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For such an expensive pair of headphones, I’m a little disappointed in the Noble FoKus Apollo. I loved the FoKus Rex earbuds, easily the best sounding earbuds in the premium tier, but I’m not as impressed with the Apollo especially if I compare them to less expensive headphones like the Sony WH-1000XM6, Sennheiser Momentum 4 and Bose QC Ultra.

But there are a few special things about the Apollo. First, their dual drivers. A 40mm driver and a 14.5mm planar magnetic driver in a concentric setup for each earcup. Not only does this eliminate bass-mids crosstalk, this improves timing and soundstaging performance because the audio is coming from a single point source.

So at least in theory, it should sound phenomenal. In practice, it depends. I’ll explain in a bit.

They have a stated battery life of up to 60 hours with ANC which is about double of the ones I’m comparing to. It uses button controls only, and there’s even a very convenient mute toggle for the mics. And while others either have a 3.5mm wired connection or USB-C, the Apollo has both USB-C and 3.5mm options.

And even though it’s already got built-in microphones, it comes with an external boom mic in case you want better voice capture for gaming or calls. Not something we see often on audiophile headphones.

So it all looks great on paper and out of the box, but when we dive deeper into how their performance compares to these popular headphones, you’ll see why I’ve got mixed feelings. So buckle up!

Microphone Quality

In terms of voice pickup quality of its built-in mics, it’s got very poor noise gating. Its response to intrusive noise is just to aggressively cut everything down, even my own voice is cut to a barely audible level. That won’t be an issue in quiet conditions, but in noisy conditions, voice pickup is not going to be as good as something like the Sony XM6 headphones.

👉 Have a listen to the mic quality samples

But if you use the boom mic attachment, you can expect better mic quality because it’s more directional. It still doesn't cut background noise that well, but your own voice will sound louder, deeper and more focused. It’s just that not everybody would be comfortable using this in an outdoors setting

👉 Have a listen to the boom mic quality samples

Active Noise Cancelling

In terms of active noise canceling, it’s not the worst. That honor goes to the Sennheiser, but it’s far behind the Sony and Bose in terms of general noise canceling. So things like human chatter, the rumbling of public transport, your wife screaming at you for not doing the dishes, those can still be heard through the Apollo’s ANC.

👉 Have a listen to the ANC quality samples

Transparency Mode

For transparency mode the Noble Apollo isn’t the best one here. It does amplify much of the lower midrange and bass frequencies, but as you can see in these measurements, there is a steep fall off in the upper mids and highs compared to the base noise level represented by the white line.

This means general ambient sounds and voices will sound muffled, which can be uncomfortable if you’re having face to face verbal exchanges. You may even have to take the headphones off to hear what they’re saying. However its ambient passthrough is a little crisper than the Sennheiser’s.

Sound Quality

As for sound quality, the Noble Apollo sounds awesome. Smooth, sweet vocals, lots of detail and texture, and accurate soundstaging. And this is over Bluetooth! They’ve got heavier emphasis on mids and highs so vocals and instruments do sound more forward, but they don’t have as much focus on bass which sounded thin, not much body or gravity.

Whereas the Sony and Sennheisers both have a heavier, albeit darker, signature. For those of you who keep saying the Sony sounds too bassy, you will definitely prefer the Apollo’s sound. Compared to the Bose, the Apollo sounds tighter, more intimate, but the Bose sounds more laid back, non-fatiguing and thumpier.

Overall the Apollo sounds awesome,, but I expected more, perhaps because of how much I loved the FoKus Rex5’s depth and layering. This one has a more typical flat, non-3D sound over Bluetooth which is not a deal breaker, but definitely not as HiFi as I hoped.

👉 Have a listen to the sound quality samples

Can’t do much about layering, but I also wanted more bass, so I tried tweaking it in the Noble FoKus app. Doing so, the hearing test did bring out a bit more gravity, and it does respond pretty well to the 10-band EQ.

But there are guardrails to prevent you from going too high in each band, so no matter what I did, I couldn’t bring out the bass properly. There’s just too little thump or gravity, and at max settings, it just sounds boomy. EQ-ing also cuts the volume by about 10-15% which isn’t ideal.

Turns out, the Apollo’s sound quality heavily depends on how it’s connected. If it’s over Bluetooth, it sounds great. But it sounds much better over USB-C. It’s like they’re using a totally different DAC in there which delivers the actual Noble reference sound.

There’s 3D-layering, there’s the rich, thumpy bass that wasn’t there on Bluetooth. Vocals sound smoother and richer, all coming to life from a super low noise floor. That is the audiophile quality sound that I expect from Noble. The EQ settings from the app don’t work over wired, so you only get the default signature, but even without it, it just sounds awesome over USB.

👉 Have a listen to the sound quality samples from USB-C

The 3.5mm Jack

If it’s over the 3.5mm analogue connection, it sounds a bit darker, but similar to Bluetooth. However, there’s a problem - It’s a horrible jack! The main reasons I would use it is because it’s a TRRS jack, so it takes both stereo and microphone audio, perfect for gaming, and that the audio still works even though the headphones are turned off. But whoever put the analogue jack in there did a terrible job.

Because when it’s turned off, it goes into an inverted phase, meaning the waveform gets flipped, and what’s supposed to sound near now sounds far, diffused and distorted. When you turn on the headphones, the phasing goes back to normal, but I can now hear signal noise from the DAC. It’s the same thing wherther it’s the stock cable or my own cable.

My guess is that the jack was wired out of phase, but they didn’t bother to correct that, instead, they simply inverted the signal back to normal digitally. (Haiyo…) Given how expensive these headphones are, I expected better because I have not encountered these issues with any headphones that support 3.5mm, whether TRS or TRRS.

👉 Have a listen to the sound quality samples from 3.5mm jack

Conclusion

Overall, the main reasons to buy the FoKus Apollo are for the sound and battery. But - its horrible analogue jack, poor noise filtering for its mics, and average noise canceling and transparency performance makes it less appealing given that these are the most expensive headphones in this comparison.

Now, about how comfortable they are to wear, these are not heavy. They clamp just as much as the others, but their huge cushions are pressing more against my temples, which does need some getting used to.

What I do like about those plush, thick and deep cushions is the lower sound leakage. You can be blasting, and the person next to you can’t really hear what you’re playing. The other headphones? Not so much. Apart from that, I also like that it has a separate boom mic, and Noble is quite generous with accessories. But for the Apollo to stand out in this crowded landscape, it needs to have more than that.

Check Latest Prices:
Noble FoKus Apollo - Link TBA (RRP $649)
Sony WH-1000XM6 - https://amzn.to/4n6OcuL
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones - https://amzn.to/3UecNzS
Sennheiser Momentum 4 - https://amzn.to/3TAxQOb