of the Cirro Buds Pro, but an issue with how Windows 10 handles Bluetooth devices. Many manufacturers circumvent this issue by sending the signal over a 2.4GHz wireless connection by way of a USB adapter, but the Cirro Buds Pro don’t have this option. Not to mention, many custom-built PCs don’t even have a Bluetooth receiver in them, so you’ll need to get an additional adapter or upgrade your motherboard to even use these earbuds.
That being said, if you’re planning to use the Cirro Buds Pro for single-player games only, this is a non-issue. I spent a large majority of my time with these earbuds on PC crusading across Sanctuary in Diablo IV and was pleased with the immersive sound quality and ambient sounds I experienced while tearing through Lilith’s forces. I also spent a fair bit of time exploring Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on Nintendo Switch. The latter only supports audio in Stereo, but everything still sounded good.
One of the benefits of Bluetooth 5.2 is the ability to pair to multiple devices simultaneously and swap between them on the fly. When I was done playing, I could simply pick up my phone and resume the music or podcast I was listening to without skipping a beat. Taking calls was seamless, and the built-in microphone quality is serviceable.
While it’s rare to find a great pair of true wireless noise-canceling headphones for under $100, the Cirro Buds Pro did a decent job at blocking out external audio. However, swapping between the noise-canceling and ambient sound modes didn’t seem to make much of a difference. You won’t get the same level of ambient audio as something like AirPods, but at roughly half the price, it’s not a bad option.
