How’s your hearing? Is it sharp as a bat’s or are you beginning to notice a falling away of higher frequencies? Perhaps you’ve begun to experience a little tinnitus, that annoying hiss that can affect hearing when you get older. However, no matter how old or how young you are, your hearing is unique to you, in much the same way that your eyesight is. For example, you may prefer bass frequencies to harsher treble tones. How would you like a pair of earphones that were specifically tailored to your hearing?
That’s exactly what Australian company Nura does. It makes headphones and earphones that can cut out external noise and shape the sound so that it matches your hearing perfectly. For example, if you have hearing damage in one ear, it will compensate for that and present you with a sound that’s bespoke for your ears.
I first tested a Nura product when I reviewed Nuraphone headphones, back in June 2019 and I was really surprised at how effective they were. Nura has now launched NuraLoop, a pair of ANC (active noise-canceling) earphones that work with the Nura app to create a bespoke sound profile that matches your hearing perfectly.
NuraLoop are a beautifully made pair of earphones and their finish is extremely high quality. The earpieces are fairly chunky and they’re tethered together by a short length of cable that fits around the back of the wearer’s neck. Gym bunnies or runners will be pleased to hear that NuraLoop are sweatproof, so they should be fine for a vigorous workout. Each earpiece has an ear hook that fits over the ear and keeps the earpieces in place, even when running or doing some other form of exercise. Halfway along the cable, there’s a magnetic connector that’s used for attaching a recharging cable or a digital or analog cable that can connect the earphones to a smartphone or digital player without the need for Bluetooth. However, imagine that most people will want to use NuraLoop wirelessly with Bluetooth.
Getting the NuraLoop set up and ready to use requires a bit of effort. Firstly, you need to charge the battery fully and then place the earpieces in your ears. The silicone ear tips use don NuraLoop are very flat and wide and they come in a range of sizes from small to extra-large. The medium tips are fitted as standard so try this out first to see if they work. The next step is to download the Nura app from the Apple app store or Google Play, depending on if your smartphone is iOS or Android.
Now you need to connect NuraLoop to your smartphone via Bluetooth. It’s really easy and you’ll hear instructions that even tell you the name to look out for when pairing via Bluetooth. Once that’s done, the app will run a quick test to make sure the ear tips are the right size and whether you’ve fitted them correctly. It takes a few seconds and you’ll be told if the fit is wrong and directed to use another size until two green ticks appear on the app screen. When that’s all ok, the app will ask you to name your personal hearing profile. You can have more than one profile and even create profiles for friends and family who might want to borrow your NuraLoop.
The sound test takes a couple of minutes to complete and scans through a range of frequencies, cleverly measuring how your ears respond to the test signal. This process ends up creating a personal hearing profile that adjusts for the difference in hearing between each ear, as well as the frequency range that you can hear. If there is a deficiency or a bias, the app will adjust the profile for it. Finally, when that is done, you’ll hear some music and then you can go ahead and press a button on the app to turn on your own custom hearing profile.
If the process has worked properly, you will hear a huge difference in the sound. I certainly noticed that the music became more centered for me, making me realize that I have a slight amount of hearing loss in my right ear and that I needed a slight boost to the bass and midrange. The difference was massive. It’s like looking through a smeary pair of glasses and then switching to a pair that have been freshly cleaned with wet wipes. Once you experience the difference, you might find it hard to go back to an unadjusted sound profile.
The user’s personal hearing profile is stored in NuraLoop so that whatever device you listen to music with – whether it’s over Bluetooth or with a wired connection – you’ll always hear the music with the adjusted sound profile. It’s a very clever technology and you can change the profile whenever you want just by using the Nura app to create a fresh one. You can recalibrate or retest your profile as many times as you like or let another friend or family make their own profile.
Nura describes the effect of using NuraLoop as like listening to sound in color. It’s a good analogy and a bit like the effect you can get when listening to 360-degree audio that some streaming services like TIDAL and Deezer are now offering with certain earphones that support the system. It’s definitely a fuller and more complete sound and will be unique to each user.
NuraLoop can play for up to 16 hours on one battery charge and there’s support for the higher quality apt-X HD audio codec from Qualcomm, as well as AAC for iOS users. The ANC function is turned on all the time unless you choose to disable it. The result is a very effective noise cancellation of any ambient sound. If you do want to be able to hear a bit of the sound around you, it’s possible to dial back the amount of ANC using the Social mode.
What I really love about NuraLoop is that the touch controls on each earpiece are rotary. You can use a circular gesture with a finger to turn the volume up or down just like a virtual volume knob. The same technique is used to adjust the amount of ANC and Social Mode. The controls can also be customized and handle controls like pausing the music or skipping tracks. I wish all Bluetooth earphones used rotary volume controls, it’s so much easier and more intuitive than double clicks or long presses and it gives a far finer degree of control.
Included with NuraLoop is a carry case, plus an analog cable for connecting the earphones to a regular headphone jack if you don’t want to use Bluetooth. There’s also a selection of different-sized ear tips as well as some tiny replacement grilles for the spouts on the earpieces should they get damaged or blocked.
Verdict: Even if you don’t think you have any hearing loss and that your ears are perfect, NuraLoop will open your ears. The clever way they can build a custom profile for a user’s hearing really opens up the music. The build quality is exceptionally good and I think they are a big improvement over the original Nuraphone headphones, which were pretty good anyway. If you want noise-canceling earphones with a sound that’s shaped to fit the way you hear, there’s very little else on the market like NuraLoop. The sound quality is exceptional, the battery life is terrific and support for apt-X HD is the icing on the proverbial cake.
Price: $199 USD / £199 GBP / €229 EUR / $299 AUD
More info: www.nuraphone.com
Key features:
● Personalised sound
● 16+ hour battery
● Active noise cancellation
● Social mode
● Wireless and wired
● Bluetooth 5 with aptX HD
● Immersive bass
● TouchDial controls
● Sweat resistant
● Voice calls
● Automatic on/off
