I second this opinion. For the kind of great sound quality Noble seems to stand for, the colours in the universal line is cringe-worthy. Check the photos in plain day light, not the studio shots done in soft light and color-corrected. I may not be the only one who would hate to see such ghastly coloured globes hanging around my ears. They suggest very alternative sexuality, not that everyone doesn't have room in this world. Not to mention the dual colour theme, one of which is actually silver or white offering too shocking a contrast to the already ghastly colours and a failed attempt to hide the big housing size. It is for a reason that many manufacturers of many portable products, headphones or others, choose either black or black-like colours -
black absorbs light and the wearable product doesn't pounce out when a person steps out of home. Not to mention the nature of black as a colour - which makes the size of the product appear smaller than it actually is and also hides the unwieldy curves, if any. Noble could've chosen black or near-black colours with preferably mono or, no problem, dual colour themes of dark colours the way 64Audio did for its all-black U series or InEar did for its StageDiver series or Unique Melody did for its universals or recently iBasso did for IT03. It is hard to believe that Noble, the company that designs such sexy designs in customs and Prestige series offers such an anticlimax with the unmentionable colours of its Universals. Let us not even talk about grooves of metal as the material choice they picked for universals. And the blob-shape that looks like some kind of cancerous growth out of ears. The sound out of Noble universals may be like nectar of gods to our ears but their designs and colours of their Universals are like a cross one has to carry around one's ears. All because some of us don't prefer to use CIEMs that penetrate so deep into the ear canal that homophobia is not far ahead, brain infection or not. The Wizard's design love that goes into CIEM housings simply isn't the same that does into Universals. #UniversalsLivesMatter! ALSO, why, why, why, WHY the hell the housing sizes of universals of Noble, Empire Ears, Rhaphsody, Heir Audio and every other manufacturer are still, even in 2017, SO BIG, despite the fact that 64Audio and InEars of StageDivers and recently Campfire Audio have shown that housing size of Universals CAN be 20%-30% smaller than what they used to be two years ago for the same number of drivers?!!!
Sarcasm is uncalled for. He broached a valid point concerning Noble in Noble thread. Noble love is fine but why attack someone who is yet to afford a Noble product but questions something about its design philosophy like a pack of dogs with one Noble BFF or other leading it? Somebody said, "patriotism is fine but why should love stop at the border?" I don't remember who.
You know nothing John Snow
Campfire audio, while some of their products are small, surprisingly so, they dont contain the same type of drivers. Number and type are two different animals all together.
Some companies rely on the DTEC drivers for bass production, some rely on the CI. As often said in the car industry, there is no replacement for displacement, and the CI driver moves a lot of air offering up a nice deep rich bass sound quality.
The ci is essentially the largest bass driver in the industry, and a lot of designs used today use dual ci drivers.
As far as why are housings big across the industry, while nobles are not the largest... the reason is for most companies, one housing can be used for multiple designs. Much like one car, can hold a 4 banger, 6 or possibly a v8. It is more cost effective to have one housing that can contain many different designs.
Being lean, allows for lower retail prices, more design availablilty, more design flexability, and speedier product launches, as a housing doesnt have to be redesigned and re-tooled with every new product design.
A typical shell design starting price is over 20k USD, I suspect for most boutique audio companies, 20K is a lot of dosh to outlay.
As for grooves in metal....
You only get that level of accuracy and detail with cnc milling, which is very expensive compared to casting. Those grooves serve in several ways,
One it shows that the housing is truely cnc, not a casted wanabe cnc housing
Two, precission, it cant be matched
Three, quality through out, no short cuts in the flagship line up
Four..,, knock off prevention coppying our flag ship housing would be very difficult to do, so difficult, the juice wouldnt be worth the squeeze.
As for colors etc etc, well that is your subjective analyssis. Ive had a lot of folks say they hate the color of the dulce bass, and a lot of folks say they love it.
So far, warts and all, the product launch has exceeded my expectations.
Thanks for the orders, they are greatly appreciated
