Nouske NH-17 dual driver in-ear headphones with In-line Microphone and Remote,Gold

bass and mids weren't too bad. Highs were exceedingly shrill and sparkly. Compared to the very well balanced Hifiman RE-400, the highs in the NH-14 were painful to listen to for extended periods.I used to use the Scosche IEM856 with BA/driver which were as balanced, if not a bit bassier, than the RE-400. But then I got an iPhone 7, so I use a standalone bluetooth receiver that has remote control and mictrophone, so I didn't need the controls with the IEM856. Thought the BA/driver setup with the NH-14 would be similar, but alas it is not. Much worse. Spend your money on the RE-400 for the same price.

I was asked to test and review this product.When asked I was told that they wanted reviewers with experience on hybrid BA tech and I was surprised. While I have reviewed and heard a few more hybrids, I hardly consider myself an expert except on one thing, and so I answered them no. Having started in audio as a kid and running 2 inch tape machines at 30 fps by the late 80's and then switching to digital around 1992, I can say that I know two way audio reproduction and that's what the hybrid part is all about, these are using the equivalent of a woofer and tweeter in a speaker. My expertise lies in audio reproduction, and I suppose that I could also include troubleshooting it.The balanced armature part I didn't even recall knowing about at first and when I looked it up, well, at least some of it came back to me, but I'm more likely to set up flying arrays at a concert then think about tiny balanced armature drivers. Basically, balanced armature is a reference to another method of moving a speaker cone instead of using a voice coil, to simplify, by attaching one side of a teeter totter armature to the cone while the other is a coil inside a magnet. Now the signal acts on the coil side of the armature making it an electromagnet within the permanent magnets field and teetering the balance to move the cone, and if you crave more info, look it up, I need to tell you about these 'phones.These will arrive in impressive packaging that's more like a jewelry box and I pictured my Mother lovingly preparing it for me. I don't know, but the twist tie was wrapped but not twisted tight on the cable and the three additional rubber tips that are included, looked as though they'd been put into the foam using a level, it just didn't have a assembly line feel to it, although mine was shipped from amazon. Nice is what came to mind.Now I've listened to these a lot since their arrival almost three weeks ago, which in itself means that I enjoy them, but I feel sometimes like I'm wasting their audio reproduction because I'll admit it, I have compressed files on my phone. So the majority of the time they have been listened to from a USB DAC headphone amp using uncompressed music files in a mix from Ella to Little Stevie singing about her, up to today's music and freshly mastered tracks from my own facility. I've also spent considerable time listening to movies and TV from the same setup. To explain this, I have a rolling cart with a tower, a dual output DAC and a big monitor 18 inches from my nose when I'm in bed, and this is important.Because I've worn these 8 hours at a time and even with my head on a pillow they are so comfortable. I can also enjoy that I hear the audio tracks in movies and TV clear enough to know what keyboard brand that those tracks came from and if the engineer was using just a bit too much compression so that it causes pumping. Welcome to my world of watching an otherwise silly TV show, I also spent a couple of years doing this myself.Here's what I hear listening to these after adjusting the rubber tips for the best sound in my ears. First and foremost is the clarity of sound and this is typically because of a fast response and a good driver balance, like a really good x-over using good drivers will have in speakers. I'm hearing extremely clear sound from speech that compares with my $300 headsets, but let's also talk about the extended frequencies that are below 125Hz and above speech or about 8kHz and up.The low end is really good, I use a set of bi-amp near field studio monitors and a sub from this DAC also, and I set them for a nearly flat response and the bass matches up nicely without any EQ adjustment when plugging these into it's headphone amp. Although I believe that some might say that these have too much bass, I say set your EQ flat and tell me that, they don't and I think that you'll agree that they just aren't lacking like the others and that they need very little low end boost if any. After all no EQ is a good thing isn't it? I do like pushing it up at 60Hz and below and they will mimic a sub nicely.However I can't say the same about the highs. I wanted to bump a half a dB by 8k and start a rise from there. I'm still not using a lot of EQ, where some headsets might need a 6-8 dB change. Just a rise up to +3 dB at the top will do for a mixed playlist or a movie and it's just because I didn't want to disturb the lovely clarity of the mid frequencies by lowering any, besides, I'm more likely to hear EQ artifacts created below 10k. So in other words, the guitars and vocals are great and the kick drum and bass guitar are awfully close all with no EQ, but the cymbals and what I call the 'air' is lacking a just a bit, riding a little low of a flat frequency response to my own ears.CONCLUSIONThe Nouske NH-14 is a really great set of in ears, whose clarity of sound will allow you to hear sounds on tracks that you may have never heard before, even this old cat picked up another track off a Steely Dan song that I've heard countless times and don't recall ever hearing before. Just remember that through my very nice players that these are sounding very good without EQ and require little when compared to most headphones in this price range. Many users might be trying there players 'EQ settings' and you'll end up closest with a 'Rock' setting but without the bass boost it normally provides if you want a flat response from them.So these aren't perfect and I'm also picking up microphonics from the cable, but only after the split and not the lower portion. A clip will reduce this to almost nothing, but to say that I'm disappointed is an understatement. Why and how could the maker let this fly on such a nice product otherwise? Well, remember that I'm picky, picky, picky about audio reproduction and that I didn't even notice it at first, but now you know that it's there.Except for this, ahem, oversight, this is such a nice set that I know that most anyone buying these will enjoy their quality and audio reproduction if you want to hear it very clear and with a present feel like near field studio monitors provide. No phone answering capabilities if you didn't notice, and I've always thought that headphones were about intense listening myself, so this suits me fine because I don't want to be bothered when concentrating on the audio. These are very lightweight and comfortable for me and they have yet to fall from my ears. These don't show up in cheap plastic packaging, but they don't come with a carrying case either, which would be desirable for many.So guys, you'll want to be aware of using a clip on the cord to reduce microphonics, needing a carrying case and what I personally found out about the audio reproduction. You can pretty much trust me about that, I've had a hand in national and international public recordings for about 25 years now and although I've lost some of the highs from my own ears since I was a teenager, I have a tone generator and can still hear 20kHz just fine. Listening with the NH-14 is much like a $600 pair of bi-amped near fields like I'm using or a $100+ set of over ears that are very forward and present. They're closer to studio, rather than a consumer products sound.Otherwise, I don't know what you'd expect for $50, but the audio reproduction of these will rival many of my 100-$200 on and over ear headsets that I own and they are more comfortable to wear than most of the on ears. I have spent many hours with 7 other headphones around me to compare to these and several of the $100 models don't sound this good. Let's not even talk about all the BlueTooth headsets that I have tested at 50-$100 recently, because even the best of them through this same setup of mine with it's aptX transmitter, are in a whole other class, two or three steps below this headset.I'm really having a right and left side battle as to whether these should be rated 4 or 5 stars, teetering up and down just like the balanced armature in this headset, but you've heard my arguments for and against, so I'm going with 4.5 stars rounded to 5. Because unless you want these for workouts, the microphonics won't be an issue and because of their low $50 price today on such a nice headset that could be in the $100 class instead.