Noise Master Buds Max headphones: A true democratisation of Bose audio finesse

The price tag of ₹9,999 puts into perspective what the Indian tech company Noise is trying to achieve with Noise Master Buds Max

With the Bose influence that defined the Noise Master Buds earlier in the year as a barometer, it is perhaps only logical to have high hopes from this burgeoning partnership. Also logical is the progression from true wireless earbuds to headphones. A larger speaker, next? The Noise Master Buds Max makes a simple pitch — sound that’s tuned by Bose, at a price much lower than what flagship headphones typically tend to have. Has it worked? Resoundingly, all things considered.

The Bose tuning gravitas doesn’t come easily, and that is Noise’s real trump card (Vishal Mathur / HT Photo)

The price tag of ₹9,999 puts into perspective what the Indian tech company Noise is trying to achieve. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill headphone, just another in the lineup promising good sound. The Bose tuning gravitas doesn’t come easily, and that is the real trump card. Around this price point, you’ll find the fairly impressive Sennheiser Accentum Wireless, the JBL Tune 510BT with a sound signature that may not be to everyone’s liking, and you may even find a deal for the Marshall Major IV if you’re lucky. But this simply illustrates how much further Noise has pushed the performance benchmark for a headphone price band where compromises tend to define.

At first glance, the Noise Master Buds Max look pretty much on point in terms of design and build. The light tones of onyx, titanium, or silver — whichever you pick — look good to the eye, while the vinyl disc design is carried forward from the charging case of the Master Buds. My only reservation here is around the still very comfortable and breathable ear cushions — whether they are a tad too soft and therefore prone to damage a bit more easily. Time will testify to that. Noise bundles a usable travel pouch with the headphones, but you may want to spend a little more to get the Master Buds Max case (that’ll be ₹2,499 more), which is made of vegan leather with a magnetic locking mechanism and comes in a taupe colour.

Sound is where the Noise Master Buds Max truly shines, and you’d expect nothing less either. The 40mm audio drivers provide the foundation for Bose’s audio tuning to deliver. The Noise Audio app (available for Android and iOS) provides a lot more flexibility with how you’d like the sound to be, including equaliser options, wear detection, dual pairing, and even a Focus Mode that locks all controls (including the physical ones on the cans) so that nothing disturbs you in a music listening session of intent. And in case you misplace the Noise Master Buds Max, the app can be used to generate a chime to help you locate them.

The experience with Noise and Bose’s first effort, something I’d alluded to earlier, was impressive enough to raise expectations. The Noise Master Buds Max has a distinctly Bose-esque warmth to the signature. It is equally versatile with different types of content and music genres — bass can get quite powerful if that’s how you like the music to be, or the vocals as well as mids can shine through in case you prefer a bit more balance with sound. The mids could do with a bit of sprucing up in some tracks, but overall, the efforts seem to have delivered.

The LHDC 5.0 codec (this is also called Low-Latency High-Definition Audio Codec) for high-res audio is the proverbial cherry on the cake. For instance, Apple Music supports this. A lot of Android phones are increasingly adding it too. Basically, this means up to 24 bit/192 kHz high-resolution audio streaming quality. Not everything you listen to now will likely be encoded with this codec, but increasingly, that’ll be the case.

If you’re to turn on Spatial Audio for that more perceptive width with sound, it’ll really work best with tracks that are already processed that way. There is no head tracking here, which means the original audio source must be primed for that sense of space. You can pick some gaps at times on certain tracks, but overall, for its price, there isn’t much to nitpick with the immersive processing on the Noise Master Buds Max.

For years, Bose held a lead in active noise cancellation on portable audio. Noise is certainly deriving from that experience, with four modes available — On, Off, Adaptive and Transparency for the active noise cancellation (ANC) suite. I felt a bit more pressure on my ears when the ANC was On, but that subsided a bit in Adaptive. On its part, Transparency works well to be able to have a conversation with someone without having to take the headphones off (though whether it is good manners, isn’t something technology can answer).

Noise claims that the Master Buds Max can hold fort for up to 60 hours of usage per charge without ANC, and around 40 hours with ANC in any more. All I can point out is, it is a challenge to run down the battery on these headphones, even with ANC on. That said, most of my listening happens to be with this turned off, purely because the fit and the isolation as a result, is good enough to block ambient noise at home and at work. All said and done, a great option to travel with.

There is very little that can be held against the Noise Master Buds Max, particularly considering the rather enticing ₹9,999 price tag that doesn’t politely tell its a value proposition, it screams that this is a value proposition. The LHDC 5.0 codec, long battery life and a slick companion app build on Bose’s audio tuning that’s reassuringly familiar. As I said, this may well be the true democratisation of good audio, without having to pay for premium price tags.