Puma Bulldogs – Review

Puma Bulldogs

Puma Bulldogs

| Dynamic Driver |



? We are reviewing the Puma Bulldogs, one of the earphones that the giant sports brand has to offer. With our review we will try to see if Puma was able to create a worthy sport earphone or not. You might feel skeptic about Puma earphones, thinking that they have never manufactured earphones and they are just Asian knock offs.

lthough, Puma has not made a great effort to promote their line of earphones we can safely confirm that effectively Puma has and sells some earphones and actually we have more than one model of their earphones like the Puma El Diego and Puma Mach 9.

The Puma Bulldogs have a pretty interesting design with the driver placed sideways (like seen on the Sony MDR-7550/EX800ST) and offer attractive features such as incorporated “wings” to strengthen the fit (similarly seen on the Pioneer SE-CX8 and Pioneer SE-CX9), a very robust flat cable with great anti-tangle performance and an inline remote control and control nicely designed with the Puma logo on it.

Despite Puma not specifying it we estimate that the drivers are something between 13mm to 16mm

Puma does not release much technical info about the Puma Bulldogs there is no reference made to their frequency response, power capacity, impedance or driver size. Not providing technical specifications seems to be an usual thing with some big brands, we have seen this with earphones such as the: Skullcandy INK’D 2.0, House of Marley Jamaica Smile, House of Marley Little Bird, and almost every Xiaomi earphone (for example the Xiaomi Mi Pro HD, Xiaomi Mi Piston 3, Xiaomi Mi Quantie Pro Hybrid)

Housing are made of plastic and rubber to give an even tighter fit and light overall weight. Despite Puma not specifying it we estimate that the drivers are something between 13mm to 16mm, mainly looking at the size of the housings and the choice of placing the driver sideways, we could be wrong so take this assumption with a grain of salt.

Puma sells the Bulldogs in several colors: blue, red, white, pink and black. Every model’s cable and inline mic/control has matching colors with the housings.

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Puma Bulldogs - Review

Tests & Scores

W

Weight

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A

Accessories & Packaging

The Puma Bulldogs come inside a cardboard box with 2 extra eartips and a very nice silk fabric-like carrying pouch, both the eartips and the pouch are branded with the Puma logo.

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B

Bass & Sub Bass

The Puma Bulldogs have a very deep and nice bass right out of the box without the need of any EQ. Mid-bass is fun and punchy but it bleeds onto mids and vocals. Using the Bulldogs for Pop, EDM or any strong bass genre will be no issue at all for them; they will satisfy listeners expecting strong super fun bass from their earphones.





An EQ is able to feed up the bass performance exponentially, mid-bass gains a lot more of punch and sub-bass gets much deeper.

The Puma Bulldogs have a very deep and nice bass right out of the box without the need of any EQ.

The Puma Bulldogs went through our extreme bass test with a custom basshead EQ and a Fiio E12 amplifier with bass boost turned on and set to high gain. They were able to take 60% of Fiio’s maximum power and as a result they provided an immense enhancement of mid-bass punch and sub-bass depth. Basshead impact was impressive arriving to top level sub-bass rumble and impact levels way above some of the top tiers like the Elecom EHP-CA3580, KZ ZST, KZ ZS2, Vots QT100 and still above the Senfer 4in1, Xiaomi Mi Quantie Pro Hybrid, Plextone X41M and even the Sony MDR-XB50. There is a side note to be mentioned, pushing the Puma Bulldogs to Fiio’s 60% power they distorted but dialing it down to 55% they were clear of any distortion and still providing top level basshead impact.

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M

Mids & Vocals

Mids of the Puma Bulldogs are warm and somewhat recessed making vocals sound a bit muddy but smooth and never harsh. They are a great choice for people searching for warm, smooth mids and do not care too much about vocals having a main forward presence. Trying to apply an EQ to remove some of the recession did not go well, everything became boxy pretty quickly and not much improvement was achieved.

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H

Highs & Treble

The highs of the Puma Bulldogs have detail and definition and are not piercing. On the other hand, there are some sibilant highs but they are not extremely strong or disturbing. Equalized correctly, highs can gain more definition and detail without becoming piercing if lower highs are left alone.

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SL

Sound Leak

Sound leaking out of the Puma Bulldogs is a little stronger than many other earphones like the KZ ZS3, Sennheiser CX200 and noticeably stronger than the JVC Gumy Plus HA-FX5 or KZ ATE but better than the JBL T110 or the Remax RM-565i. They can be used on mediumly noisy places without big issues but choosing them to be used exclusively in libraries might not be a smart move.

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SI

Sound Isolation

The Puma Bulldogs offer a very good ability to isolate from surrounding noises without having to recur to very high volumes.

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C

Comfort

Comfort of the Puma Bulldogs is exceptional, they fit deep, tight and comfortably inside the ears. They also fit flush with the ears so they can be used while resting the head sideways on a pillow or on your hand. The rubbery material of the housings plus the incorporated “wings” add up and provide a super strong and secure fit to the Bulldogs, they will never fall from your ears even if used on highly intensive sports or activities. To give you an idea, the Puma Bulldogs offered one the best (if not the best) secure and tight fit of all the earphones that we have reviewed. Puma certainly nailed it here, providing a very functional sport earphone that makes sense with the brand style.

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EQ

Response to Equalization

A custom EQ provides the Puma Bulldogs a better overall sound quality or the ability to fine tune some details of their audio frequency response. Bass showed extraordinary enhancement levels of mid-bass and sub-bass, highs were able to gain definition and detail without introducing many issues. On the other hand, mids and vocals did not show the same great response as bass and highs. Mids did not improve much and boxy sounding vocals were clearly felt.

gramophone-256607.75/10

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Scores Scores

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Frequency Response (raw)

Puma Bulldogs Frequency Response

PUMA Bulldogs - Frequency Response
PUMA Bulldogs – Frequency Response

Puma Bulldogs

Specifications

TypeDynamic
Driver UnitUnknown
SensitivityUnknown
Power CapacityUnknown
ImpedanceUnknown
Frequency ResponseUnknown
DiaphragmUnknown
MagnetUnknown
CordY-type, flat cord
Cord Length1.2m
PlugStereo mini plug
WeightUnknown
Supplied Accessories2x Earphone tips; soft carrying pouch

Photos
DISCLAIMER
We highly discourage anyone from trying to apply our testings to your own earphones, the risk of damaging or permanently breaking your iems is absolutely probable to happen. With our standardized equalization and amplification tests we push the limits of the earphones to the extreme. If anyway you decide to do so, we cannot be held responsible of the damage done to your equipment. Do it at your own risk.

Puma Bulldogs

8.3

SCORE

8.3/10