Previously, the nuraphone has been available online; however the team behind these revolutionary headphones are now bringing them to Melbourne shopping centres, where music lovers can try before they buy.
“Our products are very experiential,” shares Luke Campbell, nura’s co-founder and chief technology officer. “To understand the concept, you need to understand everyone hears differently. Two people standing at the same concert are going to hear two versions of the same song. We’re not talking about hearing loss, we’re talking about the normal variation between two individuals.”
The SoundStudio concept in Melbourne has already arrived at both Melbourne Central and Westfield Doncaster last week, with The Glen’s opening on October 25 and Highpoint on October 29.
“Until now we’ve been almost exclusively selling online. This is a way for people to experience our headphones easily. We wanted to make sure we were giving the best experience with our product. So, we created these SoundStudios where people can try the headphones and talk to our staff.”
The SoundStudios allow people to try the nuraphone and create a personal hearing profile in nura’s app. The app is an essential part in setting up the nuraphone. Once connected, you can create a new profile and the nuraphone tests your hearing and then remembers your profile on any device you want to use them with.
“They work by Otoacoustic Emission. When you play a sound to the ear, sound hits a hair cell. If it’s healthy, it makes a new very quiet little sound. That response, the Otoacoustic Emission, gets picked up by a microphone in the earpiece. It’s by analysing that very quiet return that we can work out how healthy the hair cells in your cochlea are.”
Campbell has a background in hearing science, as a former ENT surgeon, and firmware and app development. He recalls that he and the nura team were amazed to find no one had made headphones that addressed the variations between individuals’ hearing.
“At the time we launched our Kickstarter, we were the only company in the world talking about personalised headphones. That was two-and-a-half years ago. Now over ten companies are talking about them in various forms. I think the rest of the market has worked out this is a thing people are really responding to.”
The nuraphone looks quite different to most headphones as it has a combination of inner-ear pieces and over-ear cups. This design is part of the innovative way nura has been able to incorporate the Otoacoustic Emission sensors. It also enhances the nuraphone’s ability to block out sound.
“We need to block out as much sound as possible. We block sound with active noise cancellation [ANC] through the speaker in the ear cup so that all the hiss sound gets blocked by the earbud anyway. It’s very quiet for the user and for us to get a measurement of your hearing. You get all the benefits of noise cancellation without the negative side of things,Another setting on the app is Social Mode, which lowers the volume of your music and lets you hear the world around you almost as if you’re not even wearing headphones.
The product is designed to increase in value over time. So far, nura has released a software update that added features such as noise cancelling and Social Mode. There’s already the extra hardware built into the robust headphones so the updates are just as easy to install as your phone software updates.
“They’re really for people who love music and want great sound, but don’t have the time to go to the headphone shop and try on the 12 different pairs of high-end headphones to find out ones that sound good to them. Instead, get a pair of nuraphones and they’ll do the hard work and work out how to sound good for you.”
