Noble has been a pioneer in the IEMs market for close to 11 years now. There was actually a humorous moment between The Wizard—better known as John Moultun, lead acoustic engineer and founder of Noble—and the rest of the sound engineering panel at the last CanJam I attended. John used new technology (xMems) to tune an IEM, and it seemed that the others would soon follow in his footsteps after seeing how the product turned out. Safe to say that Noble has been around the block, and has built quite the reputation. But what happens when a brand as established as Noble enters new territory? I guess that will have to be answered by Apollo, Noble's first over-ear headphone, that brings Noble’s recognizable sound in a Bluetooth headphone form factor. Let’s discuss.
Build and Design
Apollo is incredibly simplistic and rather minimalistic in its design approach. I’ve grown accustomed to Noble’s rather ornate and one of a kind wood pattern TWS IEM designs, so I will say that I was let down by the general aesthetic of Apollo. However, where Apollo really shines is in its comfortability and just the overall feel of the headphone. You can tell that the components of Apollo were chosen with intention, and that ergonomics were at the forefront of Noble’s design plans. From the soft, memory foam earpads, to the rather comfortable headband, Apollo is well suited for long listening sessions. I had no problems video editing for hours on end with Apollo, as well as listening to Apollo at my desk, or when doing an assortment of tasks around the house.
When unboxing Apollo, I was pleasantly surprised at just how much was included. Standard par for the course of most wireless headphones include some rather lackluster cables, a travel case, and an airplane jack adapter. Noble decided to go against the mold, and supplied Apollo with a case that’s a great protectant and very well padded, a 3.5mm aux cable that has some rather distinguished connecting ends and goes with the overall look of Apollo, a boom microphone, a USB-C cable, and two adapters, one for a 3.5mm to 6.3mm connection, and a 3.5mm to 4.4mm adapter that I found very interesting. 3.5mm to 4.4mm seems… somewhat unnatural to me, but I will say that it makes source swapping much easier. While Noble could have followed suit with a lot of the industry standard packaging and accessories for most wireless headphones on the market, I commend their efforts in making you feel assured that your $649 went to the entire package that is Apollo, and not merely just the sound or build.
Features and Using Apollo
Apollo comes jam packed with a lot of good tech and features, so I thought a small portion of time dedicated to everyday use with Apollo may serve a potential listener well when first using this headphone. Firstly, you have a button arrangement on the right side of the headphone that removes pesky touch control operation from the picture. The standard power on button also serves as a pairing button, Siri/Google/Bixby assistant button, a play/pause button, and can be used to answer/hang up calls as well. Volume up and down also serves as a next and previous track button respectively. On the left side, you have a mute microphone for the outside and inside microphones, which comes in handy when using this as a headphone for answering calls or gaming. That leads us into the attachable boom microphone included in the package. If you’re looking for a sound test, you can find that here in my video review which I’ve timestamped in this link. The attachable boom microphone serves in productivity quite well when factoring in Apollo’s multipoint compatibility, allowing for quick switches between computer to phone for answering calls when listening to Apollo while working. For those wondering on the gaming end of the spectrum on how Apollo and its microphone fairs, it will definitely suffice in terms of microphone quality standards for attachable microphones. Now as for the gaming experience itself, if you’re looking to competitively game with Apollo, I’d recommend plugging in the included 3.5mm aux cable as this will reduce latency that the Bluetooth connection seems to experience. While something like an Audeze Maxwell still serves as a more refined gaming experience, Apollo holds its own in this regard, and really serves as a “do it all” kind of headphone, which makes it perfect for those looking for a one and done type of purchase. Additionally, Apollo can serve as a completely passive option when wired over USB-C or 3.5mm, though Noble highly encourages 3.5mm listening as USB-C listening can introduce more problems than the 3.5mm connection. All in all, passive mode is by far my favorite feature of Apollo as you get a slightly better listening experience, and even with Apollo’s staggering battery life of 80 (!) hours, passive mode will come in clutch when you inevitably forget to charge it the night before. (I’ve been here many times on devices, so this is really just a call out against myself.) Still, Apollo is a Bluetooth headphone first, and that’s evident by Noble’s implementation of Bluetooth 5.3. Connections are snappy, drop outs never occurred (in my testing), and Apollo’s range is quite extended as well, freeing you up to move around the office/your home without having your source of music always tied to your hip. Throw in LDAC, and most major codec support, in the bag of Apollo’s many features and tech, and you start to see the complete package that is Apollo. But without great sound, it all means nothing, so what does Apollo bring to the table in that department?
Sound
A thick low end, slightly boosted vocals, and a treble response that’s quite resolving. Apollo is very much a dynamic driver centric sound signature, while the planar magnetic driver brings some additional flavor to this sound signature that I don’t think I was expecting. Let’s dissect it a bit further.
Starting in the bass, Apollo is not ashamed to be more prevalent here than anywhere else. There's plenty of hit and slam in the low end that extends much further than I’ve grown accustomed to hearing in most TWS wireless headphones I’ve used. For the most part, Apollo feels mostly under control in the low end, though there is a clear emphasis in the bass that demonstrates a strong attack and a hard hitting bass. The best demonstration within my listening of Apollo’s low end was “Is It True” by Tame Impala, which offers a great sense of Apollo’s dynamics and the emotion this bass response brings to its sound profile.
Moving into the midrange, and starting with the low mids, this is probably where my biggest problem with Apollo resides. Note weight as a whole feels somewhat thin in its delivery, leaving guitar plucks and the delivery of a string ensemble in a classic symphony somewhat flat and little bodied. However, this seems like a much more reasonable stance within the low mids when contrasted against other bluetooth headphones that put too much of an emphasis here, which leads to a very muddy and congested sound signature that gets lost in its overall tonal balance. Apollo never seems to do that, and strikes a good balance that should appease most listeners here in the midrange. To cap things off in the upper mids, vocals get a decent bump that brings them more forward, offering a level of coherence and cohesion to the sound signature that rounds off a mostly U shaped sound signature.
I feel as though the treble is what separates Apollo from the pact the most. In usual TWS headphones, I’ve found treble to be incredibly soft and rolled off. This creates a very safe tuning that can be listened to for hours on end with little to no fatigue at all. Apollo goes against the grain, and allows the planar magnetic driver to really sing and extend to its last ounce of detail in every delivery of its treble. The treble stands strong in a mostly warm sound signature that provokes emotion and engagement as its core character trait. “Quantum Mechanics” from the Oppenheimer film score gives a great demonstration of the entirety of Apollo’s spectrum of sound, but what really stands out is Apollo’s excellent portrayal of the brilliance and shimmer of the treble, amongst the other contrasting elements within that track that also demonstrate Apollo’s bass rumble and staging as well. Apollo impressed me in a lot of ways when compared to other bluetooth offerings, but none more so than the treble response that Noble was able to implement.
As I did allude to Apollo’s staging and imaging in the previous paragraph, it’s only fair I elaborate on it a bit further. While closed back headphones in general, let alone a Bluetooth one, never fair as well as open backs do in their portrayal of a soundstage, I do think Apollo holds its own, and touts a fairly larger stage than most TWS headphones I’ve heard to date. While I don’t think it’ll be the staging and imaging that captures your attention off the bat, I think the more I listened to Apollo, the more I appreciated it’s staging subtleties, best displayed by Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir’s recording “Littlemore Tractus” that is just brilliantly played by Apollo. There are mostly moments that won’t blow you away within the soundstage of imaging of Apollo, but the more you listen, the more you see that Apollo can shine in its own way that really completes the entirety of its sound signature.
Comparison: Focal Bathys
Focal Bathys will forever be Apollo’s most obvious competition. At $699, Bathys comes in direct competition with Apollo. However, what does it offer that’s inherently better than Apollo to justify the price increase? Well, let’s try and break that down.
As for a feature overview, let’s get one thing straight, Apollo wins quite easily. However, where Bathys shines just a bit brighter is in its transparency implementation. Apollo’s transparency isn’t good - in fact, I’d actually say it’s quite poor. Bathy’s transparency offering is quite viable in the way voices and ambient sound around you leak through in a way where the music still sounds quite good as well. ANC is purely a toss up. If I had to give a definitive victor, Apollo would get a very slight edge, but an outright winner did not emerge as clearly as it did in the transparency comparison. But this is where Bathy’s reign ends as Apollo’s Bluetooth 5.3 support, full passive mode listening that doesn’t require the battery to be on like Bathys does, and an additional 50 hours in battery life really pull off a lopsided victory for Apollo. Throw in LDAC support and an attachable microphone to Apollo’s substantial lead, and soon you’ll start to see the white flag waved in the distance from Focal. However, Bathy’s comeback efforts are most impressive in the sound department.
Where Apollo is aggressive, warm, and dynamic, Bathys is natural, organic, and lush. Starting in the bass, Bathys is much more tame and not as hard hitting. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though bassheads may opt for the harder hitting Apollo right off the bat. However, I found Bathys to implement a proper amount of low end that still captured an engaging feel to the music, while still being quantitatively less than Apollo. Quality wise, both offer something different in the bass that will be appreciated by different listeners. For someone looking for something a bit more relaxed, Bathys is better in the bass, but for the folks looking for something harder hitting, Apollo all the way. The midrange is where I found myself to side with Bathys more - the mids are slightly less colored and more natural in their delivery. They feel slightly more life-like, and just presented themselves better within my music personally. However, this isn’t to say Apollo does its midrange portrayal bad by any means, just a slightly different approach that I think didn’t find to hit its mark for me quite like Bathys’ midrange did. In the treble, as I harped on earlier, I think Apollo does it differently than a lot of other TWS headphones, Bathys included. Apollo’s overall brilliance and air just seems sharper and more resolving when compared to Bathys, thus getting the edge here that I think adds a layer of detail retrieval to Apollo’s sound signature that Bathys could not meet. Regarding sound stage and imaging, both of these headphones present a spacious sound that never feels congested or closed in. It was tough to nail down a winner here as both impressed me in different ways. On some tracks, it felt like Apollo had a clear edge, but then on other tracks, I thought Bathys really came away with an excellent portrayal of its sound stage and imaging. It's safe to say, however, that neither will leave you disappointed in this regard.
Where these two really clash comes down mostly to the features. For those traveling, Apollo takes things to the next level in its full passive ability. Having both 80 hours of battery life and the full passive capability that Apollo possesses can’t be overstated. However, where the score is settled will mostly come down to preference in the sound. For the basshead, Apollo presents a strong case, but for those looking for something a bit more relaxed and perhaps even more realistic, Bathys should seriously be considered.
Final Thoughts
Noble didn’t enter new territory without having a good basis to build on. Their years of IEM development and advancements were evident in Apollo, and paid dividends in crafting an all-in-one headphone that does a multitude of things extraordinarily well. Does it bear the heavy crown of being the undisputed champion of wireless headphones? I wouldn’t go that far - but I do think it’s only a matter of time before Noble develops something in the over ear market that truly is considered the best of the best. Noble seemingly has one goal in mind - deliver a Bluetooth headphone that carries over the same brilliance in sound and innovation we’ve come to expect with each new addition to their lineup. Apollo does just that, and starts Noble off on the right foot in the world of over-ear headphones.
