In the past two years, there are many earplug brands that have invested in Bluetooth TWS (of course this is a good thing, after all, listening to music when going out is sometimes more convenient than wired), or in other words, they have a certain strength or popularity as far as the eye can see All brands have one or more models of TWS available. But going back and forth like this will actually weaken the investment in wired earbuds. However, everything has exceptions. Half a year ago, the American headphone brand NOBLE AUDIO launched a FOKUS PRO whose sound quality reached the first echelon level in TWS. And last month, the brand launched four new products in a row. You heard it right, they are 4 brand new wired earbuds:
New generation of Mongolian overlord - Kubiak Khan Kublai Khan
8 unit cyclone force - Kadence Cadence
12mm single dynamic gold jersey - D XII
Warm commemorative model - —Jade Jade
Looking at the arrangement of names, it is not difficult for you to guess their levels. I bought NOBLE's KHAN 3 years ago and played it for more than a year. Its balance, rich details and excellent sound field left a deep impression on me. Later, I listened to the limited edition Damascus Sultan at the exhibition, and the sound was quite amazing. Generally speaking, NOBLE's plugs generally have a stable sound, and their timbres also have their own characteristics.
This time, four pieces were sent out. As the head, there is no doubt that Kublai Khan is probably an omnivore who eats everything and has enough low-frequency tubes. The second-placed Cadence sells for just over 10,000 yuan, which is only half the price of Kublai Khan. It seems that it is going to take the "cost-effective" (relative) route of sound quality killer in the 10,000-yuan market. With this curiosity, let’s show off our shameless skills again and ask the general agent Kuyinyun to borrow it and listen to it. Now let’s talk about the sound quality and matching gameplay of Kadence, the second brother of NOBLE AUDIO’s new four generals. .
NOBLE AUDIO’s headphones basically have good looks. Cadence’s panel adopts a marble moiré design, which looks low-key from a distance and looks a little noble up close. Let’s take a look at the picture to get a feel for the details.
headphone unit uses a total of 8 moving iron units from Knowles and Shengyang combined to form a 4-way design. Speaking of which, what is your impression of these two major unit manufacturers? The sound of Lou's unit is "direct, straightforward, monitoring, without coloration"; the sound of the speaker unit is "beautiful in tone and musical". Admittedly, this is indeed the sound characteristic of the moving iron units of these two companies. When Cadence combines the units of the two companies to design an earplug, it must be hoping to combine the strengths of the two companies to create an earphone with both quality and listening experience. work. But at the same time, NOBLE needs to face and solve a problem, which is the transition of different frequency bands and the fusion of timbres of units from different brands, so that the sounds of multiple units become a complete individual. Next, let’s see what kind of sound this configuration will produce.
To test the sound, you must first pass the Qianlongsheng QA390LE. First of all, as the sound quality leader in the field of Walkmans, its sound is neutral and untainted, so you can safely identify the timbre and quality of different earplugs. Let’s first understand the mid-frequency performance of Cadence through male and female voices. The female voice still uses accurate a cappella works, Huang Hongying's "Dream", the female voice performed by Cadence, the timbre is very accurate, but it is just a little bit sweeter than the monitor headphones I have heard, and it is not easily noticeable, and it is light enough to be louder. It can be ignored most of the time. The vocal treble is rich in detail, the lines are clear and the transparency is quite high. The male voice chooses to recite the ancient poem "Ode to the Willows" by Sun Daolin . The voice is full and full of details, and the sweetness is not felt in this song. It can be seen that the mid-frequency details are sufficient, the timbre is accurate, and there is almost no sound coloration. Isn't this... just monitoring? So I took out my two pairs of monitoring headphones and compared them carefully. I can confirm that Cadence's mid-frequency is the monitoring route. So? Is its overall tuning also in the monitoring style?
Let's take a look at the low-frequency performance - a song "Elephant" from the Animal Carnival, feel the low-frequency performance through the piano and double bass .As pure moving iron earphones, although the low-frequency penetration is still slightly lacking, compared with dynamic monitoring earphones, their physical appearance is almost the same; they also fully reflect the low-frequency vibration and beefy strength of the strings. The performance of the point is very "circular". After listening to the song, I found that the low-frequency performance is accurate and the low-frequency is not deliberately enhanced to attract the ears.
Finally, through "Comfortable", we learned about Cadence's high-frequency and sound field performance. In the extremely high frequency of the instrument, Cadence appears to be more restrained. Even though the sound of the instrument is relatively sharp, Cadence still expresses it in a relatively soft way to improve listening resistance while ensuring the basic details; but according to The performance of its harmonica can be seen that the sense of energy and imaging are quite prominent in the mid-to-high frequency connection position. In addition, the sound field performance is not large, but it is very regular. The images of each instrument are clearly positioned and layered, and the sense of space is excellent.
Through the above-mentioned QA390LE direct push Cadence's test of multiple targeted audition songs, it can be seen that this plug is indeed taking a monitoring route - the sound path is very positive, and the sense of energy is enhanced at the mid-to-high frequency connection. , highlighting the outline of the instrument and the texture of the mouth shape. In terms of timbre performance, there is no obvious timbre by itself, but it fully releases the timbre characteristics of the front-end player and restores the music content itself.
Let’s take a look at the matching performance of two popular models. The first one is the combination of the new 10,000-yuan portable digital broadcaster DX320 and Cadence. Sure enough, the quasi-monitoring characteristics of Cadence perfectly express the sound characteristics of DX320 - ultra-high separation, clear lines, abundant energy, rich vocal charm, and rich details. These characteristics can be clearly seen under Cadence.
AK How will the current flagship model SP2000T perform? SP2000T is very easy to use Apple Music, and coupled with the ultra-high quality of the portable digital broadcaster, it is a unique device for listening to lossless online music. Cadence can perfectly reflect the characteristic tuning of AK - smooth extremely high frequencies, gorgeous mid-to-high frequencies, low-density but stretched vocals, an open horizontal sound field, and sufficient and refreshing sound. low frequency.
After listening to it, I really didn’t expect that Cadence turned out to be a quasi-monitoring plug? ! Yes, I was still stunned when I wrote this article, it was so unexpected. But having said that, while being accurate, the mid- and high-frequency should be prominent but not obtrusive, adding some attractive elements to the sensitive frequency band, ensuring accuracy and not being biased, ensuring sufficient rich details, and ensuring the omnivorous nature of the combination. After all, in Driven by the above-mentioned three top-level digital broadcasters, they all show high balance and excellent listening experience (anyway, they are the original listening experience of these three machines). With such a balanced and stable performance, I can finally understand NOLBE AUDIO’s ambition: it is to design Cadence into a benchmark for earplugs worth 10,000 yuan!
and above.
