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The perfect companion to iPhone 4/4S (NOCS NS400)

I was forced to start looking for a new set of earphones for my iPhone after I lost it; I left it on a table and when i went back about 5 mins later, it was gone…Thus my journey to search for the perfect companion to my iPhone 4S began.

After trying out various earphones from brands such as Sennheiser, Jays, Etymotic and so on, I decided to try my luck with this relatively new and unknown brand from Sweden - NOCS. And the rest, as they say, is history.

NOCS IS A SWEDISH BRAND FORMED 2008
BY A COUPLE OF GUYS ADDICTED TO APPLE PRODUCTS. NOCS WAS FORMED BECAUSE THERE WERE NO HEADPHONES THAT COULD MATCH THE APPLE PRODUCTS IN TERMS OF DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE. WE STRIVE TO WORK WITH THE
FINEST MATERIALS, SUCH AS ALUMINUM, STAINLESS STEEL, TITANIUM AND KEVLAR.

First Impression

This is what I got in the end. First impression, I love the understated design and look of it. The finishing, brushed titanium with black silicon sleeves, perfectly compliments my black iPhone. The cable is reinforced with Kevlar for maximum durability. The remote comes with 3 buttons that works the same way as the original remote on the apple earphones; the remote is important to me as, call me lazy, I really hate to take out my phone to skip track, adjust volume and answer calls.

Sound

I was given the opportunity to test out the earphones before purchasing it and was actually told these have pretty heavy bass. However what i was really impressed with is the clarity and sound separation of the sound produced, both excellent in my opinion. You can easily pick out and differentiate the various instruments used in the music you are listening to. Recently I have been listening to tracks by Angus and Julia Stone and I love how the guitar strumming sounds in this earphones! The bass is pretty good as suggested by the salesman; use a proper fitting sleeves for improved bass performance, although often at the expense of some clarity.

I actually tried out both the NS200 and NS400 as on paper, they seem like the same deal. Some reviews even suggested they sound similar. In my opinion, they are way different from one another. The difference is obvious enough to warrant the price difference. NS400 has more clarity and sounds much warmer. NS200 often sounds really harsh and bass is less controlled. I took me less than 1 minute to decide which of the 2 models is the better deal. I’m not sure if earphones needed to be hooked up to an amplifier, but NS400 shines when I used it with my hippo box+ amplifier.

Design

While I am in no way near having a golden ear, as an Industrial Design trained users, I’m inevitable sensitive to the design of any product I own. As NOCS is owned by a group of guys addicted to Apple products, it’s no surprise that their design took up the fame minimalist approach of Apple. I myself am a keen believer that things should be kept as simple as they can be, but not simpler. So does NS400 have a good balance of simplicity and functionality?

The earphones come with 6 extra sets of sleeves (2 S,2 M and 2 L). Personally i really appreciate this as from past experience, I tend to lose the odd sleeve here and there. I know the extras will come in really handy for me.

This is how the remote looks. In my opinion, this is 1 area they can really improve on. They are really trying to keep things as simple as they could by keeping to primitive shapes and keeping all the buttons identical. However the functionality suffers as a result; the button in the middle has a distinctly different function compared to the other 2. It is use to start/stop/skip tracks/activate SIRI while the other 2 buttons simply serve to adjust volume. As a result of having them totally identical, I often need to feel the remote for a while or even take a look at it to determine which button is which. I would suggest that a unique treatment/profile be given to the button in the middle such that it is obvious to the touch. This will also allow the middle button to act as a divider to the + and - volume button and greatly improve usability.

Another area of disappointment is the cable management feature (let’s call it the slider) that comes with it. As you can see with the photo above, the slider can only get as far as the remote. As a result, this feature becomes totally useless and redundant as the cable beyond that point will still get tangled. They could simply open up one end of the slide as per what Apple did to the slider so users can still slide it way up when needed.

Last but not least, while the earphone buds are really small and fit comfortably into your ears, you will have a hard time trying to figure out which goes left and which to go right as both the earphone buds looks exactly the same.

Sure it comes with text printed on it, but it really is too faint to be able to see it with ease. What I have to do in the end is to differentiate them by taking reference from the remote; the earphone connected to the remote is right and vice versa.

Conclusion

NS400 is probably the best valued earphones in it’s price range. The materials used are top notched with the sound to match its class. I hope they can improve on the various points mentioned above for their future releases!

KILLSPENCER’s iPhone 4 Black Veil