Received a NuraLoop in the post about two weeks ago - I'd signed up for the kickstarter on a whim sometime last year and clean forgot about it.
The tuned sound takes a bit of getting used to - if you like neutral/clinical headphones, they probably aren't for you - but overall they're very good. The active noise cancellation is excellent (well, I haven't tried them on a train or a plane yet for obvious reasons, but my fiancee is quite amused at the fact she can sneak up on me while I'm wearing them and make me jump out of my skin) and they have an adjustable 'social' mode for audio-pass through (which I've started using quite a bit - better than spilling coffee everywhere) which on low settings doesn't seem to affect the audio quality perceptibly. The bluetooth codec is far better than on my Shures or Sennheisers, which means I can actually rely on them for things like Zoom calls.
Getting the fit right was a bit of trial and error - if you're used to isolating earphones like Shures where the earbud goes quite deep into the ear canal, then there's a temptation to try to wear them the same way. Don't, it'll make your ears hurt after you've been wearing them for an hour or more. Once I put some of the larger tips on (and recalibrated them for the new fit) I've found them to be very comfortable for extended wear.
The battery life is good, and they have an auto on/off feature that generally works fine - it's nice not having to fiddle around with long-pressing the control button and not being sure if you've done it properly or not when you take them off in a hurry. That said, sometimes they can be a bit slow to wake up - if so, I take them off and put them on again and generally that sorts it out. It's only very rarely that it's a problem though - I'm taking them off and putting them on again quite regularly for calls etc, rather than just leaving them on all day, and nine times in ten they'll restart promptly.
They're about £199 full price, and I think they stack up very well against my Shure 425s (similar price once you factor in a bluetooth cable) or my Sennheiser Momentum over-ears (which were £300 or so new, but they're the first-gen ones so I suppose they're getting on a bit in headphone terms - they're a few years old now). If I don't need to make calls then I still lean towards the Momentums as I find over-ear more comfortable than in-ear, but I'm pretty impressed with the NuraLoop.
Update - despite the earphones feeling more comfortable after I'd changed the tip size, the material they've used for the earphone tips ended up irritating my ear and I got an ear infection, which is not a problem I'd ever had with my Shures. So my initial enthusiasm for the Nuraloops is now very much diminished.
Received a NuraLoop in the post about two weeks ago - I'd signed up for the kickstarter on a whim sometime last year and clean forgot about it.
The tuned sound takes a bit of getting used to - if you like neutral/clinical headphones, they probably aren't for you - but overall they're very good. The active noise cancellation is excellent (well, I haven't tried them on a train or a plane yet for obvious reasons, but my fiancee is quite amused at the fact she can sneak up on me while I'm wearing them and make me jump out of my skin) and they have an adjustable 'social' mode for audio-pass through (which I've started using quite a bit - better than spilling coffee everywhere) which on low settings doesn't seem to affect the audio quality perceptibly. The bluetooth codec is far better than on my Shures or Sennheisers, which means I can actually rely on them for things like Zoom calls.
Getting the fit right was a bit of trial and error - if you're used to isolating earphones like Shures where the earbud goes quite deep into the ear canal, then there's a temptation to try to wear them the same way. Don't, it'll make your ears hurt after you've been wearing them for an hour or more. Once I put some of the larger tips on (and recalibrated them for the new fit) I've found them to be very comfortable for extended wear.
The battery life is good, and they have an auto on/off feature that generally works fine - it's nice not having to fiddle around with long-pressing the control button and not being sure if you've done it properly or not when you take them off in a hurry. That said, sometimes they can be a bit slow to wake up - if so, I take them off and put them on again and generally that sorts it out. It's only very rarely that it's a problem though - I'm taking them off and putting them on again quite regularly for calls etc, rather than just leaving them on all day, and nine times in ten they'll restart promptly.
They're about £199 full price, and I think they stack up very well against my Shure 425s (similar price once you factor in a bluetooth cable) or my Sennheiser Momentum over-ears (which were £300 or so new, but they're the first-gen ones so I suppose they're getting on a bit in headphone terms - they're a few years old now). If I don't need to make calls then I still lean towards the Momentums as I find over-ear more comfortable than in-ear, but I'm pretty impressed with the NuraLoop.
Update - despite the earphones feeling more comfortable after I'd changed the tip size, the material they've used for the earphone tips ended up irritating my ear and I got an ear infection, which is not a problem I'd ever had with my Shures. So my initial enthusiasm for the Nuraloops is now very much diminished.