NOX Audio Specialist Review
In this week's hardware review, MMORPG.com correspondent Carolyn Koh takes on the NOX Audio Specialist headset. As the 'new kid on the block', NOX has a lot to prove. Does the Audio Specialist headset make the cut? Find out in Carolyn Koh's comprehensive report.
Hardware Reviews By Carolyn Koh on July 22, 2010
I was asked to take a listen to the NOX Audio Specialist at E3. “They are a company that made OEM audio products for other companies,” I was told, “This is the launch of their own brand.”
Color me skeptical. I’m tough on sound and music reproduction, and especially on headphones. I’m a classically trained singer and pianist with perfect pitch. I work in high-performance audio in my day job, with speakers and components that are the Lamborghinis of the audio world. Most headphones give me a headache after a half hour at most. Some I cannot bear for longer than ten minutes at a time. The person I spoke to at the booth wasn’t a “talking head,” instead they handed me to the Acoustic Engineer, Ralph Isaacson, almost immediately and we talked tech specs and design philosophy. So I brought the head set home to review.
The Specs
The NOX Audio Specialist is a closed-type, supra-aural headset. That is to say, ear-pieces with hard backs and the ear cups sit on the ears. This can sometimes be uncomfortable but the Specialist is light enough and the head band “springy” enough that they were comfortable and did not put undue pressure on my ears. They also come with a detachable cable with mini-jack for connecting to portable electronics such as iPods, PSPs, CD players and the like, and a PC splitter with the familiar pink and green color coded jacks. I never remember which designates the mike and which the headphones, so I was glad to see the little symbols on the connectors.
Drivers: Dual 26mm Mylar
Frequency Response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz
Noise Reduction: 6 dB @ 1 kHz
Sensitivity: 104 dBSPL @ 1 kHz
Weight: 0.3lbs
There are two identical speakers in each ear-cup, supporting each other in sound. The choice in material is pretty common for small speakers and Ralph corroborated my deductions when I asked him about the specs of the drivers. “Mylar is really the only option commonly available to ensure that the Specialist headset would retain our expectations of sound quality while keeping manufacturing costs low.” He said, “and both drivers have identically-tuned frequency ranges; it was our intent to do so as this setup lets each driver reinforce the other.”
At E3, we had also talked about frequency response and the curve I took of the headphones was no surprise. “There’s no distortion,” Ralph had told me confidently, “Shoot all the curves you want.”
Headphones take the resonance of the ear canal into consideration in the design and we are looking really at 500Hz on up on the curve below. It shows a common emphasis on the mid-frequencies – where the human voice lies – that rolls off nicely with no distortion in the high frequencies.
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Fit and Finish
The Specialist is made for portability and the design is clever. The ear cups fold up. The boom mike retracts. The backs of the ear cups are not just a clever design, they provide finger grips to wind up the mike boom on the left and acts as the volume control on the right. If only listening to music, the tiny switch to turn off the mike is on the underside of the right ear cup, where the mini-USB connector lies. They come in the standard black, or a choice of three accent colors, red, blue and green, packed in a zippered hard case.
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Game & Movie Sound
Ambient sound and music aside, MMOs traditionally do not have the best sound in terms of soundstage and image. All Points Bulletin (APB) by Real Time Worlds is the curve breaker in this genre, managing to create an impressive amount of depth of field with its sound. As your character moves around in the world, the sound of vehicles and gunfire fade in and out. You can hear a car radio blasting away as it approaches and then passes you, fading into the distance. The NOX Specialist took this in stride, the handling of sound dynamics managed to create a sense of distance. Imaging was as pinpoint as could be hoped to be achieved with head phones. That is to say, not great but it did contain that bit of magic to impart the impression of direction, depth and distance.
The complex cacophonic sounds of battle did not phase it either as I plunged into combat in a raid or in Lost Planet on the Xbox360 (I used a ¼” adapter and plugged it into my processor). I also took it through several movies. The headphones brought whatever was dominant in a recording boldly front and center. In terms of MMOs and movies this was voices and voice chat. In terms of music, this sometimes skewed the balance as voices were brought far forward from the orchestra.
Given that this is a budget gaming headset and designed to do exactly that – i.e. make sure voice chat was audible over any mélange of sound that could be experienced during game play, I certainly cannot fault it. NOX Audio also sells an adaptor (the Negotiator) separately that acts both as balance control and connects into console controllers. This adaptor is also packaged together with the Specialist in a gaming bundle.
Critical Listening with Music
For a set of entry-level headphones, the resolution is delightful and the fidelity – the accurate depiction of voices and instruments is impressive. I was so grudgingly impressed, I started looking for faults. Since Ralph claimed a frequency response of 20 to 20 (the range of human hearing), I pulled out the heavy guns – High Definition tracks and High-Resolution files. The bass heavy, the complex voices, the clean instrument sounds. I trotted out Aaron Copland’s FanFare for the Common Man. Ha! The gong distorted a little and the sound of the tympani wasn’t true.
“Stop trying to push that poor little thing to distortion,” my brother, the award winning loudspeaker designer I work with, laughed at me. “They are not audiophile headphones.”
No, they are not, and they had handled all the other bass heavy pieces with aplomb. Way Down Deep by Jennifer Warnes, No Sanctuary Here by Chris Jones (Stockfisch Records), the lush interplay of sounds in Novus by Santana and Domingo.
As mentioned previously, voices are brought forward so depending on the recording, this can be just noticeable or it can be awkwardly off-balance like it was in Time to Say Goodbye by Brightman and Bocelli. Despite that, I still found myself tapping my foot and swaying to many pieces of music – even complex Latin rhythms, showing that PRAT (Pace, Rhythm And Timing) was spot on. The NOX Specialist even handled an 8-part Bach motet – complex baroque polyphony without muddling the sound. I love trotting out this particular piece, J.S. Bach’s Komm, Jesu, Komm by The Scholars Baroque Ensemble for testing resolution.
Conclusion
Color me impressed. Add another zero to the MSRP of $79.99 and we’ll talk about high resolution detail, fidelity, audiophile quality and goosebumps from listening to music. As a budget headset, an entry-level product, indeed the inaugural product by NOX Audio, the Specialist is truly impressive. NOX currently has a 30-day no questions asked return policy. I highly recommend anyone in the market for a budget gaming head-set give this one a trial.
Carolyn, is there any way you can test the clarity of the microphone? Great sound from the headphones is nice, but if you sound like you're talking through a blender in a windstorm, then the headset is junk for gaming/raiding.
Thanks in advance!
I've really never seen such pompous arrogance in a review before, and I'm quite sure all of it was unwarranted. No one knows or cares who you are, you impress no one with your sophomoric music and audio terminology. Have fun with your lambo earphones lawl.
Actually a lot of us do care, which is why we asked her to do more reviews after the first one was posted. They're well written and technically adept.
Don't conflate your own ignorance and lack of interest with everyone else's opinion. If you're not interested, don't read them.
Good review here again. After your last review, which got me interested in the tech behind good headphones, I finally bought the Sennheiser HD448 headphones. I'm still getting used to them but am blown away by the quality of sound you can get out of them.
You make the NOX set sound interesting though.
Your defensive mechanism is running rampant with that response. Really, it's OK for someone to state credentials and be proud of their ability, especially when in the realm of something they are passionate about. It's only processed as arrogance in your head.
Actually, yes, some of us do care, which, as hikariuk pointed out already, is why several of us have specifically asked the author to do more reviews of this kind.
As a professional who has worked in the television industry, I know an awful lot about many things having to do with video quality. Sound, however, is not my department and I don't know jack about it...so I'd rather seek a qualified opinion from someone who does rather than the guy making minimum wage at the electronics store.
Thanks for the nice review.
I'm also interested in more of these kinds of reviews - specifically covering some of the "3D - Gaming Headsets" that can be found out there. What is the difference between them and regular gaming headsets as far as direction and depth of sound go? Do they work any better?
And as another poster noted, some testing and information on the microphone quality would be great.
Thanks again.
NOX...reminds me of the great fun game for the PC back in 2000.
Thanks for a great review.
I've been looking for a good but not terribly pricy set of heatphones for a while now.
I was very close to trying Sennheiser'd 350s or 280s but was a bit concerned that in both cases, bass seemed to be an issue in reviews. both are in the $100-$150 range.
Just looking for a gaming set. For music I have an aging but still incredible set of studio monitors with an Altec Lansing 604E (hmm, or was it C) as the central speakers in each box.
This puppy sounds like it is exactly what I was looking for.
Thanks again
ps: thanks for posting credentials. Non-professional reviews are all over the map.
So, I'm a totaly audionoob. And the frequency chart doesn't say everything. And though I can understand that the high-freq dip on the Tritton headset is bad, it is more stable overall. This headset has quite the long-band drop in the center (though, sure, the graph starts at 60, it drops 30%. Is that that voice-clarification you mentioned, dropping these other frequencies on purpose?
Also, is the sensitivity of the human ear to different frequencies taken into account in that graph? If not, does it matter much?
Just trying to learn a bit.
They look ok, I thought the headphones would be more when I first looked at them in the case. I was thinking like 200 or so for some reason but I supose I was really only thinking around 160. Still there only 79 dollars and look ok, they kinda look like a pez dispencer or something, I cant explain it. Nice that they are mobile though. I love headphones and reading about them. So cool.
Huh huh, I wasnt expecting this. Rolfmou! Rolerskates to the extream yippy!
good review, glad to see another tech review. I'll have to consider NOX the next time i want to buy a headset. Keep em coming
I once again really enjoyed that review, the geek part in me drooled at reading this well done article.
Please keep them coming! for now they are my favorites articles on that website ;)
Thanks for these headset reviews Carolyn.
Ever since your Tritton review you really got me motivated into looking into buying a good headset.I was always just content with your average earphones and never really thought of upgrading.
Whats even better is that you have the knowledge,backround,and equipment at your disposal to really put these products to the test and reveal which is the best product for the money!
Will you be reviewing Razer at all? I'll probably hold out on buying until I read a couple more of your reviews. ; )
Thanks for the review :). I have an AKG, but been interested in a gaming headset. Looking forward to more reviews before I decide on buying one. And the name "Nox" reminded me of a little game from way back when ^^.
Spend about $30 more and you can get one of the best gaming headsets made. http://www.medusa-usa.com/medusa-nx-51-gaming-headset-p-954.html no, I don't work for this company or any hardware manufacturing company for that matter. I'm just a user of the headset I just mentioned and am completely blown away by them. You cannot go wrong with these.
I know this will not get listend to. But please consider revieing the Sennheiser PC 350. I am so impressed by this headset I feel it deserves your review. It is,
1. Comfortable.
2. Durable.
3. Has Crisp Clean Sound.
4. Cheapish.
I say cheapish as it is more expansive than this headset, although I feel bang for buck this heaset sets a new standard. It is only slightly more expensive, yet offers worlds more sound for the extra price. Please consider reviewing this priduct as Sennheiser deserves a good review for trying as hard as they did with this head set.
Must say for music i have never ever loved anything more than the Turbine: Monster "In-Ear speakers." And for drumming i use Sennheiser HD 465, great bass in them.
However this was very exciting to read about thanks for giving us this review i might go out and test one. Continue writing reviews Carolyn!
if you want real headphones buy Beyer-Dynamic
Are these being sold through regular retailers or can you only get them through NOX audio?
I, like most others, appreciate the knowledgeable review, especially since I exclusively use headphones on my PC.
The "holy grail" for me would be a good set of of 5.1 (or better, 7.1) headphones that don't break the bank. The 7.1 can be virtual as long as it's reproduced well. The head set that I have now (ABS AZ-1) has actually given me a blister on each ear. It doesn't get much more uncomfortable than this.
Great review, as usual, Carolyn. Keep 'em coming!
I've always mostly despised headsets, but I've been needing something decent, and portable...
Voices were clear through game sound but perhaps I didn't make that clear in my review. As for measurable clarity tests... you and other posters have me thinking. I'll have to tap a recording engineer friend for help.
Cheers.
Carolyn
{edited for typos}
I need a headset with a replaceable micro. And more important, it should play music like this loud. Not only today, it should survive for a while.
My Fatality-headset is dying daily, so I need to buy a new one.
Microphone is not abbreviated with "mike" it's abbreviated with "mic". And for someone who's a correspondence for this type of thing and suppposed to be some type of professional, I would expect you to know the difference between the headphone jack and the microphone jack. I couldn't read any further than that, because I thought I would nitpick the entire article and I just don't have time for that.
The articles here do tend to read like they've been written in a rush. I've always wondered about that, myself. However, there is good information in the article in spite of the grammar.
You seem to be out of sorts today and ill informed. Just to wake you up to the fact that a lot of posters on this forum don't have English as their native language so most of us make allowances. If you look closely you entered misspelled words also. The old pot calling the kettle black.
If you nitpick that article how do you read anything? It was one of the better articles I have read lately!
And I would expect you to know the difference between "correspondence" and "correspondent." I couldn't read any further than that, because I thought I would nitpick your entire post and I just don't have time for that.