The NuraTrue Pro genuine wireless earbuds are the creation of Australian audio company Nura. They are currently being financed on Kickstarter with early bird prices at $199 and a regular retail price of $329.
The new Bluetooth streaming codec pledges to stream CD-quality audio without any failure of audio detail; aptX Lossless is coming to its best earbuds.
“These are the first earbuds to be informed with Snapdragon Sound and aptX Lossless. We’re eager to say that there will be numerous Snapdragon Sound-powered devices with support for aptX Lossless launching soon,” Qualcomm representative Lauren Miller said in a statement. Snapdragon Sound is the title of Qualcomm’s overall audio platform, of which aptX Lossless is one feature.
Crowdfunding is a messy field: companies examining for funding tend to make significant commitments. But, according to a study by Kickstarter in 2015, roughly 1 in 10 “successful” products that reach their allocation goals fail to deliver rewards. The ones with delays, missed deadlines, or overpromised ideas suggest that there’s often dissatisfaction in store for those products that do get accomplished.
The best defense is to operate your best judgment. Ask yourself: does the product glance legitimate? Is the company producing outlandish claims? Is there a working prototype? Does the company mention existing techniques to manufacture and ship finished products? Has it completed a Kickstarter before? And remember: you’re not necessarily purchasing a product when you back it on a crowdfunding website.
The catch is that, at the instant, you won’t discover source devices that support the new audio codec since “there are no devices presently shipping with this feature,” according to Qualcomm spokesperson Sarah McMurray. So as well as a device that supports aptX Lossless, your music will need to be CD quality or higher to get the most significant benefit — great for Apple Music subscribers, less so for Spotify users carrying out for HiFi.
Qualcomm announced aptX Lossless last year, vowing that it’ll be able to stream CD-quality, 16-bit / 44.1kHz audio over Bluetooth. Of course, that’s not to state there’s no compression involved. Still, Qualcomm announces that this compression is lossless, so your headphones’ audio should be “mathematically bit-for-bit exact, with no failure of the audio file,” according to Qualcomm’s James Chapman. aptX Lossless can earn up to a bitrate of 1Mbps, compared to 990kbps for its nearest competitor, LDAC.
In addition to their sponsorship of aptX Lossless, the NuraTrue Pro approved active noise cancellation, spatial audio, multipoint connectivity to allow them to be connected to multiple source devices at once, and the ability to use either earbud independently. They can be charged wirelessly and offer up to eight hours of playback from the buds or up to 32 hours when paired with the charging case. Nura’s sound personalization feature, which it is debuted on its original pair of over-ear headphones, returns for the NuraTrue Pro.
NuraTrue Pro buds sport wireless lossless audio – but there’s a catch; audio company Nura, specialists in personalized audio, today revealed the upgraded NuraTrue Pro wireless earbuds – and they’re now available to pre-order on Kickstarter.
Pitched as an upgrade to the existing NuraTrue buds, which we praised for the impressive bass performance and personalized sound in our review, the NuraTrue Pro offers premium features, including upgraded adaptive noise cancellation and, crucially, the ability to play lossless audio without a hardwired connection.
Though the design is near-identical to that of the NuraTrue buds, a few minor differences set the NuraTrue Pro apart. The most immediately noticeable is the use of ceramic around the rim of the buds, adding to the overall compensation look and feel of the circular black buds.
There are also more microphones on each bud, looking to improve audio quality and performance during calls – especially in louder environments. Nura claims that “Lossless audio streaming over Bluetooth is about to make 95% of the world’s wireless headphones and earbuds obsolete”, so it’s clear that Nura thinks this is the next big thing in TWS audio.
Nura worked with Qualcomm to integrate its QCC5171 BT audio SoC into NuraTrue Pro, providing the transmission bandwidth required for truly lossless audio playback. As a result, Nura claims that the buds can deliver an uncompressed 16-bit 44.1kHz audio stream over Bluetooth to deliver a noticeably improved audio experience without cables.
It’s a bold and exciting claim, but there’s a caveat; to enjoy lossless audio, you’ll need a smartphone with the top-end (and not yet readily available) Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset.
It’ll likely be the chipset of choice for flagships for the latter half of 2022, but it means that practically no Android smartphone (and indeed not an iPhone) can enjoy the lossless audio right now. So if you’re really into lossless, you’ll likely have to buy a new phone in the (near) future.
It is backward-compatible with previous versions of aptX Adaptive and Classic, which will boost quality, but it’s not quite the lossless many had hoped for.
Lossless audio aside, other improvements include introducing adaptive noise cancellation technology. Using onboard smarts, the buds can adjust the noise canceling depending on the noises in your environment to help block out the most intrusive noises – similar to Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control on headphones like the WF-1000XM4.
You’ll also find support for spatial audio, which can upscale stereo content on-the-fly – no need to find spatial audio tracks on Apple Music for this one. It’s not quite as advanced as Apple’s tech, negating the head-tracking, but the sound is notably more natural with the mode activated.
There’s Bluetooth 5.3 on board, allowing users to connect the buds to multiple sources at once for a more seamless audio switching experience. In addition, the buds offer Nura’s signature personalized sound output via a hearing test performed when you first set the buds up.