WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.280 What if I told you your headphones could be tuned by a wizard? No, that does 00:00:05.080 --> 00:00:12.280 nothing for you? The good folks over at Noble have sponsored us to talk about their 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:14.040 flagship wireless IEMs, the Focus 00:00:12.280 --> 00:00:18.280 Mystique. Noble does crazy stuff like taking custom molds of your ear and 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:21.840 producing bespoke IEMs that are just for you. And they also have like a ton of 00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:25.320 like crazy cool designs and I'm also looking at these just on the front right 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:28.920 now and I'm very excited to see what the design looks like. You may have heard 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:32.759 about some of their flagship headphones like the Ronan. These are something that 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:38.240 you're going to actually be able to buy, which is nice. You know, I love that. 00:00:35.080 --> 00:00:40.120 There is a ton of competition in the 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:43.760 wireless earphone space. Now, I find when audiophile companies try to do 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:48.120 wireless headphones, they kind of tend to stumble in one place or another where 00:00:46.320 --> 00:00:52.040 it's like established brands that have been doing it in the wireless space for 00:00:49.440 --> 00:00:56.200 a long time don't. What I'm hoping to see today is that Noble has dodged all 00:00:54.240 --> 00:01:00.400 those possible pitfalls and given us a really, really solid product. Let's look 00:00:58.360 --> 00:01:06.440 at the features on the box. On the front, headphones, case, wizard, 00:01:04.160 --> 00:01:10.560 Qualcomm aptX Adaptive and Bluetooth 5.2. That's great to see. Now that 00:01:09.160 --> 00:01:15.000 Bluetooth 5.2 is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Yes, they could be 5.3. 00:01:13.240 --> 00:01:19.040 Whatever, 5.2's pretty good and we're seeing more and more headphones coming out with the 5.2 standard. One thing 00:01:18.200 --> 00:01:24.400 that's interesting about these is that they have a triple driver arrangement. 00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:28.160 So, one dynamic driver, which is the usual kind of speaker cone that you're 00:01:25.880 --> 00:01:31.760 familiar with, and then two balanced armatures. Balanced armatures kind of 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:35.800 like a speaker, but it's like a wiggly instead of a wiggly cone. That's a 00:01:33.840 --> 00:01:39.000 really in-depth. If you want to learn more about balanced armatures, we've 00:01:37.160 --> 00:01:43.960 done a video on TechWiki about it. Multi-driver wireless headphones are not 00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:47.160 totally brand new to the space, but they do tend to be more complex to 00:01:45.440 --> 00:01:52.120 manufacture and that can introduce a whole host of difficulties. But why 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:54.840 would you want more than one driver in your headphone when there's lots of good 00:01:53.480 --> 00:01:59.440 headphones out there that just use a single driver? Well, think about it like a speaker. You see a lot of speakers 00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:02.880 that you buy for your desktop or whatever will have multiple drivers. 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:07.520 You'll often have like a woofer and then a tweeter. What that does is it allows 00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:13.680 for better sound reproduction across a wider spectrum. You can apply the same 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:15.880 kind of idea to a earphone by using a 00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:19.880 multiple dynamic drivers or in this case balanced armatures. So, you can let that 00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:24.000 big dynamic driver that's in your headphone push all of those low bass 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:27.760 notes with a lot of clarity and then let the balanced armatures handle some of 00:02:25.680 --> 00:02:32.480 the higher notes. Now, this introduces extra complexity in the 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:35.520 form of instead of tuning one driver, you now have to tune three drivers. You 00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:39.000 have to make sure that they're in sync. They're You have to make sure that they're in phase. You have to make sure 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:43.600 that they're not overpowering one another, which makes EQing more complex 00:02:41.720 --> 00:02:48.400 as well as making it requiring more complex circuitry to balance out all of 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:53.440 the signals that are being sent. But when done properly, the results can be 00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:58.320 very, very good. These have a 3D printed semi-custom housing with comfortable fit 00:02:56.640 --> 00:03:03.600 and a Noble art faceplate. Sweet. So, we're going to get one of those cool designs that Noble's known for. 00:03:01.320 --> 00:03:07.200 We have a metal charging case. Ooh, metal. They use a Qualcomm chipset, 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:12.720 which gives you a lot of nice features including aptX Adaptive for low latency, 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:15.200 high quality audio as well as true wireless mirroring technology and their 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:21.720 cVc noise canceling for when you're talking on the phone with people. Touch controls and a wizard tuned sound 00:03:18.760 --> 00:03:25.720 signature. Yes. Wizards. They say 20 Hz to 20 kHz. That's good. 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:31.680 That's the whole hearing range and that's kind of covers what's on the box. 00:03:27.240 --> 00:03:31.680 Let's take a look at what's inside. 00:03:32.600 --> 00:03:40.520 Yep, it's a manual. Before the money shot, we're going to get to the box. In 00:03:38.040 --> 00:03:47.000 here we have one pouch, a charging cable, one piece is 00:03:42.920 --> 00:03:47.000 and ear tips, three pairs. 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:52.960 A pouch seems a little redundant. I'm not going to lie. I already have the 00:03:50.760 --> 00:03:58.800 charging case, but I guess if you want a pouch for a case for your case, then 00:03:54.840 --> 00:04:00.280 you're in luck. Um whoa. 00:03:58.800 --> 00:04:04.440 It's plastic. Okay, that's more than three pairs. They 00:04:02.280 --> 00:04:08.120 lied to me. Like in a good way though. You heard it here first. When Noble 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:12.920 lies, they only undersell it. There's a small, medium, and large by the looks of 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:16.680 it of the double flange and of the normal of the normal types of ear tips. 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:20.600 I really love double flange ear tips and not enough companies include them in the 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:23.880 box. They just for me, they just allow me to get a really great and really 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:26.680 consistent seal that I can't get from a lot of other headphones. So, it reduces 00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:32.000 the amount of times that I'm like fidgeting or adjusting them to make sure that they sound exactly right, which is 00:04:30.080 --> 00:04:35.880 awesome because this is an audio-focused headphone. And if it's not going to 00:04:34.400 --> 00:04:42.160 sound right all the time, then I don't want none of it. And a cable, we got a 00:04:37.840 --> 00:04:44.080 USB A to a USB-C and it's a very short 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:46.960 cable. I don't know how I feel about short 00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:50.960 cables. I've never once been like, "Oh, yes. Thank thank God it's only 6 in." 00:04:49.280 --> 00:04:56.080 Let's take a look at these headphones. So, this is the resin. They're very 00:04:54.440 --> 00:04:59.120 sparkly and it doesn't look like the top down's catching it. 00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:06.280 They seem like one solid piece. Like it's not like it's a glued layer. Like 00:05:03.440 --> 00:05:08.800 there's no seam here or anything. These are really, really well 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:12.280 constructed. I'm not sure if the resin is like actually printed into the 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:15.440 housing or not. It must be. I can't see any sort of 00:05:13.840 --> 00:05:19.760 seam. You can tell that it's actually resin and not like just like 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:22.680 some sort of printing on the outside because they're not the exact same. 00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:27.320 There's slight differences in their like wispiness. Man, these are gorgeous. This 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:31.800 is the kind of designs that you see in the IEM space for like audiophiles and 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:34.720 stuff. Like you see stuff from like Moondrop, like the blessings and stuff 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:39.480 like that where they have like these really cool designs on them. A lot of the times things look pretty boring in 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:43.480 the wireless headphone space, but these are absolutely stunning. This is a metal 00:05:41.800 --> 00:05:47.600 case, that's for sure. Um it doesn't really feel 00:05:47.720 --> 00:05:52.920 like it's not it's not like ridiculously heavy despite the fact that it's metal. 00:05:51.440 --> 00:05:56.760 It's clear that they're using a metal outer shell. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.000 And then there's a plastic in inlay. It's relatively compact, but as you can 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:03.040 see, these are also relatively bulky. Like look at the depth of those. That's 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:07.800 a I don't know what the exact measurements are, but those are going to stick out. We'll put them in my ears in 00:06:05.840 --> 00:06:12.000 a second to see. Um the case we have four LEDs 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:14.040 to show the charging. I don't know if they actually do 00:06:12.960 --> 00:06:19.000 anything else other than be charging. I'm not sure if there's like another Ooh. Inside 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:23.080 here, there's a pairing button right there. You press that and they go into a 00:06:21.960 --> 00:06:29.280 pairing mode. You can tell by the blinking lights that they're looking to pair. And also 00:06:27.400 --> 00:06:33.240 we'll get a fit test, fit impressions. I'm using the small double flange tips 00:06:31.280 --> 00:06:37.040 personally. They fit in my ears the best. I mean like look at the size of 00:06:35.200 --> 00:06:39.920 the the grill or sound filters. That's pretty big. If you're somebody who 00:06:38.400 --> 00:06:43.640 struggles with even small ear tips, these just might not really be for you 00:06:42.040 --> 00:06:49.280 just cuz of the size of that. Just something to note if you're a smaller human, these could very well not fit. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:51.640 But as with any expensive audio gear, you should always be trying before you 00:06:50.520 --> 00:06:55.400 buy. And Noble has a return window, I hope. 00:06:53.960 --> 00:06:59.680 What do you think of that hinge? Oh, yeah, the hinge. You can hear it 00:06:57.000 --> 00:06:59.680 grinding. 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:06.320 Okay. It's got a good but the action's just not there, you know? It's just a 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:10.760 little grainy. We're not about fidgeting with these. We're about listening. The 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:14.680 only fidget I want to be doing is when I'm listening to tunes and I'm going to 00:07:12.520 --> 00:07:19.800 be do do, you know? Okay? That's what I want. Let's get her in there. 00:07:17.280 --> 00:07:22.520 Yeah, these are kind of chunkus. Um 00:07:21.480 --> 00:07:27.520 if you're somebody who wants to sleep with headphones in, these are not going to be for you. 00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:31.880 Oh my god. It's very loud 00:07:29.520 --> 00:07:38.120 when it gives you the ambient listening on. It's like full tilt. I'm sure that 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:41.840 they can fix that, but oh my god. So, let's listen to some good songs. 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:50.800 Um first impressions is that boy, do these have bass. Like these have 00:07:48.600 --> 00:07:53.480 bass in a good way. A lot of times when headphones try to do like really bass 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:59.080 heavy stuff, they end up sounding bloated and it overpowers the mids and 00:07:56.680 --> 00:08:03.520 it just sounds like a mess. These are providing a ton of bass, but it's like 00:08:00.800 --> 00:08:07.320 clean and calculated. It sounds really good and it doesn't subtract from how 00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:10.920 much fun it is to have all of that extra bass. And also I'm surprised by the 00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:14.120 sound stage here. Actually, a lot of the times that's the biggest weakness of 00:08:12.400 --> 00:08:16.960 earbuds is that they just can't produce a wide feeling sound stage. The main 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:21.280 melody of the guitar in Doritos and Fritos by 100 gecs is basically like all 00:08:18.920 --> 00:08:24.800 of the screw up noises from Guitar Hero and the way that they're placed around 00:08:23.080 --> 00:08:27.360 the mix is like super, super noticeable and makes it really, really fun to 00:08:26.200 --> 00:08:33.599 listen to. And then like the bass is just like 00:08:32.039 --> 00:08:36.960 They also tend to be actually surprisingly detailed in the high end, 00:08:35.280 --> 00:08:40.760 too, which is great. But not in a way that makes it like really harsh. Like 00:08:38.840 --> 00:08:43.880 on the new JPEG Mafia and Danny Brown album, everything's like mixed like just 00:08:42.919 --> 00:08:48.800 like full tilt, like max wall of sound kind 00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:52.960 of stuff and it makes these like and it can be kind of overbearing. Things are a 00:08:50.760 --> 00:08:55.560 little shouty in the higher end and even kind of shrill cuz there's a ton of 00:08:54.120 --> 00:09:00.320 distortion and glitches in these beats. And that really helps them succeed in their focus of being like an audiophile 00:08:57.800 --> 00:09:03.720 earbud more than a lifestyle earbud. And they mean by that? Well, these aren't 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:07.600 the most feature rich. These don't have any active noise canceling. They do 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:10.520 still have a microphone. They do take calls. You can do all that stuff and 00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:14.560 they have an app, which we'll take a look at in just a moment. And with those 00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:18.760 microphones, they allow you to have an ambient mode so you can listen through. So, even though you're getting a really, 00:09:17.160 --> 00:09:22.720 really solid seal and blocking out a lot of the world, you can still always just 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:25.120 switch these on for convenience, which is great if you're like a commuter or 00:09:23.960 --> 00:09:29.960 you're in an airport waiting for announcements or you just want to talk to somebody without having to like be 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:34.040 like "Buh." But I do wish that it didn't take 3 seconds for the transparency mode 00:09:31.920 --> 00:09:38.080 to activate, but I think we can edit that in the app. Only one way to find 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:43.320 out. Um so, here's the Noble Focus app. 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:45.560 Ambient mode is on. Oh, it's sweet. So, you get if you're if you're in the app 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:55.720 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, 00:09:51.520 --> 00:09:57.040 pop, jazz, rap, folk, and default. 00:09:55.720 --> 00:10:01.680 Listening to them right now, they kind of do what you'd expect. Pop adds a little bit more oomph and sizzle to the 00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:04.440 top to the high end and a little bit more bass. 00:10:02.880 --> 00:10:07.560 Um but they're all pretty subtle. And the other thing is that you 00:10:05.920 --> 00:10:10.400 can do a personalized EQ. So, what they do is they play beeps at various 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:14.440 different frequencies and you say whether or not you could hear them and 00:10:12.160 --> 00:10:18.640 how many of them that you had heard. And then they'll adjust the levels in the 00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:22.680 10-band EQ accordingly based on your performance in this listening test. 00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:26.800 Um but if you think you know better than that, and you might, I've never had the 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:31.560 best experience with these kind of sound tests, they're never quite there. You do 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:35.920 have access to a full 10-band EQ, which is nice. Actually, this app is pretty 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:40.360 slick. There's everything that I need, not a whole lot of what I don't. Oh, and 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:45.320 there we go. We can adjust the controls for our right and left headphones. Just 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:49.160 the triple and double click. So, that means that we can't adjust for our voice 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:52.880 assistant, which is one of the holds, nor can we adjust the ambient mode, 00:10:50.880 --> 00:10:57.600 which is a little disappointing. I just really wish that um every app would just 00:10:55.160 --> 00:11:01.080 allow me to customize every function. Like I don't know why not. At some 00:10:59.280 --> 00:11:04.240 point, they had to program it, so just let me do it as well. These are just 00:11:02.839 --> 00:11:07.800 in-app settings. And then you can also up I like that, too. They made it simple 00:11:06.040 --> 00:11:10.800 and obvious to update the firmware. It's just right there. You don't have to like 00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:14.040 go through like a settings app. It's not hidden because like if they have 00:11:12.360 --> 00:11:19.800 improvements to give to to the functionality, you should be able to get them really easily. That's definitely 00:11:16.920 --> 00:11:23.920 one of the better apps that I have used. It's funny when you see other brands 00:11:21.440 --> 00:11:28.200 that are a lot bigger than Noble making substantially worse apps. So, those are 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:31.200 my sound impressions, but we have Labs data, too. So, we put this in a fancy 00:11:30.040 --> 00:11:35.960 little head and we took some measurements, and as you can see, 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:41.720 there's a lot of bass. Um a solid like 10 dB boost across basically all the way 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:45.839 up to uh 300 Hz, where I guess it gets down more to like 2 or 3 dB. 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:50.040 That's a lot of bass. But, it's just so consistent across the 00:11:48.200 --> 00:11:53.200 whole spectrum and it sounds so good and it's so fun. You might find that if 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:58.400 you're not like a huge basshead, you'd want to dial it back. Luckily, you can do that with their EQ. And then you can 00:11:56.560 --> 00:12:01.320 see throughout the mids, it's very close to the target. So, you shouldn't expect 00:11:59.920 --> 00:12:06.240 this headphone to come across as like shouty or overbearing. Um and then in 00:12:04.520 --> 00:12:11.160 the treble, there's no considerable worrisome peaks, so nothing's going to be super shrill. 00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:15.200 However, if you do want to adjust these to be closer to our target, we actually 00:12:12.839 --> 00:12:18.880 have some settings for you in the EQ that uh are going to help it better 00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:21.640 match the target that we have. Why would you want it to match the target that we 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.920 have? Well, basically, the idea of the headphone target is that it's what most 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:27.760 people are going to find agreeable and what they will like. Everyone's ears are 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:32.200 different. Everyone's preferences are different, so it's worth trying to customize and spending a little bit of 00:12:30.440 --> 00:12:36.240 time in the EQ to make sure that these nice headphones sound exactly the way 00:12:34.760 --> 00:12:41.640 that you want them. You spent the money on them. Make them work for you. This is 00:12:38.560 --> 00:12:43.120 a mic test of the Noble Focus Mystique. 00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:48.920 We're in the office right now. You can hear some typing in the background maybe, some AC. 00:12:46.920 --> 00:12:53.040 How's it sound? One thing I noticed was that I don't think that these actually 00:12:51.040 --> 00:12:56.200 support multi-point connection, which is really disappointing because they 00:12:54.120 --> 00:12:58.920 support Bluetooth 5.2. What's the deal with that? Oh, we forgot 00:12:57.920 --> 00:13:03.480 to talk about battery life and charging with it. Um so, you get 7 and 1/2 hours 00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:07.440 with these headphones by themselves and an additional four charges in the case, 00:13:05.160 --> 00:13:11.000 which means that you get a total of 37 hours between both the headphones and 00:13:09.520 --> 00:13:15.000 the case. Also, if you were hoping for like any sort of IP rating, they don't 00:13:13.000 --> 00:13:18.920 have that, but they do they do say that you can use it for exercising, though 00:13:16.520 --> 00:13:22.320 they don't recommend submerging it. I never recommend submerging headphones, 00:13:20.680 --> 00:13:25.200 even if they are IP rated. That just seems silly. So, they have Qualcomm 00:13:23.880 --> 00:13:31.080 adaptive, which means that they have lower latency, but they don't have 00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:32.760 Qualcomm adaptive low latency. So, don't 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:36.280 expect these to be ideal for playing like music games on the go. You'll still 00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:40.600 have to like maybe make some adjustments in the settings for delaying stuff, but 00:13:39.320 --> 00:13:46.600 man, the music sounds so good on them. How much will these set you back? Um 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:50.960 well, about $359, which puts them on the pricier end of the spectrum. But, audio 00:13:49.120 --> 00:13:55.640 quality is important to you, wireless convenience. 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:58.080 Hey, that's only $60 per driver. That's pretty good, right? Now, this is a 00:13:56.720 --> 00:14:01.080 sponsored ShortCircuit, so I can't give you a purchase recommendation, but I can 00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:05.800 recommend that you go check these out in the link below if you are interested in learning more about them. Thanks to 00:14:03.920 --> 00:14:10.560 Noble Audio for sponsoring this and for making a a fair just a gorgeous a just a 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:13.920 gorgeous pair of headphones. Look at that. They're so pretty.