There’s no lack of choice when it comes to wireless earbuds these days. Melbourne based audio specialists Nura have distinguished themselves in the wireless audio market by offering a personalised audio experience which began with their first headphones, launched on Kickstarter in 2015. Their latest effort, the NuraTrue Pro earbuds also launched on Kickstarter, but they’re now available on the Nura website.
At $499, they’re definitely in the premium category of wireless earbuds on the market, however the NuraTrue Pro includes all the features you expect from those high-end earbuds including Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), Multipoint connectivity, IPX4 water resistance and excellent long lasting battery life with a charging case to charge them on the go.
Where the NuraTrue Pro differentiate themselves is in the additional features they offer which include Spatial Audio, Perfect fit detection and Personalised sound as well as CD-quality Lossless audio using Qualcomm’s aptX which can deliver ‘uncompressed, bit-perfect 16 bit 44.1kHz audio quality over Bluetooth’.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so Nura has sent across a pair of the NuraTrue Pro earbuds for us to check out. Over Christmas I’ve been using them to test these new features.
The NuraTrue Pro earbuds have a distinctive design with a large outer disc with the Nura logo which certainly stands out while you’re wearing them. The larger 26mm disc design may look large, but it certainly helps with the touch controls – which can be customised in the companion app – with the larger surface area much easier to hit.
The NuraTrue disc design contains a lot of the internal components for the earbud, with a small part that fits in your ear on the other side which can be customised with a range of eartips and wing tips included in the box.
Where most earbuds come with three sizes of eartips, the NuraTrue Pro comes with four – XS, S, M and L, as well as a pair of foam tips for a comfortable option. There’s also a choice of two wing tips, a shorter one and one with a longer fin to ensure they stay snug in your ear while you work out or just go walking. I went for a run with them and didn’t feel they were ever in danger of falling out – nor being damaged with sweat or the rain with their IPx4 rating. They’re extremely comfortable to wear when you get the right eartips, something the app can help you with.
The Nura app – available for Android and iOS – will run through a fit test to ensure you’re using the optimal eartips for your ears. Once fitted, the Nura app runs through a series of tests to build your own personalised audio profile.
The app itself holds a few features, you can choose from your personalised or the ‘natural’ audio profile, as well as access the Equaliser which includes an immersion slider. The app also lets you see the battery level for your earbuds, and access various settings including enabling Multipoint audio, activating Spatial Audio and more.
The app also lets you configure the touch controls, though the default options are pretty intuitive with the a single touch on the left bud enabling social mode, while a tap on the right will play/pause music or answer a call. The only change I made was to the Double Tap and hold which I added volume down (Left) and volume up (Right).
Once you’re done setting up your profile, you’re free to start using the NuraTrue Pro buds, or store them in the included charge case.
The charge case recharges the buds when not in use. The buds hold around 8 hours of charge, while the charging case holds up to three recharges and can be charged via USB-C (cable included in the box) or wireless Qi charging.
In terms of real time use, I used them for hours each day, walking the dog, exercising and just working around the house and they lasted over two weeks before needing a recharge.
You can check the battery status in the Nura app on your phone, or just in the Bluetooth settings, or there’s another feature I quite liked which are the LED indicators on the front of the charging case which show how much battery life you have left in the case, as well as each bud. A green LED shows battery above 70%, while a yellow shows between 30-70% and red is less than 30%.
There’s also a verbal warning when your earbuds need charging which I love, with a ‘Battery Low’ coming on when they are no longer picking up charge in the case, before a ‘Battery Critical’ alert coming through just before they power off so you know it’s a low battery rather than an issue with the buds.
Pulling the buds out of the case can be a little difficult if you’ve trimmed your nails, but once out you simply insert them in your ears and you’ll be greeted with a ‘Welcome Back, bluetooth connected’ message as the buds re-connect with your device.
You can connect to multiple devices using the Multipoint connectivity feature and I paired with my PC and phone so I could use my PC and have the buds automatically switch to my phone in the event of a call coming in. Multipoint has become one of those must-have features for all my earbuds and it works seamlessly on the NuraTrue Pro earbuds.
The NuraTrue Pro earbuds are now my de facto go to earbuds when I’m heading out the door. The personalised sound profile sounds fantastic, the Active Noise Cancellation is good and the social mode on the NuraTrue Pro have become my new standard to compare to.
The social mode has very little lag which makes for a very usable experience while you’re wearing them and speaking with people.
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is good on the NuraTrue Pro, giving me a quiet experience while at the gym or walking through shopping centres. It’s easily accessible with the toggle between ANC and Social modes, a simple touch away on the left earbud and makes life a little better. The ANC is not quite as good as say the Bose QC Earbuds, but around on-par with the Pixel Buds Pro, but the Social mode is better than both to my ears.
In terms of audio quality, the personalised profile is excellent. There’s a noticeable difference in quality between the default audio profile and the personalised profile the app builds for you based on the otoacoustic emissions from your cochlea. It’s fairly easy to test as well, simply toggle it on or off in the app to get a feel for how good it is.
The Nura app includes an option for a 90-day Tidal subscription to really test out the benefits of lossless audio. The Nura Support page advises that aptX lossless requires Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Mobile Platform and according to their support page, the only two phones supported are the ‘ASUS ROG6 and Asus Zenfone 9’ but more devices will be coming this year. That said, using Tidal or the lossless tier on Apple Music, the NuraTrue Pro buds sound fantastic.
As I grow older, I have come to appreciate the better clarity of lossless audio when I listen to it. The Tidal subscription allowed me to check out a lot of the music I normally listen to. Scott has created a great, varied playlist that hits a lot of high notes for different genres which I copied into Tidal for testing.
I’m more on the Enya side of things when it comes to music genres as opposed to Slip Knot, but it’s a varied list and there’s some real high notes across the list. There’s a crisp sound to the
There’s limited support for Spatial Audio on Android – it requires Dolby Atmos support – so my Pixel 7 Pro and a lot of Android phones don’t support it. That said, it’s pretty well supported on iOS devices, however my older iPhone does not support it. So, I borrowed an iPhone and tested it out.
As a whole, Spatial Audio works well, although the hoops you have to jump through to attain the spatial audio, including having an iOS device and an Apple music subscription aren’t particularly appealing to everyone.
Android does support spatial audio through a Spatializer API and there are tests on YouTube which work quite well.
There is Spatial Audio support for Windows – though it requires you to purchase the Dolby Access app which includes a $22.45 one-off payment for Dolby Atmos support which lets you use it on up to 10 devices.
I bit the bullet and also tried it on there and it works with various YouTube videos offering spatial audio as well as using the Tidal app and the Dolby Atmos playlist created by the Tidal staff.
The NuraTrue Pro wireless earbuds are excellent quality, offering a great range of features with high quality components that make listening to music a very enjoyable experience.
The $499 price tag will put them out of the range of a lot of people unless lossless audio is an absolute essential for them. The currently limited availability of the Qualcomm’s aptX Lossless codec is, in the short term, a bit of a barrier to Android users, as well as iOS users whose devices don’t use the Qualcomm chipsets – though the lossless codecs both support natively do sound amazing.
iOS users will get some additional benefit with the spatial audio though, especially if subscribed to Apple Music or other services such as Tidal which offer it, though Android users also find some support on devices with Dolby Atmos support.
When it comes down to it, the NuraTrue Pro earbuds are very comfortable to wear with excellent battery life, good Active Noise Cancellation and great social mode. I foresee them becoming more popular as devices appear that can truly support the higher end features.
If you’re not interested in the higher end features though, there are a few better options to try at a cheaper price bracket which you can check out in Scott’s breakdown from late last year.
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