For anyone looking closely enough, the trajectory was amply clear over the past year. Indian tech company Noise made fairly acceptable attempts to up the game, move up price bands with substance, and efforts encompassed true wireless earbuds as well as smartwatches. The Noise Buds Xero a very clear example of that. Yet, little could anyone have predicted, quite how that journey will peak. If at all it has peaked. Audio giants Bose tuning the Master Buds earbuds, is a significant milestone. Mind you, Bose doesn’t give away its secrets easily.
An audio tuning collaboration of this ilk has so far been non-existent in the ₹7,999 price band that the Noise Master Buds reside in. The closest competition gets to anything similar is the OnePlus Buds Pro 3 with Dynaudio and that’s priced around ₹10,999. That rarity should give Noise a robust first-mover advantage, and it’ll not be easy for competition to replicate this quickly at matchable prices, at least in terms of time — though competition will get there eventually.
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The hardware foundations include a 12.4mm PEEK (polyetheretherketone; a thermoplastic polymer with extensive wear resistance than the likes of Polypropylene) and Titanium audio driver in each earbud, a unique case design that has some level of ruggedness quotient too, battery that lasts up to 34 hours and active noise cancellation (ANC) — in our tests, it gets very close to the 32 hour listening mark before the charger is needed again, and that is impressive. The case doesn’t have wireless charging, but there’s barely any argument that it’s a shortcoming considering the price tag of the Noise Master Buds.
Staying on the specifics of the charging case, it’s unique sculpting means it either has to be placed in the lie-down direction, or upside down. Also, the case size feels half a size larger than usual, which you may realise when the trouser pocket must share space with car keys. Metallic finish looks good, and my pick would be the Titanium from the troika of Onyx and Silver colours.
It doesn’t take long to discover a very familiar warm, welcoming sound signature that has been the hallmark of Bose earphones and headphones, withstanding the test of time. That tuning, that very close replication of true Bose sound, is the real trump card for Noise Master Buds. This gives a sound quality standpoint which is head and shoulders above competition. The almost neutral default sound signature is an equally good foundation to build with, for natural audio and versatility with difference genres of music.
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The support for LHDC high-resolution audio codec (that theoretically means up to 900 kHz bitrate streaming) is still limited in context of music streaming services — Apple Music, YouTube Music and Spotify don’t use this, for now. For many a user, the high res music aspect may not transition into reality, for the moment. The Spatial Audio is ticked off, which will work and that’s a definite positive.
Dial up the volume and the work in optimisation to eliminate distortion, become clear. This holds bass, mid range frequencies, and higher frequencies just about right even at higher volumes. At the most common listening levels, details come through really well with just the right amount of bass and adequate sharpness for vocals without ever getting overshadowed or sounding too sharp. It is comforting sound, in a way.
The Noise Audio app (free for Android and iOS) offers some customisation in terms of a user defined equaliser (EQ) and firmware updates (this is important). However, we soon realised that none of the preset EQs or the manual tuning sound better than the default EQ. Best would be to stick to that, for most music and podcast content. The app itself has some rough edges that need fixing, including a habit of leaving tasks halfway (such as an in-progress firmware update).
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Noise cancellation quality has been consistently improving with time, particularly in affordable earbuds. The Noise Master Buds is another significant step forward in that direction. The Bose tuning works here too, and the company already has a strong footing in its close competition with Apple, Sony, and Sennheiser about who does ANC the best.
The Noise Master Buds delivers a substantial quality and experience upgrade, over a majority of competing true wireless earbuds. The Bose influence is certainly more than cursory, which translates into a definite uplift of pieces that form the broader experiential puzzle. The Noise Master Buds has led to almost every other mid-range and premium true wireless earbuds being chucked into the drawer for the time being, and the Noise x Bose collaboration has more than done its job. At least that’s my experience.
