Bloom's Take The folks over at Noble Audio are really good people, and we were fortunate enough to get our hands on a prototype of the new Apollo during a visit in March 2024. Noble previewed its 'First Look' for Apollo in Canjam Singapore 2024 on April 6. Apollo is a super-comfortable wireless over-ear headphone with Bluetooth 5.3, lossless audio, and gaming tech such as removable boom mic. Focal, Sennheiser, and Audeze, you might want to ask Bathys, Momentum, and Maxwell to make some room on the podium... we're pretty excited about this one. |
The FoKus Apollo is Noble's first foray into the world of over-ear headphones. The Apollo is a powerhouse of industry leading sound quality and innovation featuring the world's first patented single 40mm Dynamic driver + 14.5mm Planar Magnetic hybrid driver arrangement.
Planar Magnetic drivers are known for their delicacy and accuracy, but without the blurring effects of excessive inertia due to their extremely thin, lighter than air diaphragms. However, the drawback to such speakers is that they lack the ability to move sufficient air mass to produce the quality of bass most listeners prefer. And while Dynamic drivers provide excellent bass by moving significant amounts of air, due to their mass, they cannot provide the crystal clear mid and high frequencies of which Planar Magnetics are capable. By utilizing both Dynamic and Planar Magnetic speakers, Noble FoKus Apollo provides the clarity needed while retaining the bass demanded.
Hybrid ANC is a type of active noise cancellation that uses microphones on both the inside and outside of the headphone to cancel out ambient noise. It combines the advantages of feedforward and feedback ANC, allowing for faster noise pickup and more precise cancellation.
Clarity, bass, amazing trebles, and a wall of sound that often makes me forget these are on my head is how I'd lead on describing the Wizard's first foray into headphones. And I hope this is a foray for an ongoing push into the over ears world.
The main reason I say that is not because we need another pair of headphones but because Noble has created something that lacks boredom. Regardless of price, I have always come to a point, hours or minutes into a listening session, where I want to take a break. The Apollos are the first headphones that make me sit through an entire song and keep asking for another. This is headphone crack, and I'm fully addicted.
I was extremely lucky to be able to get these headphones by pre-ordering them and getting them before they were back-ordered. Just like every other thing I've ordered from Bloom, it was a great experience, and you gotta love the candy they put in the box. I have to say that these completely blow away my Focal Bathys and my Audeze headphones, and they're comparable in wired mode to my Oriolus Traillii. I'm going to be using these for many years to come.