If I told you that Noble Audio had a new three driver tribrid product, you’d probably assume that it was a new IEM, but you’d be wrong: it’s their latest flagship wireless over-ear headphone. The new headphone, dubbed FoKus Artemis, follows up on their previous hybrid wireless headphones, Apollo, expanding on the technology both in the technical design and the accompanying software. As great as the technology looks, can Artemis deliver the level of performance and convenience necessary to live up to its $899 price tag?
Build and Design
Artemis follows in the footsteps of Apollo, with a similar design and package. In the box, you get a travel case, charge cable (USB-C to USB-C), DAC cable (USB-C to 3.5mm), and the user manual. The headphones themselves are a little slimmer and sleeker than Apollo, and I found them to be more comfortable.
On the headphones themselves, you get volume up and down buttons, a multi-function button, and a dedicated button for cycling ANC modes. For power on or off, there’s a small switch, which you can hold down to activate pairing mode. The design is generally intuitive and easy to use, so anyone who’s used wireless headphones before should be able to figure it out without having to check the manual. One hidden design element on Artemis that doesn’t seem like a big deal at first, but is actually somewhat revolutionary is that it has a replacement battery. This simple change – allowing the user access to the battery to replace it – has the potential to make warranty service easier and less painful, while also extending the life of the headphones beyond when the battery starts to degrade.
Using Noble Artemis
Just a few years ago, writing about wireless headphones and TWS from audiophile brands was usually a matter of “They sound really good… but…” however, Noble Audio in particular has continued to improve in offering both strong sound quality and a premium user experience. Artemis delivers good connectivity across multiple platforms, along with strong implementation of key features like ANC, Transparency, and sound customization options.
The ANC and Transparency options are very good, though not without some quirks. The ANC is great in a situation like an airplane where you’re sitting still and need to block out strong ambient noise, but less effective in a situation like the gym, where you’re constantly moving and the headphones might shift to a position that impacts the ANC.
The app looks a little clunky and maybe when compared to something like Sennheiser’s App, but in terms of functions, it delivers exactly what you need – and I’d add that some features are actually easier to use than on bigger brand headphones with sleeker looking apps. The sound customization options are the best that Noble has offered so far, with a 10-band EQ, a basic PEQ like secondary EQ option, and the personalized hearing test. The personalized hearing test is quite possibly the best version of this tech that I’ve used to date. I was honestly unimpressed with Artemis’s sound out of the box, but after taking the hearing test, it transformed the sound, making it much better balanced and opening up the sound significantly. So in the end, how does it sound?
Sound
At first, I was surprised by Artemis’s tuning, it’s much warmer, with a stronger bass boost than its predecessor, Apollo. In general it felt more like a typical consumer sound than the more reference audiophile sound that I expected. The Personal EQ that was created after the hearing test definitely dialed things in – on top of that there was a notable difference between the AAC Bluetooth connection on my iPhone and the LDAC connection on Android. On the initial listen using AAC without the hearing test, the sound was “fine,” but with LDAC, after the hearing test, Artemis wasn’t just a great set of wireless headphones, it was an all-around excellent closed back.
Artemis is also one of the best implementations of a wired connection that I’ve heard in a set of Bluetooth headphones. Often without the DSP tuning, wireless headphones sound incoherent and just weird in wired mode. Artemis was clean and balanced, with a generally solid listening experience. That said, these don’t stack up to $899 wired headphones like the Dan Clark Audio Aeon Core on a purely technical level, but it’s a solid option to have when you want to preserve battery power or with a device where wireless isn’t an option.
Ultimately though, there’s no singular sound that Artemis delivers: it’s fully customizable to exactly what you want it to be. What is impressive is that each element is imminently tunable and that it delivers excellent sound across a variety of tuning styles. Artemis can be a detail monster, a bass monster, perfectly balanced, or somewhere in between. There’s no singular sound that defines Artemis, but Artemis feels definitive in how it delivers a variety of tunings.
Comparison: Noble FoKus Apollo Pro, Focal Bathys
Artemis is great – there’s no doubt about that – but the question is whether or not it matches up to other great headphones out there. The two most obvious comparisons are Noble FoKus Apollo Pro, the recently released updated version of the original Apollo, priced at $699, and Focal Bathys, priced at $849, one of the most well-regarded audiophile wireless headphones on the market.
In terms of the build, comfort and general first impressions, it’s hard to beat Focal, but Artemis does present something that looks and feels premium, and is more comfortable to me than the Focal. Apollo Pro looks good too, but it’s not quite at the same level as Artemis or Bathys in terms of the initial impressions, though I would put it in between the two in terms of comfort. The user replaceable battery feature also adds another point to Artemis in the general design category.
In terms of the initial sound out of the box, I’d rate Apollo Pro as the best, Bathys as second, and Artemis in third, but there’s a big caveat to that: Artemis has the potential to sound the best of the three, it just doesn’t sound that way immediately. Apollo Pro nails the balanced reference tuning right out of the box, while Bathys adds a little color into it while maintaining good detail. Artemis feels a little congested and doesn’t really “wow” you out of the box, but with a little bit of tuning in the app, it can deliver better technical performance and tuning that the rest.
Overall, Bathys and Apollo Pro make a stronger first impression sonically, but Artemis has the most depth. If you can take the extra step of using Noble’s provided tools to customize your sound, Artemis has the potential to deliver something that’s technically better, and is perfectly matched to your sound preferences.
The Bottom Line
Following up on an innovative and well-executed headphone like Apollo is no easy task, but Noble Audio succeeds with Artemis. With an added driver, improved comfort, and an updated suite of tools to audio customization, Artemis delivers world class sound, strong feature execution, and a solid user experience. If you’re looking for world-class sound in a luxury audio package, Artemis delivers.
