Photo: Nura / Composite by VICE Staff
Is anyone else mystified by how quickly we, as a society, switched over from wired headphones to wireless earbuds? Unlike, say, the flip-phone-to-smart-phone pipeline, which took a solid decade, it felt like AirPods dropped and six months later, wearing wired headphones was… nostalgic?! Anyway, I have to admit that as someone who held out for a slightly ridiculous amount of time to make the switch myself, I’m now thoroughly addicted to wearing earbuds, especially when taking hot-girl nature walks, listening to Where Should We Begin? at the gym, and making phone calls in public. No more helplessly attempting to untangle a labyrinth of wires every time I sit down on the subway; no more realizing that the port of my wired earbuds doesn’t match the input of whatever device I’m using. Bluetooth, baby!
It’s also incredible how good earbuds sound now—it’s truly like having miniature high-end speakers nestled right into your ears when it comes to the top models. And the demand is there; even audiophiles need to do plenty of activities for which massive, over-the-ear headphones are straight-up awkward, but don’t want to sacrifice sound quality.
Enter Nura, the wireless earbuds that have straight blown up on Kickstarter. The NuraTrue Pros are the first wireless earbuds to support lossless audio over Bluetooth, which is bananas. Back in 2018, Nura developed adaptive headphones that actually self-personalize in just 30 seconds using soundwave technology. These high-tech headphones can actually adjust according to your own inner ear shape and hearing levels, and the original campaign collected more than $1.8 million from donors and became Australia’s most-funded Kickstarter at the time, as well as collected praise and accolades from tech and music publications the world over. TechCrunch said Nura’s personalized audio feature was “a genuinely exciting feature that’s managed to set the company apart from the teeming throngs of headphone makers.” Now, Nura is back with an even more futuristic product.
According to the campaign for the NuraTrue Pros—which has already collected over $1.6 million from an original goal of just $20,000—the new earbuds feature the same personalized effect as Nura’s first run of headphones, but now also offer adaptive noise cancellation and that tantalizing lossless, CD-quality audio and “uncompressed, bit-perfect fidelity that typically requires expensive, high-end equipment and a wired connection to reproduce.” The timing couldn’t be better, because major streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal have long experienced demand for higher-quality audio, and all recently announced or released support for this ultimate audiophile function.
If you’re still not clear on what lossless audio is or how it works, chew on this explanation from Nura’s Kickstarter page: “Lossless audio preserves all of the data from the original studio recording. In comparison, current Bluetooth streaming technology requires the amount of audio data to be compressed by 31%–56% in order to be transmitted, resulting in loss of detail and the addition of artifacts that negatively impact the listening experience. With Qualcomm aptX™ Lossless, CD-quality lossless audio (16-bit/44.1kHz) is transmitted and reproduced without any loss of information, exactly bit-for-bit as it was captured in the recording studio.” Couldn’t have said it better myself! That’s right—it’s like you were right there in the studio with Oneohtrix Point Never, Megadeth, or even Machine Gun Kelly, if that’s your thing. The brand even offers a demo with side-by-side comparisons of “Hotel California” in NuraTrue Pro quality versus AirPods Pro quality, as well as a clip specifically highlighting the differences.
So, how much do they cost? Short answer: They’re not cheap… BUT if you preorder the NuraTrue Pros through Kickstarter before the campaign ends next week, you’ll save big bucks. The NuraTrue Pros will be retailing for $329 when the campaign concludes, but if you invest now, you’ll get a pair for just $219, a savings of 33%. And yep, they ship anywhere in the world. Grab two pairs, and you’ll save even more. Hey, it’s July—Christmas is just around the corner!
So, are the NuraTrue Pros the most high-tech earbuds ever? It sure is looking like it. So if we were you, and if you were us, and if we were all really into listening to music through the highest-quality audio possible, which we are, we’d snap up a pair before the campaign ends on July 28.
Grab the NuraTrue Pros for $219 by pre-ordering them on Kickstarter before July 28, 2022.
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