A big part of Noble Audio’s position as a leader in the portable HiFi world came from taking the tech that premium custom IEMs that brands like 64 Audio and JH Audio were putting into the professional products, and packaging it in a way that was appealing to a broader portion of the audiophile market. More recently they’ve started doing something similar in the wireless space – taking tech and tuning from the best premium IEMs and putting it into their true wireless designs. Priced at $320, Amadeus is their latest TWS release, but with a fairly regular stream of wireless releases from Noble, does it really bring anything new to the table?
Build and Design
The general design of FoKus Amadeus will be familiar to anyone who’s seen any of Noble’s FoKus series, but the purely acrylic build is a step down from entries like the Prestige and Rex5. I personally prefer the look of Amadeus over Rex5, and it also has probably the best fit of any of the series. Along with that, the nozzles are much more accommodating of eartips than the FoKus Prestige or Rex5, which is a welcome change for those who have struggled to get eartips onto the massive nozzle openings on some of Noble’s IEMs.
In terms of internals and electronics, Amadeus uses a single 8.3mm dynamic driver – so no fancy hybrids or tribrids for this one – and the wireless performance is powered by a QCC3091 chip with Bluetooth 5.4 capabilities, including support for AptX Adaptive and LDAC codecs. The buds get up to 12 hours on a single charge, while the charging case provides an additional 2.5 full charges, meaning that your absolute max without plugging in is a little over 40 hours. We really struggled to actually run Amadeus down to zero, and I think most people will have no issues with the battery life here.
Using FoKus Amadeus
While the Noble FoKus Prestige delivered near-perfect sound right out of the box, probably the best aspect of its successor, Rex5, is the quality of the provided DSP and EQ options in Noble’s app. Amadeus gets all of the same tuning options and software as the Rex5. That means you can tweak the sound with a graphic EQ, adjust a somewhat limited parametric style EQ, and take a hearing test in the app to develop a Personal EQ. The ability to turn all of the options off or on – and either layer multiple adjustments with increasing precision at each layer, or to use just one, means that Amadeus gives you a wealth of options that are all pretty easy to understand.
While I find myself rarely actually using the on-device touch controls, Amadeus’s seem good enough to not worry about accidental taps when you need to pause or adjust the volume on the fly. I’ve had touch controls set off by my hair or sweat in the past, but Amadeus didn’t give me any issues like that. The app also lets you customize the different touch reactions to your preference.
The noise cancelling features on Amadeus are fine, but not spectacular by any means. ANC blocks a noticeable amount of sound out, but I still caught quite a bit of ambient noise – even just in our office. The Ambient mode was pretty good, but it doesn’t have any options for fine tuning to calibrate the actual ambient noise level, like a number of top consumer brands do now. Honestly though, the natural passive cancellation from the solid fit was sufficient to my preference for most situations.
Amadeus’s connectivity was excellent, giving me a solid connection while moving around: whether my phone was in my pocket or left behind in another room. The multi-point was a little spotty though. When I connected it to both my phone and DAP, I had fairly frequent blips and short drop-outs when switching between certain apps, or when the system perhaps couldn’t fully determine whether or not it should play the sound or not.
While all these features are important in making these a real replacement for more feature-focused consumer brands, ultimately the real star of the show with Noble’s FoKus series is the sound.
Sound
FoKus Amadeus delivers a simple, classic tuning with a level of performance that you wouldn’t be disappointed with in a $300 wired IEM. You get a classic single DD sound, with great low end impact and a natural timbre and overall delivery, and, of course, the option to EQ it to your preference.
Without adding any EQ, the midbass is elevated just a little bit above the rest of the sound signature, which makes for a fun listen on a lot of modern rock and hip hop tracks, but can be a little bit too much when you’re listening to classical or more mellow genres like folk. The subbass extension is really nice, though, even with EQ, it can be tough to hear a lot of texture in the bass.
The midrange has a warm character that remains natural, but – again – that warmth can overshadow details just a little bit. Rolling the bass and low mids back a little bit reveals excellent detail and clarity, with a fantastic vocal presentation, and the sort of natural timbre that you associate with single DD IEMs, but not so much with wireless.
Despite the single DD design, Amadeus delivers technically sound treble with strong fundamentals. Amadeus’s treble has nice extension and resolution, but maintains a slightly smooth character. Even with EQing a treble boost, I couldn’t really dial in an overly-bright or harsh treble.
Amadeus presents a wide soundstage, but it can sometimes lack depth, and feels a little bit like just left, right, and center channels with some tracks, rather than giving the sense of the full space being filled in. The separation and general positioning was still strong, but it didn’t feel quite as fully three-dimensional as some of the better wired IEMs in this price range.
I listened to a variety of different tracks and albums with Amadeus, often making adjustments to the EQ to tailor it specifically for that album. For example, the stock bass was a little much for Carole King’s Tapestry, but with some subtle adjustments to the EQ Curve feature, I dialed out the upper part of the bass shelf for a really nice, natural presentation on the acoustic instruments and vocals on the song. On the flipside, when I listened to Muse’s new single, “Unraveling,” I dialed in a little bit of extra subbass for some serious low end rumble. While the graphic EQ provides options for presets, I found that the EQ Curve’s simplified pseudo-parametric design was perfect for dialing in the full range of Amadeus’s tonal range.
Comparison: Noble FoKus Prestige ($599), Noble FoKus Rex5 ($449)
Noble currently has three audiophile TWS models on the market, each with some advantages and disadvantages. In this current lineup, is Amadeus just “the cheapest one” or does it offer some unique characteristics or value that makes it just as much of an option as the rest of the lineup?
We already mentioned it in our Build and Design section, but one place the Amadeus shines over its more expensive brethren is in the fit. I found Amadeus to be a bit more comfortable than the others, and the smaller nozzle size means that you’ll have less challenges getting eartips onto these. While the Prestige’s wood shell takes top honors here for looks, Amadeus can be a little nicer to actually use.
Feature-wise, both Rex5 and Amadeus are able to access EQ features through DSP that Prestige can’t – including the Personal EQ and EQ Curve – meaning that Prestige lags behind in the feature department. Rex5 and Amadeus essentially have access to the full Noble app suite of features, but Rex5’s implementation of ANC and Ambient mode was better than Amadeus’s.
Sound is where things get interesting. In terms of pure technical performance, Rex5 takes top honors, and its EQ gives it a lot of range. However, without EQ, Prestige remains the best sound of Noble’s TWS options, and you can’t really dial in its mix of natural sound and detailed presentation with Rex5 or Amadeus. Amadeus is like the opposite side of the same coin as Rex5: where Rex5 is more detailed and resolving but many users will likely want to dial in more warmth, Amadeus can be too warm and need some of that warmth pulled back to reveal more of the detail.
Altogether, the combination of the price, sound signature, and fit makes Amadeus a unique option in Noble’s TWS lineup. If you want something closer to Prestige’s natural delivery with Rex5’s feature set, Amadeus might be the perfect fit.
The Bottom Line
With its $320 price point, Amadeus launches with a lower price point than similar premium TWS IEMs in the FoKus line, and is set to help Noble gain more traction in the consumer market. Like Rex5, Amadeus has a feature set that’s among the most competitive that we’ve ever seen from a boutique HiFi brand, and a sound that’s bound to be appealing to a wide range of listeners. While Amadeus might not be Noble’s best true wireless option, it’s an amazing value for the brand, and well positioned to break into the mainstream wireless market.
