Nura NuraLoop Wireless  Headphones Review

The Nura Loop are sleek-looking wireless earbuds with a rubber cable connecting the L/R buds. They have a professional and well-polished design that looks premium, though the earbuds themselves are quite large. There's a small charging port in the middle of the cable that looks like an in-line remote.

The Nura Loop aren't very comfortable headphones. While their silicone tips are very shallow and don't enter the ear canal too deeply, it's difficult to find a comfortable and tight fit/seal as the earbuds themselves are quite large. Depending on the size and shape of your ear, you may get a voice prompt warning you of an incorrect fit, which is only resolved when you physically press the headphones into your ear.

The Nura Loop's controls are only mediocre. While the controls are fairly easy to use, their touch-sensitive surface makes it very easy to issue commands by mistake. While the default button mapping doesn't give you media or phone control, you can reprogram all four buttons within the app to add them.

The Nura Loop are very portable headphones that can easily be tossed into most pockets or bags.

The Nura Loop come with a decent soft case. It's made of a cloth material and should help protect the headphones from scratches and drops.

The Nura Loop feel very well-built and durable. They're primarily made of silicone and plastic and feel very solid. They even come with five pieces of mesh covers for the earbuds which can be swapped out if they get clogged with ear wax. The weakest point is likely the cable, though it doesn't feel nearly as thin or as cheap as the cable on some cheaper headphones, like the Anker SoundBuds Curve Upgraded 2019.

The Nura Loop feel very stable, provided you can achieve a good seal. They don't move at all, even during more intense workouts and head movements.

• NuraLoop Wireless headphones
• 3x tip sizes
• 5x mesh covers
• Proprietary analog audio cable
• Proprietary USB charging cable
• Soft carrying case

The Nura Loop's sound profile is somewhat well-balanced but lacks a lot of brightness and presence with higher frequencies.

Note: We had some issues with the right earbud not providing any bass response. Upon doing a factory reset, no sound was produced by the right earbud at all. After fully charging the earbuds, both sides worked fine and we were able to test them. These results were recorded after performing the factory reset. While the results show a mismatch between the two earbuds, we expect this to be due to our testing as it isn't noticeable while using the headphones. It's also worth noting that they were tested with the 'neutral' sound profile turned on and didn't use the personalized EQ setting.

The Nura Loop are very consistent between various users and reseats. Therefore, everyone is likely to experience their sound profile similarly.

The bass accuracy is very good. Almost the entire range is flat and even, though one of our earbuds followed the target curve much more accurately while the other was a bit over-emphasized.

Note: We expect the mismatch between the drivers to come from our testing and doesn't accurately represent real-life usage. During actual usage, they provide a bit of extra bass that adds warmth and rumble without being overpowering.

The Nura Loop's mid accuracy is decent. Similar to the bass range, while our test shows a mismatch between the two drivers, this isn't representative of real-world usage. With actual usage, the mid-range appears to be well-balanced and accurate, with vocals and instruments appearing present and detailed.

The Nura Loop's treble accuracy is bad. The entire range is quite uneven, with most of the mid-treble range being severely recessed, resulting in those frequencies sounding very dull and lispy. On the bright side, low-treble is fairly even, which helps instruments sound detailed and present without being painful and harsh.

The Nura Loop's peaks and dips performance is only mediocre. The most noticeable dip is the one in mid-treble, which is extra emphasized in comparison to the peak directly before it. This dip causes sounds in that range, like cymbals and voices, to sound very dull and lispy. There are also several peaks and dips in high-treble which may cause some frequencies to be piercing and others to be dull, though it's at a high enough frequency that it likely won't be audible to most people.

The Nura Loop's imaging performance is bad. This is because our testing rig measured a large mismatch between the L/R drivers, though it's worth noting that this mismatch isn't noticeable during real-world usage. On the bright side, almost the entire group delay falls well below the audibility threshold, resulting in a transparent treble reproduction and very tight bass.

The Nura Loop's passive soundstage is very bad. This is expected from in-ears, as they bypass the pinna and don't interact with it. Pinna interaction is one of the big factors in giving the sense of a large and out-of-head soundstage; therefore, the soundstage of these headphones is perceived to be small and located inside your head as opposed to in front.

The Nura Loop have no virtual soundstage features.

The weighted harmonic distortion is poor. While there's some distortion present at both moderate and high volumes, especially in the treble range, it's likely only noticeable to more critical listeners and shouldn't be an issue for most people.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when these headphones are used at these settings.

Note: We tested these headphones with the 'neutral' sound profile, and not with the 'personalized' EQ.

The noise isolation performance is outstanding. They do a great job at reducing background noise across all ranges, helping to provide peace from the low rumble of bus engines to the high-pitched hum of AC units.

Note: These headphones only have a setting for "Talk-Through" or "ANC on"; therefore, the "ANC off" line on the chart refers to the headphones with 'Talk-Through' turned on. This doesn't affect the scores, however, as the results are calculated from the difference between 0dB and the 'ANC On' line, regardless of the measurements for 'ANC off'.

The leakage performance is exceptional. They leak almost no noise, so people around you shouldn't hear what you're listening to at all.

The Nura Loop have an integrated microphone.

The microphone's recording quality is only alright. Speech recorded sounds very dull, fairly unnatural, and a little distorted.

The microphone's noise handling is decent. While the person you're speaking to should have no problems hearing you in a quiet environment, your voice gets easily drowned out in louder situations.

The Nura NuraLoop's overall battery performance is very good. They last nearly 16 hours off a single charge, which is about what Nura advertises. Unfortunately, they take over 2.5 hours to charge, and they require a proprietary charging cable, which can be annoying if it becomes damaged or misplaced. Their standby mode is also quite aggressive, and they enter 'deep sleep' after around a minute of not detecting skin.

The Nura NuraLoop's dedicated companion app is good. The app is required to use these headphones, as you need to create a hearing profile before you can use them. This hearing profile creates a custom EQ that's personalized to you and is meant to help create the best possible listening experience. Unfortunately, there are no manual EQ options other than to turn the custom EQ off and use a neutral sound profile. Other than that, the app also allows you to reprogram the four controls on the headphones. You can switch between ANC or Talk-Though, though, unfortunately, there's no option to turn both of those off.

The Bluetooth connectivity options are alright. They don't support additional features like NFC, multi-device pairing, or aptX-LL for a low latency connection. Their PC latency is also quite high. They don't have much lag while watching YouTube videos on an Android device, though it's a bit worse on an iPhone. It's worth noting that different apps and devices tend to compensate for latency differently, so you may experience different results.

These headphones don't support a wireless connection other than Bluetooth.

The Nura Loop have a unique magnetic proprietary plug that allows them to be used wired, a rarity for Bluetooth in-ears. They also charge through the same magnetic port and only come with one charging cable, which may be an issue if it becomes damaged or lost.

These headphones are only compatible with audio when you plug them into the controller of your PS4 or a PC. However, they're fully compatible wirelessly with a Bluetooth-enabled PC.

The Nura NuraLoop are only compatible with audio when you plug them into the controller of your Xbox One.

These headphones don't have a base/dock.