14 DAY TRIAL // Headphones don't usually cost half a grand, especially not the type that don't even have ear cups, but there are always some that stand outside the norm, and the NuForce Primo 8 are the latest example.
Built with four proprietary balanced armature speakers, the Primo 8 speakers have four drives in each ear bud, configured in a 3-way design.
One of the speakers provides treble sounds, one does the midrange sounds, and the other two produce the bass frequencies.
It seems that NuForce wanted you to feel as though you were listening to a full-covered, multi-channel speaker system that produced surround sound.
And with the natural noise-canceling properties of ear buds (noise-blocking, more like), you won't have to worry about distractions.
Of course, it could also become dangerous if, say, you go for a jog and don't mind your surroundings well enough.
Car accidents tend to happen alarmingly often even without you being oblivious to oncoming vehicles after all. Besides, other joggers may bump into you if you fail to hear them coming up from behind.
Still, NuForce wanted the Primo 8 to reproduce the same, low-frequency ranges as over-ear headphones, and to match them in terms of dynamic sound reproduction, so it made it happen.
Crosstalk was eliminated through a patent-pending three-way phase-coherent crossover design that doesn't produce the same crosstalk as normal crossover networks.
The four speakers sing together as one, as it were. Those are the words that the company used in its press release anyway.
Finally, a star-pattern Litz cable is used, complete with a core of Kevlar Silk, which alleviates the issue of strain relief. A star pattern of seven silver wires surrounds the core, and the whole thing is insulated, then surrounded by another star-pattern of nine bundles of fine gauge, seven-stranded, individually insulated OFC wires.
The technique, called Litz construction, should ensure that the wire doesn't wear down and eventually prevent the signal from traveling to and from your earphones and smartphone.
Independent left and right ground wiring is included (less inter-channel crosstalk and maximum channel separation), and the entire cable is enclosed in a pliable polymer too, “to eliminate mechanical noise contamination.”
All this for a price of $499 / €499. Clearly, NuForce wanted to make a statement. It's too bad that even audiophiles will probably think twice before buying this item, because of that tag. Especially when there are over-ear models for much less. Then again, those things make you sweat more when you go for a jog, so we can't say there is no value in cramming all the benefits of over-ear headphones into in-ear ones.
