Noble FoKus Apollo

Introduction

Noble Audio has been around for very nearly a dozen years now – but the FoKus Apollo is its very first pair of over-ear headphones.

They’re priced to compete with the very best the mainstream has to offer, and they’re specified to make that asking price seem fair enough – so on paper, these headphones are more than ready to compete. But as we all know, on paper is hardly the be-all and end-all…

Design

• Nicely made from premium materials
• Comfortable even over longer listens
• Weighs 327g

If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, then Bowers & Wilkins in general and its Px8 wireless headphones in particular must be feeling as flattered as can be – the FoKus Apollo look (and feel) like nothing more than a pair of Px8 that have swollen slightly in every direction.

Of course, one pair of over-ear headphones looks very like another, but at a glance the FoKus Apollo seem almost like a tribute act.

So there are generously padded pleather-over-memory-foam earpads (which are replaceable) ahead of fabric-covered earcups with anodised aluminium backs that connect to anodised aluminium yokes and arms – the entire earcup/earpad arrangement is quite wide.

The headband adjustment mechanism is concealed inside the headband, which is Alcantara-covered memory foam at the contact point and more textured fabric on the outside.

There’s a fair amount of movement available to allow the earpads to sit comfortably over the wearer’s ears, and the hanger arrangement allows the FoKus Apollo to remain comfortable for a good while – certainly longer than it takes for those pleather earcups to heat the sides of your head.

The earcups swivel to allow the headphones to lie flat, too – but there’s no other articulation in the frame, so the (very nicely finished) EVA hard case is on the hefty side. Still, that means there’s plenty of room inside for all the cables and adapters Noble provides.

And each earcup has a little more going on where the user interface is concerned. On the left earcup there’s a slider that mutes all the mics (including the boom mic, should it be attached).

On the right there’s a button to cycle through your ANC options, and the classic three-button strip – the centre button takes care of power on/off/Bluetooth pairing, the one above it is volume up or skip forwards, and the one below it is volume down or skip backwards. A quick double-press on the centre button wakes your source player’s native voice assistant.

Features

• 40mm dynamic and 14.5mm planar magnetic drivers
• Bluetooth 5.3 with SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD and LDAC codec support
• Hybrid active noise-cancellation

Noble is claiming a world’s first with the FoKus Apollo: a hybrid driver array consisting of a 40mm dynamic driver alongside a 14.5mm planar magnetic driver in each earcup.

It’s an almost willfully complex arrangement, but while Noble stops well short of quoting a frequency response it seems a reasonably safe bet that the little planar magnetic diaphragm will offer good high-frequency headroom while the dynamic driver takes care of business from the midrange on down. 

Wireless connectivity is via Bluetooth 5.3 with multipoint compatibility, and the FoKus Apollo will work with some very worthwhile codecs (including aptX HD and LDAC). It’s also possible to use the headphones via a connection – there’s a 3.5mm input on the right earcup, and Noble provides a 3.5mm / 3.5mm cable with both 4.4mm and 6.3mm adapters.

You can also use the USB-C slot on the left earcup for data transfer as well as for charging the battery – but it’s worth noting that, unlike when using an analogue connection, the headphones must be powered on in order to make use of the USB-C / USB-C cable provided in the packaging.

Still, that shouldn’t be much of an issue given that Noble is quoting a battery life of between 60 hours (with ANC switched on) and 80 hours (with ANC switched off).

The mic array also deals with telephony, but in a belt-and-braces approach Noble also provides a boom mic in the FoKus Apollo package. It connects to the left earcup using a 3.5mm jack.

There’s also a little control available in the Noble FoKus control app – but I do mean a little.

Aside from a handy 10-band EQ (with half a dozen presets) and the ability to check for firmware updates, the app doesn’t do anything you can’t achieve using the physical controls.

Compared to the control apps that accompany any of the rival headphones that occupy the same sort of place in the market as the FoKus Apollo, stripped back is about as kind as I can be.

Noise Cancellation

The active noise-cancellation is a hybrid system that uses three mics per earcup, controlled by an ADI chip, to assess ambient conditions and finesse ANC accordingly. It’s worth noting the ANC here is a three-position system: on, off or transparency.

And the FoKus Apollo are no great shakes when it comes to active noise-cancellation, either. Noble wouldn’t be the first company to rather self-consciously insist it’s concentrating all its efforts on sound quality – and that’s fair enough, but if ANC is available then it really should be more effective than this.

What the FoKus Apollo do is reduce, not cancel – and they can be quite easily outperformed in this regard by headphones costing half as much.

Sound Quality

• Tremendous low-frequency control and expression
• Clarity and detail in equal measure
• Latent treble issues

They may not be the complete package where sound quality is concerned, but where the Noble FoKus Apollo are good, they’re very good indeed – so perhaps this is the place to start.

At the bottom of the frequency range, the Noble are impressively deft and controlled. There’s plenty of tonal and textural variation made apparent, lots of detail available, and the control of the attack of bass sounds is such that rhythmic expression is as natural as can be.

The FoKus Apollo punch politely but determinedly, and the low-end presence and substance they generate serves to underpin the rest of the frequency range nicely.

The transition into the midrange is smooth, and the reproduction here is just as detailed and just as articulate as it is in the low frequencies. A 24-bit/96kHz FLAC file of The Who’s Baba O’Riley is served up complete with a whole stack of vocal attitude, character and insight – there’s an immediacy and positivity to the way the Noble handles voices that’s intermittently thrilling.

These headphones combine power with agility through the midrange, and are an explicit and enjoyable listen as a result.

Their powers of soundstaging are no less impressive. Even a relatively complex and element-heavy recording like James Holden’s Common Land as a 24-bit/48kHz FLAC file is opened up and confidently organised – there’s ample breathing space on the stage for each part of the recording to make its presence felt without being impacted on by any other part.

And the FoKus Apollo manage this while allowing the recording to sound unified, to sound together, rather than as something that’s being analysed for the sake of it.

Dynamic headroom is considerable, and the shifts in volume and intensity that both of these recordings indulge in are described confidently. And the Noble are no less scrupulous where dynamic variations in harmonics or tonality are concerned – if there’s information in a recording, no matter how fleeting or ostensibly minor, it’s identified and put into proper context in a brilliantly unshowy fashion.

Problems, such as they are, are all at the top of the frequency range. The handover between dynamic and planar magnetic drivers is far from easy to discern – but once the handover is complete, the FoKus Apollo prove edgy and insubstantial where treble information is concerned.

The frequency response of these headphones is even, so it’s not as if treble information is being overstated – but it doesn’t share a huge amount in common with the rest of the frequency range where tonality is concerned, and when playing a 16bit/44.1kHz FLAC file of The Roots’ 100% Dundee the top end sounds flimsy and almost phasey.

Should you buy it?

FAQs