Noble Audio Falcon Pro Review

It seems that we are gradually approaching the moment when TWS headphones and truly high-quality sound will not be mutually exclusive. The flagship model Noble Audio Falcon Pro is a vivid proof of that. The headphones managed to surprise with really great sound quality, which is a step above all TWS models.

Perhaps in terms of sound quality, the Noble Audio Falcon Pro is currently the best TWS headphones available. That's the main but not the only advantage of the model. They are very comfortable in both fit and control. It has a long battery life and protection against dust and moisture, which makes it suitable for sports activities. Noble Audio Falcon Pro is one of the most expensive TWS models on the market. And for some people the lack of active noise cancelling may be critical. Although the headphones have very good passive sound insulation as well.

About Noble Audio

Noble Audio is an American company founded in 2013 in California. The founders were John Moulton (Wizard) and Brannan Mason. The main directions were universal and custom in-ear headphones. The main goal was to produce models with the highest quality sound. The company has a lot of multidriver models, mostly for a very impressive price. Noble Audio engineers are not afraid to experiment and already use piezoelectric and electret drivers in a couple of their hybrid models. Considering the rapid growth in popularity of TWS headphones, it is not surprising that the company decided to test its strength in this segment as well. Besides the heroes of today's review, the flagship model Noble Audio Falcon Pro, there is also a more humble model Noble Audio Falcon 2.

What's in the box?

Noble Audio Falcon Pro comes in an elongated dark blue box with a picture of the headphones themselves and additional information. Inside we see the headphones themselves, a charging case, three pairs of self-developed ePro replaceable nozzles, a USB Type-C cable, documentation and a black velvet pouch for transportation. A very useful thing: usually TWS charging cases very quickly lose their presentable appearance and become covered with scratches.

Noble Audio Falcon Pro design

The Noble Audio Falcon Pro's bodies are quite large, as for the TWS model. This is not surprising, bearing in mind the use of a three driver hybrid circuit. The main part of the body is made of matte black plastic. And the outer covers are aluminum. Beautiful blue, teardrop-shaped, with a subtle concentric texture and Noble Audio logos.

Each headphone has oblong LEDs next to them to indicate the current status of the earbuds. They are off when playing music, flash white and orange in pairing mode, and light orange when the batteries are low and during charging.

When viewed from the side, a white Noble lettering is visible, next to it there is a visible seam: the headphones consist of two halves. But everything fits perfectly.

On the inside of each oearbds there are charging contacts, as well as the model name and left-right designations.

The Noble Audio Falcon Pro's sound ducts are quite long and have a trim on the end to securely hold the pads in place. Visually, the diameter is standard, or close to it. Anyway, the experiment with the SpinFit was a success. But ePro branded plugs turned out to be very good, so I chose them in the end.  Еhe sound ducts have traditional mesh.

Noble Audio Falcon Pro looks interesting and rather unusual. In terms of workmanship, everything is very good: the parts fit perfectly. There is protection against moisture according to the IPX5 standard, so nothing will happen to the headphones during sports or if you get under the rain. But, of course, you shouldn't plunge them in water.

The charging case is not the smallest. But that's fine with the support for Qi wireless charging. It looks interesting and is made in the same style as the headphones themselves. The main part is matte black plastic, and the lid is glossy blue with the model name. From the front there are four LED indicators of the charge level of the case.

The lid has an auto-flap when closing and holds well in this state. Inside the case everything is almost usual: there are places for the headphones with contacts for charging and magnets for retraction in the right position. As practice has shown, the design is not the most convenient: it is not so easy to take the headphones out of the case. Between the headphones there is a Reset button for resetting to default settings.

At the back of the case there is a USB Type-C port for charging. There are no other functional elements.

Noble Audio Falcon Pro is use

The headphones are lightweight and have a pretty good shape. They have an excellent deep fit in the ear canal, they are well fixed and do not strive to fly out of the ears, even when running. But at first I had to experiment a little to find the optimal position for me with better sound insulation. By the way, when choosing the right pads and the right fit, passive sound insulation is excellent. But for those who are afraid to isolate themselves from the outside world, there is a Hear Through transparency mode. The user hears the sound from microphones to hear what is happening around. The only important point to know about usability is that the earbuds stick out quite a bit beyond the ears. There is a chance that in winter it will not be very comfortable to wear a hat.

The headphones are built on SoC Qualcomm QCC3040, Bluetooth 5.2 is used. There is support for TrueWireless Mirroring and High Precision Connect technologies for a stable connection. And, it is worth noting that Noble Audio Falcon Pro is doing great wth that: I moved away from the smartphone for more than 10 meters, there was one wall between us, and at the same time the signal remained stable, without any interruptions. Codecs SBC, AAC, aptX and aptX Adaptive are also supported. The latter is capable of transmitting data with a dynamic bit rate from 279 kbps to 420 kbps, depending on the conditions and signal stability. Formally, this is lower than aptX HD with 576 kbps. But it is argued that thanks to new compression algorithms, aptX Adaptive can transmit 24bit / 48kHz, which corresponds to aptX HD. This is of course all good.

They unfortunately lack of LDAC support, which in ideal conditions can provide up to 990 kbps. Quite a strange solution for top TWS with great sound. It's especially frustrating when the entire phono library is in FLAC and there is a subscription to Deezer Hi-Fi.

To pair the earbuds with the source, simply remove them from the case and wait until the LEDs start flashing alternately orange and white. There are touch controls. A single touch on either earpiece - play/pause, answer the call. Track switching - double and triple tap on the right earpiece. Four taps on any earpiece - call the voice assistant. Triple-tap the left earpiece to increase the volume. Double tap to decrease the volume or activate transparency mode.

The Noble Sound Suite application is provided for setting up the headphones. There are only English and Japanese interface languages, although I don't see any problem with that. The application itself is a little damp: for some reason it connects to the headphones only on the second try. And this is a feature of the application: it has been tested on different smartphones from different manufacturers. The app displays the current charge of each earbud and the codec used. Using the application, the firmware is updated, you can turn on the transparency mode and adjust the equalizer. It is possible to change the actions to triple touch to the left earphone, as well as double and triple to the right. 

Sound quality and microphone

Usually we don't put much emphasis on the sound quality in the average TWS: often things are not too exciting there, if you're a melomaniac with plenty of experience with expensive wired Hi-Fi headphones. But with the Noble Audio Falcon Pro, the story is quite different. Knowing the company's reputation, expectations were pretty high. And the headphones managed to exceed those expectations. A hybrid circuit is responsible for the sound, which includes a three-layer 6-mm dynamic driver with titanium coating TLT Driver and a new twin Knowles SRDD balanced armatures.

To begin with a general impression, the first association with the sound of the Noble Audio Falcon Pro is that of a celebration with fireworks. In contrast to the squeezed with emphasis on humming bass sound of most TWS, Falcon Pro perfectly and fully reproduce the entire frequency range and do it very detailed, spectacularly, naturally, fascinating and with taste. In general, the AFC is traditionally a bit V-shaped, but exclusively in the best sense of the term. What is particularly pleasing is that the earphones are versatile in terms of music genres. Jazz, classical or ultimate extreme variations of metal as well as D'n'B and other electronic styles sound great in them. But there is a downside: the headphones are quite picky about the quality of the records themselves.

Low frequencies are just a little accentuated, there is enough of them, including the sub-bass. The woofers are crisp, with a very pleasant, resilient punch, excellent dynamics, depth, density and detail. They are well controlled and under no circumstances merge into a mushy hum. In spite of the minimum "sinking" of the midrange frequencies, you do not feel any lack of them: they sound very natural, detailed, with an abundance of fine features. Live instruments sound particularly pleasant and natural. The imaginary scene is very pleasantly surprised by its scale: we have never seen anything like this in TWS models before. It is very pleased with its width, depth, good separation and positioning of instruments. The high frequencies are a little accentuated: they have excellent detail and transparency. They allow you to hear even the smallest nuances of recordings and add overall "clarity" to the sound. But it's worth noting that at high volume on some recordings they can start to "cut" a little. So Noble Audio Falcon Pro HF-phobes may find them too bright.

Unfortunately, because of the design peculiarities, things are not so good with the microphones in the TWS models so far. This has affected the Noble Audio Falcon Pro as well. Yes, there is noise cancellation technology for Qualcomm CVC 8.0 microphones and in any (or almost any) situation the interlocutor hears the necessary information, but the voice comes out deaf. I was asked several times if I was in the bathroom.

Battery life

The manufacturer claims that the earbuds can work for 10 hours on a single charge at 70% volume and 5.5 hours at maximum volume. In real life I got 7.5-8 hours of work, which is very impressive. From the case you can charge the earphones three more times. So fully charged headphones with case will be enough for a week if you listen to music on the way to work / home and add to this three more workouts of one and a half to two hours. There is fast charging: 15 minutes in the case is enough for 2 hours of use. So Noble Audio Falcon Pro's battery life is more than good. And there's a little bonus: the case supports Qi wireless charging.

3 things to know about Noble Audio Falcon Pro:

• The best TWS earbuds available in terms of sound quality
• Long battery life
• Protecttion against dust and water according to IPX5 standard

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