- What if I told you
your headphones could be tuned by a Wizard?
No, that does nothing for you?
The good folks over at Noble
have sponsored us to talk about
their flagship wireless IEM's, the Focus Mystique.
Noble does crazy stuff like taking custom molds of your ear
and producing bespoke IEM's that are just for you.
And they also have a ton of crazy cool designs.
And I'm also looking at these, just on the front right now,
and I'm very excited to see what the design looks like.
You may have heard about some
of their flagship headphones like the Ronin.
These are something that you're
gonna actually be able to buy, which is nice.
You know, I love that.
There is a ton of competition
in the wireless earphone space.
Now, I find when audiophile companies
try to do wireless headphones,
they kind of tend to stumble in one place or another,
whereas like established brands
that have been doing the wireless space
for a long time, don't.
What I'm hoping to see today is that Noble has dodged
all those possible pitfalls
and given us a really, really solid product.
Let's look at the features on the box.
On the front: headphones, case, Wizard,
Qualcomm, aptX Adaptive and Bluetooth 5.2.
That's great to see now that Bluetooth 5.2
is becoming more and more ubiquitous.
Yes, they could be 5.3.
Whatever, 5.2 is pretty good.
And we're seeing more and more headphones
coming out with the 5.2 standard.
One thing that's interesting about these
is that they have a triple driver arrangement.
So one dynamic driver,
which is the usual kind of speaker cone
that you're familiar with,
and then two balanced armatures.
Balanced armature's kind of like a speaker
but it's like a wiggly stick instead of a wiggly cone.
That's really in depth.
If you want to learn more about balanced armatures,
we've done a video on Techquickie about it.
Multi-driver wireless headphones
are not totally brand new to the space
but they do tend to be more complex to manufacture
and that can introduce a whole host of difficulties.
But why would you want more than one driver
in your headphone when there's lots
of good headphones out there that just use a single driver?
Well, think about it like a speaker.
You see a lot of speakers that you buy
for your desktop or whatever will have multiple drivers.
You'll often have a woofer and then a tweeter.
What that does is it allows for better sound reproduction
across a wider spectrum.
You can apply the same kind of idea to a earphone
by using a multiple dynamic drivers,
or in this case, balanced armatures.
So, you can let that big dynamic driver
that's in your headphone push all of those low bass notes
with a lot of clarity
and then let the balanced armatures
handle some of the higher notes.
Now, this introduces extra complexity
in the form of, instead of tuning one driver,
you now have to tune three drivers,
you have to make sure that they're in sync,
you have to make sure that they're in phase,
you have to make sure
that they're not overpowering one another,
which makes EQ'ing more complex
as well as requiring more complex circuitry
to balance out all of the signals that are being sent.
But when done properly, the results can be very, very good.
These have a 3D printed semi-custom housing
with comfortable fit and a Noble art faceplate.
Sweet, so we're gonna get one of of those cool designs
that Noble's known for.
We have a metal charging case.
Ooh, metal.
They use a Qualcomm chip set
which gives you a lot of nice features,
including aptX Adaptive for low latency, high quality audio,
as well as true wireless mirroring technology
and their CVC noise canceling
for when you're talking on the phone with people.
Touch controls, and a Wizard tune sound signature.
Yes, Wizards!
They say 20 hertz to 20 kilohertz, that's good.
That's the whole hearing range.
And that kind of covers what's on the box.
Let's take a look at what's inside.
Yep, it's a manual.
Before the money shot, we're gonna get to the box.
In here we have one pouch, a charging cable, one pieces,
and ear tips, three pairs.
A pouch seems a little redundant, I'm not gonna lie.
I already have the charging case
but I guess if you want a case for your case,
then you're in luck.
Whoa!
It's plastic.
Okay, that's more than three pairs.
They lied to me.
Like, in a good way, though.
You heard it here first, when Noble lies,
they only undersell it.
There's a small, medium and large, by the looks of it,
of the double flange and of the normal types of ear tips.
I really love double flanged ear tips
and not enough companies include them in the box.
They just, for me, they just allow me to get a really great
and really consistent seal that I can't get
from a lot of other headphones.
So it reduces the amount of times
that I'm like fidgeting or adjusting them to make sure
that they sound exactly right.
Which is awesome because this is an audio focused headphone
and if it's not gonna sound right all the time
then I don't want none of it.
And a cable, we got a USB-A to a USB-C
and it's a very short cable.
I don't know how I feel about short cables.
I've never once been like, oh yes, thank,
thank God it's only six inches.
Let's take a look at these headphones.
So this is the resin.
They're very sparkly and it doesn't look
like the top down's catching it.
They seem like one solid piece, like it's not
like it's a glued layer,
like there's no seam here or anything.
These are really, really well constructed.
I'm not sure if the resin is like actually printed
into the housing or not.
It must be, I can't see any sort of seam.
You can tell that it's actually resin and not like just
like some sort of printing on the outside
because they're not the exact same.
There's slight differences in their like wispiness.
Man, these are gorgeous.
This is the kind of designs that you see in the IEM space
for like audiophiles and stuff.
Like you see stuff from like Moondrop, like the blessings
and stuff like that where they have like these really
cool designs on them.
A lot of the times things look pretty boring
in the wireless headphones space,
but these are absolutely stunning.
So this is a metal case that's for sure.
It doesn't really feel-
Like it's not, it's not like ridiculously heavy
despite the fact that it's metal.
It's clear that they're using a metal outer shell
and then there's a plastic in, inlay.
It's relatively compact, but as you can see
these are also relatively bulky.
Like, look at the depth of those.
That's a, I don't know what the exact measurements are
but those are gonna stick out.
We'll put them in my ears in a second to see.
The case, we have four LED's to show the charging.
I don't know if they actually do anything else
other than be charging.
I'm not sure if there's like another, ooh.
Inside here there's a pairing button right there.
You press that and they go into a pairing mode
you can tell by the blinking lights
that they're looking to pair.
And also we'll get a fit test fit impressions.
I'm using the small double flange tips personally,
they fit in my ears the best.
I mean like look at the size of the the grill
or the sound filter.
That's pretty big.
If you're somebody who struggles with even small ear tips
these just might not really be for you,
just cause of the size of that.
Just something to note if you're a smaller human
these could very well not fit.
But as with any expensive audio gear,
you should always be trying before you buy.
And Noble has a return window I hope.
- [Bell] What do you think of that hinge?
Oh yeah, the hinge, you can hear it grinding.
(faint grinding noises)
It's got a good, but the action's just not there, you know.
It's just a little grainy.
We're not about fidgeting with these, we're about listening.
The only fidget I want to be doing
is when I'm listening to tunes
and I'm going to be, diddle la do, you know, okay?
That's what I want.
Let's get 'er in there.
Yeah, these are kind of chonkis.
If you're somebody who wants to sleep with headphones in
these are not gonna be for you.
Oh my god, it's very loud.
When it gives you the ambient listening on.
It's like full tilted.
I'm sure that they can fix that, but oh my god.
So let's listen to some good songs.
(mellow pop song playing faintly)
First impressions is that, boy do these have bass.
Like these have base in a good way.
A lot of the times when headphones try to do
like really base heavy stuff, they end up sounding bloated
and it overpowers the mids and it just sounds like a mess.
These are providing a ton of bass,
but it's like clean and calculated.
It sounds really good and it doesn't subtract
from how much fun it is to have all of that extra bass.
And also I'm surprised by the sound stage here, actually.
A lot of the times that's the biggest weakness of earbuds,
is that they just can't produce a wide feeling sound stage.
The main melody of the guitar
in Doritos and Fritos by a 100 gecs is basically
like all of the screw up noises from Guitar Hero.
And the way that they're placed
around the mix is like super, super noticeable
and makes it really, really fun to listen to.
And then like the bass is just like,
(bass notes playing)
They also tend to be actually surprisingly detailed
in the high end too, which is great.
But not in a way that makes it like really harsh.
Like on the new JPEGMafia and Danny Brown album
everything's like mixed like just like full tilt,
like max wall of sound kind of stuff.
And it makes these like, and it can be kind of overbearing.
Things are a little shouty in the higher end
and even kind of shrill cause there's a ton
of distortion and glitches in these beats.
And that really helps 'em succeed in their focus of being
like an audiophile earbud more than a lifestyle earbud.
And what do they mean by that?
Well, these aren't the most feature rich.
These don't have any active noise canceling.
They do still have a microphone.
They do take calls, you can do all that stuff
and they have an app which we'll take a look
at in just a moment.
And with those microphones, they allow you to
have an ambient mode so you can listen through.
So even though you're getting a really
really solid seal and blocking out a lot of the world
you can still always just switch these on for convenience.
Which is great if you're like a commuter
or you're in an airport waiting
for announcements or you just wanna talk to somebody
without having to like be bluhh.
But I do wish that it didn't take three seconds
for the transparency mode to activate.
But I think we can add to that in the app.
Only one way to find out.
(beatboxing)
So here's the Noble Focus app.
Ambient mode is on.
Oh, it's sweet. So you, if you, if you're in the app already
I guess you can turn it on and off pretty quick.
In the app we have an EQ, we have a bunch of presets,
classic,
pop,
jazz,
rap, folk and default.
Listening to them right now they kind of do what you expect.
Pop adds a little bit more oomph and sizzle to the top
to the high end and a little bit more bass.
But they're all pretty subtle.
And another thing is that you can do a personalized EQ.
So what they do is they play beeps
at various different frequencies and you say
whether or not you could hear them
and how many of them that you had heard.
And then they'll adjust the levels
in the 10 band EQ accordingly based
on your performance in this listening test.
But if you think you know better than that and you might,
I've never had the best experience
with these kind of sound tests, they're never quite there.
You do have access to a full 10 band EQ, which is nice.
Actually this app is pretty slick.
There is everything that I need
not a whole lot of what I don't.
Oh, and there we go,
we can adjust the controls for our right
and left headphones, just the triple and double click.
So that means that we can't adjust for our voice assistant
which is one of the holds.
Nor can we adjust the ambient mode
which is a little disappointing.
I just really wish that every app would
just allow me to customize every function.
Like I don't know why not.
At some point they had to program it
so just let me do it as well.
These are just in app settings.
And then you can also, I'd like that too,
they made it simple and obvious to update the firmware.
It's just right there.
You don't have to like go to like a settings app.
It's not hidden because, like,
if they have improvements to give to to the functionality
you should be able to get them really easily.
That is definitely one of the better apps that I have used.
It's funny when you see other brands that are a lot bigger
than Noble making substantially worse apps.
So those are my sound impressions but we have labs data too.
So we put this in a fancy little head
and we took some measurements
and as you can see there's a lot of bass,
a solid like 10 dB boost across basically all the way up
to a 300 hertz where I guess it gets down more
to like two or three dB.
That's a lot of bass.
But it's just so consistent across the whole spectrum
and it sounds so good and it's so fun.
You might find that if you're not
like a huge bass head, you'd want to dial it back.
Luckily, you can do that with their EQ.
And then you can see throughout the mids
it's very close to the target.
So you shouldn't expect this headphone to come
across as like shouty or overbearing.
And then, in the treble
there's no considerable worrisome peaks,
so nothing's gonna be super shrill.
However, if you do want to adjust these to be closer
to our target, we actually have some settings
for you in the EQ that are gonna help it better
match the target that we have.
Why would you want it to match the target that we have?
Well, basically the idea of the headphone target
is that it's what most people are gonna find agreeable
and what they'll like.
Everyone's ears are different,
everyone's preferences are different.
So it's worth trying to customize and spending a little bit
of time in the EQ to make sure that these nice
headphones sound exactly the way that you want them.
You spent the money on them, make 'em work for you.
This is a mic test of the Noble Focus Mystique.
We're in the office right now.
You can hear some typing in the background, maybe.
Some AC, how's it sound?
One thing I noticed was that I don't think
that these actually support multi-point connection,
which is really disappointing
because they support Bluetooth 5.2.
What's the deal with that?
Hell, we forgot to talk about battery life
and charging with them.
So you get seven and a half hours with these headphones
by themselves and an additional four charges in the case.
Which means that you get a total
of 37 hours between both the headphones and the case.
Also, if you were hoping for like any sort of IP rating
they don't have that, but they do,
they do say that you can use it
for exercising though they don't recommend submerging it.
I never recommend submerging headphones
even if they are IP rated, that just seems silly.
So they have Qualcomm Adaptive
which means that they have lower latency
but they don't have Qualcomm Adaptive Low Latency.
So don't expect these to be ideal
for playing like music games on the go.
You'll still have to like maybe make some adjustments
in the settings for delaying stuff,
but man, the music sounds so good on them.
How much will these set you back?
Well, about 359, which puts them
on the pricier end of the spectrum.
But audio quality is important to you.
Wireless convenience.
Hey, that's only $60 per driver.
That's pretty good right?
Now, this is a sponsored Short Circuit
so I can't give you a purchase recommendation
but I can recommend that you go check these
out in the link below
if you are interested in learning more about them.
Thanks to Noble Audio for sponsoring this
and for making a fair,
just a gorgeous, just a grrgeous pair of headphones.
Look at that, they're so pretty. Mm.