NuraLoop review
Our Verdict
Fans of loftier powered but like shooting fish in a barrel to use audio gear should get to know the NuraLoop. While there are a few annoying features, the overall quality of its audio and richness of its user feel shouldn't be ignored.
For
- Excellent and customizable ANC and audio
- Can be used wirelessly or with an aux cable
- Comfortable and secure fit
- Competitive toll
Confronting
- Bulky design
- Charging cablevision uses proprietary connector
Tom's Guide Verdict
Fans of high powered simply easy to use audio gear should get to know the NuraLoop. While there are a few abrasive features, the overall quality of its sound and richness of its user experience shouldn't be ignored.
Pros
- +
First-class and customizable ANC and audio
- +
Can be used wirelessly or with an aux cablevision
- +
Comfortable and secure fit
- +
Competitive cost
Cons
- -
Bulky blueprint
- -
Charging cable uses proprietary connector
The NuraLoop is attempting to do again what Australian company Nura commencement managed in 2018 with its Nuraphone over-ear headphones — blow abroad the institution by beingness smarter than all of them.
While not equally slick-looking every bit some of the best wireless earbuds, similar the AirPods Pro, Jabra Elite Active 75t or Samsung Milky way Buds Pro, the NuraLoop more than makes upwardly for it with audio power and well implemented features. It includes all your favorites like active racket cancelling, customizable controls and a snug gel-tip fit, and adds an aux cable connection and custom listening profiles. And despite all that it offers, the Nuraloop remains competitively priced.
- Read our total Nuraphone review
- Our picks of the best racket-cancelling earbuds
The NuraLoop has an unusual connector, and I'k non totally convinced by its looks, just as you'll meet by the stop of this NuraLoop review, anyone looking to invest in high-quality simply compact wireless earbuds should have these on their shortlist.
NuraLoop review: Cost and availability
NuraLoop specs
Price: $199/£199
Colors: Blackness
Battery life (rated): sixteen hours
Weight: 25g (0.88 ounces)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0
The NuraLoop is bachelor from Nura's own website, either for $199 or £199. Information technology'due south likewise on auction at Amazon for the same price. There's only one model, and 1 available color: black.
Within the box, aside from the NuraLoop itself, yous get alternate ear gel tips, a USB-A charging cablevision with a proprietary connector, a headphone jack-tipped aux cable with the aforementioned proprietary connector and a travel example to cart everything around in.
NuraLoop review: Design
Nura'south design philosophy looks to be ane of function outset and form second with the NuraLoop. These all-black earbuds, set off by the Nura logo on either bud, are solidly engineered but are definitely built for enthusiast use rather than for style. The matte surfaces of the majority of the unit hateful it'll easily alloy into the background though.
It's worth noting that the NuraLoop is wireless, only information technology isn't true wireless. Dissimilar your average pair of Apple AirPods, there's a cable connecting both earpieces.
The least aesthetically pleasing parts of the NuraLoop are also the most functional parts - the wired earhooks that fit effectually the outside of your ear and the circular connector with its seven copper-colored pogo connectors. These make the NuraLoop look kind of dated compared to the glossy constrained designs of many popular earbuds, but also give the NuraLoop an advantage in quality of user experience, equally we'll see later.
NuraLoop review: Comfort and fit
With four full ear gels to choose from in the box (x.5mm, 12mm, 13.5mm and 15mm in diameter respectively), malleable earhooks and a practiced fit exam built into the Nura app, you'll be left with no doubt that once y'all've fix the NuraLoop up, you're set for the rest of your fourth dimension with them.
Since information technology uses eargels, you lot don't have to rely on various parts of your ear to concord the NuraLoop buds in for you, which is always my preference with earbuds. The earhooks bend to where you want them and and then stay put, and are pretty easy to forget about in one case you lot've been wearing them for some time.
The but issue I noticed was the cablevision that connects both sides of the NuraLoop is kind of short. Information technology fits fine around my head fifty-fifty with my adequately thick pilus in the fashion, simply I wonder if someone with a broader head would find it hard to stretch this cable around the back of their cervix.
NuraLoop review: Setup and app
Nura requires the use of its iOS or Android app when you use the NuraLoop. And then the setup process goes similar this. You put on the NuraLoop (they connect automatically when you lot article of clothing them), connect your device via Bluetooth, then connect information technology to the Nura app, which you'll need to make an account for if you don't have one already.
Then you become through a brusque examination to brand sure the earbuds fit in correctly, before you lot and so have a couple of minutes of strange noises played into your ears for the audio customization software to work out what sounds best for your ear shape.
When that'due south done, the app will start playing a sample track and allow y'all to throw the switch to activate your profile. It's quite theatrical for a tech product, simply it all goes smoothly enough, and once you lot're washed, the profile is saved to your device, with the pick to add more than if you want to allow a friend or family unit member try out the personalization process for themselves.
The app itself is pretty basic, since Nura'south whole selling signal is that the NuraLoop will take care of the tricky stuff for you. You can cheque your remaining battery, go through the hearing profile setup once again either to refine your own profile or make another, turn the personalization and ANC on or off, configure what the TouchDials practise, or share your unique hearing profile graphic on social media to show off how smart your earbuds are to your friends and followers.
All of this is done with a clean and easily comprehensible UI that even Apple itself would be proud of. Truthful audio nerds may miss the chance to dabble with the settings themselves if they don't concord with what the NuraLoop says their profile is, merely for well-nigh people the app is exactly how you lot'd want it to be.
NuraLoop Review: Controls
In that location are no visible buttons on the NuraLoop, every bit you control it via the capacitive "TouchDial" on either earpiece. You can tap these dials to plough things on or off, or run your finger clockwise or anticlockwise around them to increment the volume or the intensity of the active noise cancellation, although yous can customize these to some extent in the app.
There's no haptic feedback when you do this, which I would accept appreciated so I knew my commands were definitely registering, but it'south quite intuitive once you've used information technology once or twice. And having the pick to tune the volume or ANC without buttons feels pretty magical.
A September firmware update recently improved the controls further. You now have a double tap gesture on either earbud, significant that yous can at present perform more deportment without reaching for your phone. The update also improves voice phone call quality and fit detection, fixes another bugs, and lets you choose how the NuraLoop switches on and off.
By default, the earbuds turn themselves on and off automatically when they discover they're in your ears. Now however you tin can opt to enable manual on/off instead from the settings in the Nura app.
I have mostly had a skilful experience with the motorcar on/off, the earbuds recognizing when I was and wasn't wearing them accurately, even if information technology'southward a little slow to switch off sometimes. There have been a few occasions where I accept taken the NuraLoop off when it hasn't registered, meaning I've left them on for half an hour or more without realizing.
The manual switch means that no longer happens, just the way to use it is past belongings both earbuds' TouchDials for three seconds, meaning you either have to grab both buds in one hand before you put them on or away, or you look similar you lot're sticking your fingers in your ears if they're already on. It's nowhere near as shine, but at least you lot take complete control this way.
I don't think either method is completely perfect. Nonetheless I exercise appreciate that now you have a choice, and I am sure anyone who buys these would too.
NuraLoop review: Audio quality
Being stuck in rural northern England for the national lockdown means it's hard to give the ANC a good stress test, but information technology certainly worked well sitting at my desk. The whirring of my laptop's fan and the muffled speech of my family in other rooms were all deftly cancelled out at maximum cancellation, with the external sound smoothly increasing in intensity as I lowered the cancellation level with the TouchDial until it reached 'Social Mode', Nura's proper noun for its listen-through option that pipes in all the audio the iv external mics can choice up.
The large and bulky pattern really pays off here, equally I'm convinced these earbuds cancel sound just as well as my big Sony WH-1000XM3 dissonance cancelling headphones. I'll get back to you once I try both out on the streets of London though.
As for the sound itself, again all is forgiven when it comes to the chunky frame of the earbuds. The NuraLoop produces some of the best percussion I've heard from a pair of earbuds; the Brazilian-inspired drumming in the track "Hillside Plaza" from the Street Fighter V soundtrack came forth with all the energy y'all could inquire for.
Playing Laura Mvula's orchestral/RnB-blending "Kiss My Anxiety", Mvula's vocals, the backing singers, the brass, the strings and the synthesizers were all perfectly counterbalanced with each other. This is because of the NuraLoop app's personalization, as turning the app back to Neutral Manner brought the treble sounds out far more than the voices or lower-pitched instruments. Everything is still clear and enjoyable to listen to, but the hearing profile's ability to mix the EQ to residuum everything just for you is actually quite remarkable. You'd be foolish to turn it off.
NuraLoop review: Connectivity
The NuraLoop uses a adequately typical Bluetooth five.0 connection to link up with your device. Information technology's not the newest Bluetooth 5.1 standard, merely I take zero complaints to make about the reliability of the connectedness.
Actually I do have ane. One fourth dimension I took my phone upstairs, leaving the NuraLoop accidentally still connected on my desk below. I then tried to play a video clip from Twitter, but was stumped as to why it was playing silently despite me having my volume up. I hadn't anticipated the NuraLoop's connexion being then good that I'd need to wait for information technology to turn itself off before trying to use my telephone's speakers.
NuraLoop review: Battery life and charging
I've been using the NuraLoop each time I'd unremarkably pull out my own headphones to listen to music or video on my phone during work hours. It'due south been just over a week of medium intensity usage, and I've merely had to accuse the NuraLoop twice, and then the rated 16 hours of battery life seems to exist authentic.
My only complaint comes back to the proprietary connector. Yous only go i charging cable in the box, and a fairly short one at that. While Nura will likely sell you spares from their website one time the NuraLoop starts shipping, that'll probably exist a £xv ($18) charge for a 2d cablevision you can't use with anything else.
Most new earbuds and headphones use USB-C connectors (unless it'south from Apple or Beats, in which example information technology's probably a Lightning connector), which you can utilize with nigh whatsoever modernistic device to charge or transfer data.
Nuraloop review: Verdict
The original NuraPhones were a corking product, but I found them likewise impractical and uncomfortable for my audio needs. The NuraLoop, still, is much more my speed, and I think many other more coincidental music lovers will agree, particularly if you've got the money to spend. At present, $200 is quite a large amount to spend on earbuds, but information technology'south par for the course if you lot're also looking at the AirPods Pro or similar products. You only have to be willing to live with a cord connecting the buds together.
The hurdles in your fashion of buying the NuraLoop are the looks, and more importantly the unusual connector that may brand you experience yous have to carry the included cables effectually with you at all times in case you demand them. However, this probably isn't necessary since the battery life is plenty long enough and the connexion over Bluetooth is secure. The TouchDial controls and the overall sound quality with a personalized profile are what really stand out.
- More than: Our full listing of the best cheap dissonance-cancelling headphones
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/nuraloop
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