The status of providing suitable audio solutions at a relatively affordable point has quickly gained noise. Earphones such as Noise Shots X-Buds, Shots X5 Charge and a few more have proved to be very valuable to buy, for those who want to feel the admirable sound quality while avoiding serious dents in the pocket. Noise has recently launched a new pair of truly wireless earphones called Noise Shots XO. They are priced at Rs 5,499 and look positively attractive on paper With outstanding features like wireless charging for the case, total battery life of 36 hours and much more, these earphones are a must buy around buyers. However, is the Noise Shot XO comparable to the company’s previous success? Find out.

Construction and design

Noise Shots XO is available in three color variants – Space Gray, Rose Gold and Metallic White. We’ve got the Rose Gold version which is by far the most interesting variant. We are not exactly a fan of Rose Gold Shade, however, if you like this color you will find it quite pleasing to see the charging case. In addition to the charging case and earbuds, the box contains a drawstring cloth bag to carry the case, two extra pairs of silicone tips and a USB Type-C charging cable. You’ll also find a user manual and a warranty card embedded in the packaging. The drawstring pouch is white in color and unfortunately, it gets dirty very easily.

Noise is the opposite of what most audio brands use, where they try to narrow down the charging case for real wireless earphones. The Noise Shots XO has a large and heavy, round charging case that resembles a drum. The upper part has a metallic rose gold hue, while the lower part plays a matte, baby pink look.

The USB Type-C charging port is on the back of the case, hidden under a rubber flap. We propose to Noise to try to innovate the conventional charging case design, the case is actually far from the pocket. It would make more sense to carry it in a backpack or a purse than to have it quite noticeably swollen out of your pocket. The top of the charging case also has a fingerprint magnet and scratches very easily.

The upper part of the case has a round dent where you need to place your thumb and then push it outwards to expose the earphones inside. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We would rather choose a traditional case opening method. Nevertheless, after opening the case a few times, you become accustomed to this tedious opening / closing procedure.

When the case is opened, the earphones reveal themselves which fits the case quite nicely. The magnetic gold points inside the case easily pull the earphones towards them when you drop the shots XO buds into the case. We turned the case over and shook it quite thoroughly to see if the buds would fall off. As it turns out, they don’t play the slightest bit, which is pretty impressive.

The buds are coming into themselves, they end up like a dual-tone color sport and case. The angular nozzles and eartips have a baby pink tone, while the earbuds have a metallic rose gold hue on the back. The earphones are like a teardrop and swell significantly from the back of the earphones to the outside.

The ‘XO’ moniker is also evident on earphones, with the left earphones having a pink ‘X’ on the touchpad (rear end) of these earphones while the right earphones have an ‘O’. Since ‘X’ and ‘O’ are in light pink shades and have a metallic rose gold hue in the background, the characters look quite subtle and look quite exquisite in the end.

Still, the earphones move quite a bit away from your ears. These are by no means obscure, especially the rose gold variant and will obviously collect some eye gems. The fit inside the ear is also smooth and comfortable. We wore these for hours on end and did not feel any fatigue or pain in our ears, which is impressive. Overall, although we like the ergonomic design and aesthetics of the earbuds, in our opinion the charging case is extremely heavy and oddly-looking. Also, the swivel-to-open mechanism is not smooth and non-stop, which consumes some serious points when building these earphones.

Features

One of the salient features of the Noise Shots XO is the ability to receive the charging case wirelessly on any Qi-enabled charger. All you have to do is place the charging case on the bottom of a wireless charger and the device will start powering up. The noise includes an LED indicator just below the charging port, which can be easily seen through the rubber flip when illuminated. The indicator blinks once every 2 seconds when the case is charged if the battery percentage of the case is 0-25%, twice for 25-50% every 2 seconds, three times every 2 seconds for 50-75% and four times every 2 seconds 75-100 For%. This is a simple, no-nonsense way relay reveals the device that is being charged and what percentage of the battery is currently in the case. The charging speed will vary depending on the wireless charger you are using, however, we were able to fill the charging case from almost empty in just two hours with a 10W wireless charger.

The battery life of Noise Shots XO is very impressive. It has a total battery life of 36 hours, including 6 hours of buds, while the charging case holds an extra 30 hours, according to the company. This means you will be able to charge earbuds 5 times or more using the charging case. In our experiments, we were able to extract about 5 hours of battery life from earphones at 70% volume, and after charging earbuds about 6-7 times, we were able to reduce the charging case to 5% battery percentage. Keep in mind that earbuds are usually not completely removed when we put them back in the case.

Another convenient feature is that you can use both right or left earbuds in mono mode if you want. All you have to do is pick up the right or left earbud from the case and connect it to that specific bud in your phone’s Bluetooth menu.

Noise Shots XO comes with touch controls, accessible through the back surface of the buds. The touch panel is slightly indented in a curved manner, allowing you to easily rest your finger in the cavity. For the most part, touch controls are responsive and work well. However, there is no volume control, which is frustrating, especially if you want to tweak with a constant volume level. You need to mute your phone whenever you want to adjust the volume.

Touch controls are quite easy to remember as well as quite intuitive. Once you tap on any earbud, the music will stop / play and answer the phone call / end. Double tapping on the right earbud will take you to the next track while double tapping on the left will take you to the previous track. To end a call, you simply press and hold two earbuds for 2 seconds. Lastly, triple-tapping on any one earbud will activate your voice assistant.

Although we’ve heard of some people having some problems connecting earphones to their smartphones, we haven’t encountered any. It was actually a very non-stop process for us. All you have to do is remove the earbuds from the case, they will turn on automatically and go into pairing mode. Next, go to your Bluetooth menu and connect to ‘Shots XO-R’ or ‘Shots XO-L’. You will hear a ‘Pairing Successful’ and ‘Connected’ prompts, then a prompt you need to pair with a second earbud. Just press ‘OK’ and it’s done. After this process, both earbuds will be automatically connected to the last pair of devices after being taken out of the charging case. If you have trouble connecting the device, be sure to read the user manual. It gives you detailed instructions for manually pairing, resetting the device and much more.

Noise Shots XO also includes ENC (Environmental Noise Cancellation), IPX7 water resistance rating, USB Type-C / Wireless Fast Charging (within about 2 hours of case charge), Qualcomm AptX HD support and Bluetooth v5.0.

Performance

Sadly, the sound quality is where the Noise Shots XO gets really shaky. Featuring these earphones as such, their appeal is really reduced due to their muddy, base-heavy sound profile. Today, we have multiple earphones that are enriched with a base-forward sound profile such as the Jabra Elite 75t, 1MORE Triple Driver, and more. Nonetheless, Noise Shots XO boasts an overly base-forward sound profile that undermines sound integrity and balance.

Both, alloy as well as low, are highly exaggerated, where they sound muddy and distorted. They cover most of the details in the middle, especially the lower ones. Inside Ludens By Bring me to the horizon, Bass beats sound extremely cloudy and distorted, while vocals sound faint due to exaggerated low quality. There is a lot of listening masks in almost all genres of music. This is extremely frustrating because noise usually manages to maintain a good balance between different frequencies, sadly this is not the case with Noise Shots XO.

Voices, especially male voices, are muddy as well. Inside Save me By One republic The vocals are almost landed in the background and the bass beats make the whole song completely irresistible. However, female vocals tend to do better because they are usually above the treacherous zone of the auditory mask. The heights are a bit well-sounding, but they’re a bit low-stretched, which prevents earphones from accurately reproducing high notes. You will still feel that the heights have become somewhat obscured by the objectionable shallows and lows, yet they are better than completely submerged mediums.

The Noise Shots XO lacks the soundstage, however, it is a common feature present in the mostly off-back, in-ear. Imaging seems a bit decent. You can position the instruments, however, the overall excused noise and incomplete frequency reproduction throws you so far away that you cannot pay attention to the position of the instruments. Overall, excessive bass-boosts and exaggerated lows will probably outweigh even hardcore bus-lovers.

To make matters worse, the quality of the microphone is not up to standard. Noise claims that the earphones come with ENC technology, however, when we call or call using Noise Shots XO, the person on the other end hears a lot of background noise and complains that our voice is sounding quite faint. We also tried switching to calling over data and the problem persisted.

The only reason to get some points back in the Noise Shots XO Performance section is because the passive isolation is great and there is almost no sound leakage. Also, the battery life is great. We used the earphones with the charging case for about a week without recharging the case, which is quite impressive. The earbuds themselves came very close to the noise claim (6 hours). They lasted about 5 hours 40 minutes.

The last row

Although the Noise Shots XO Sport has relatively affordable price tags and an abundance of premium features, it kills the cause of poor sound quality. Aggressive bass-forward sound profiles, as well as exaggerated lows, upset the overall balance of sound, regardless of the type of music you are listening to. Despite the impressive battery life and Nifty wireless charging features, it is difficult for us to recommend Noise Shots XO to market-seeking users for a good pair of truly wireless earphones. We hope that Noise will redeem itself with their next release and continue to provide affordable and suitable audio solutions as before.