For nearly as long as I’ve been motorcycling, I’ve had some sort of Cardo comm unit hanging off my helmet. You can even see an older model, the PackTalk Black, mounted to my old Shoei lid in my first-ever motorcycle blog for Jalopnik — I picked it up for nav audio when riding my BMW G310GS home from the dealer back in 2022, and I’ve always had one since.
The newest top-of-the-line Cardo, the PackTalk Pro, brings 45-mm JBL drivers to the lineup just like that PackTalk Black did all those years ago. It uses a magnetic mount that snaps into place, like the cheaper PackTalk Edge with which it shares a form factor. It has second-generation mesh technology, like the even cheaper PackTalk Neo. So why, when so much of the tech is available on less-expensive units, do I never want to go back to them from the Pro?
Full Disclosure: Cardo sent me a PackTalk Pro and a second helmet kit for review.
The differences
My daily-driver comm setup, before I got the Pro in, was a PackTalk Edge with the 45-mm JBL drivers I’ve had since the PackTalk Black. Cardo claims the 45-mm drivers on the Pro have been updated since those old speakers came out, and the new ones do seem to have better bass response in side-by-side testing with my Arai XD-4 helmet. It’s tough to tell how much of the difference is just due to slightly different speaker placements within the helmet (the Arai doesn’t have speaker location cutouts in its EPS foam), but the differences seem to be real. Of course, the real competition here is the 40-mm drivers that actually come with the Edge, and those are a noticeably worse listening experience even in a loud helmet like my Arai. They’re flatter, with less bass, and the 45-mm drivers are meaningfully better.
Neither the base 40-mm drivers of the Edge nor the upgraded 45-mm drivers of the Pro will give you an audiophile-grade soundstage experience, but there’s only so much quality you can reasonably expect to get inside of a helmet — and from Bluetooth, if we’re being honest. But the PackTalk Pro’s best feature isn’t actually those fancy speakers that Cardo’s so happy to brag about. It’s the much duller-sounding auto on/off feature.
The big difference
I tend to go out for long rides, often with a stop or a few on the way. On those stops, I have a terrible habit of never remembering to turn my Cardo off. I’ll leave it on through lunch, during rock climbing, while seeing friends — even overnight, if I’m riding somewhere that I’ll spend the night. More than once, I’ve had to find my way back from somewhere without nav in my ears because I’ve just forgotten to turn the headset off.
With the Pro, I still make the same mistakes, but I no longer notice. The auto on-off is so seamless, my battery doesn’t drop nearly as much as it did on my Edge. When I visited Boston, I had the full confidence to not even bring my Cardo charger with me — the auto on/off kept my battery perfectly fine through multiple days of rides.
Should you get one?
The other big feature the Pro brings to the table is crash detection. The comm already adds enough motion sensing to automatically turn on and off, so why not have it alert your emergency contact when those sensors detect a tumble? Luckily, I didn’t test this feature firsthand, but I did set it up — something I’ve never bothered to do on my iPhone, for fear of false positives worrying my loved ones. Given that the Cardo stays on my head during a ride, it seems a safe place to actually monitor for a highside.
For someone who owns a PackTalk Edge already, the PackTalk Pro is probably not a reasonable upgrade. Unless you constantly listen to a lot of bass-heavy music while you ride, you’ll be just fine with the 40-mm drivers and a memory that actually reminds you to turn the comm unit off once in a while. For those considering an Edge, though, the Pro is well worth the upgrade — the 45-mm drivers alone cost more than the difference between the two units when purchased separately, and the auto on-off system is worth its weight in chargers you won’t have to carry on your next motocamping expedition. Add the crash detection bonus, and the PackTalk Pro deserves its spot in the Cardo hierarchy.
