Audio Performance

For the Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ear Headphones, 1MORE is using what they call a (patented) titanium composite diaphragm. As you can see in the image above, a titanium layer responsible for the treble is sandwiched between two PET layers that produce the bass. Sitting in front of that dynamic driver is a single balanced armature. On the wireless side of things, 1MORE used a Bluetooth 4.2 chip, which supports SBC and AAC (iOS devices) audio codecs. The aptX, aptX HD or LDAC support is absent. The Triple Driver BT In-Ears doesn't support aptX or aptX HD either, but does offer LDAC support, and that's the best Bluetooth audio codec currently available.

In other words, the music you listen to will be wirelessly delivered to the 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears via the SBC codec universally supported by all Bluetooth devices. It offers a maximum transfer rate of 320 kbps, which is still good enough to enjoy streamed music on the go. You won't be able to fully utilize your Tidal HiFi or Deezer HiFi subscription as lossless files can't be handled by SBC. I don't consider this to be a big issue, however. The sound performance of the 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears isn't on a hi-fi level, and let's not forget that these headphones are supposed to be used on the go. In other words, even with support for lossless playback, you wouldn't be able to hear a major (or any) difference compared to what you get through the SBC codec. To be clear, the same can be said for most (if not all) wireless in-ear headphones in this price range.


Now that we got that out of the way, we can discuss the actual sound quality of these headphones. I really like the way they sound. They're exceptionally fun to listen to. The bass is deep and meaty without being too bloated and overdone. At the same time, it's also punchy and quite energetic. It has more attack and bite than on the 1MORE's Triple Driver BT In-Ears, where the bass was also good, although occasionally slightly boomy. The mid-range is pleasantly detailed and clean, so the vocals sound nice, and they're placed very well into the mix. Again comparing to the Triple Driver BT In-Ears, the high-range isn't as smooth, so certain high vocals and instruments, such as aggressively mixed electric guitars, can sound piercing, especially when you push the volume as far as it can go. Luckily, this issue manifested itself rarely and practically didn't ruin my overall enjoyment of the 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears at all. Even when it did bother me, simply turning the volume down by one step, which is still plenty loud, would do the trick. As for the width of the sound, there's not much to talk about. The music will be positioned between your ears and not outside of your head. If anything, it's an intimate listening experience. Oh, the Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears also sound louder than the Triple Driver BT In-Ears, which many of you will appreciate (me included).

For the most part, the 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears are genre agnostic and extremely versatile. I equally enjoyed using them for pop and electronic music, rap, rock, metal and even something more delicate, like singer-songwriter music, where the singer and his acoustic guitar are oftentimes the only two things you can hear. As per usual, to get the most out of them, you need to spend a bit of time on finding a pair of ear tips that fit your ears best. You want them to form a tight seal with your ear canal—that's the only way to get the best-possible bass response—but not to where they would feel uncomfortable, which I got from the factory-preinstalled ear tips and without using the supplied silicone "wings".

The passive noise isolation is quite good—good enough that there's no need to use active noise cancellation when walking around a busy city. Even if the city is really, really loud. I used these headphones on a recent trip to New York, probably the loudest place I've ever been to, and mostly kept the ANC off. On the other hand, riding on the subway or sitting in an airplane is when the active noise cancellation really comes in handy.

Active Noise Cancelling

Instead of licensing the active noise cancellation technology from a company like Sony or Bose, 1MORE developed their own solution based on the TiinLab A2 chip. Their intention was to offer a two-level ANC that does a good job of blocking out external noise while keeping the sound quality as close to intact as possible. They went with the "Feed Forward" approach to ANC, where the microphone that listens to the background noise is positioned on the outside of the ear piece, before the speaker driver, so that it can "hear" the noise before you do. External noise is then canceled out by producing the same noise with an inverted phase. This is a vastly better implementation than "Feed Back" (microphone is placed after the speaker driver), although not as good as "Hybrid ANC" (microphones in both aforementioned places). In the long run, 1MORE aims to perfect their Hybrid ANC technology to use that in their future noise-canceling headphones. However, it's unlikely that we'll see it used in products from the $100 price bracket because the technology itself is much more expensive and difficult to implement properly.

With that said, the active noise cancellation of the 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears is surprisingly good, especially after you activate the second, stronger ANC setting (by pulling the ANC lever towards the end of the headband twice). On the first level, the headphones are running a power-efficient ANC of some sort, which only does a mediocre job of blocking out ambient sounds. 1MORE provided me with some measurements, but I am not familiar with their testing methodology, so I'll merely list them for the sake of curiosity: the first level of ANC blocks out about -20 dB in the 3 kHz frequency range and up to -10 dB in the 100-400 Hz range. When the second level of ANC is activated, active noise cancellation ramps up to -40 dB at around the 3 kHz range and -15 dB in the 100-400 Hz range. Of course, all of this only holds true for constant sources of noise, such as the hum of a jet engine. I tested the headphones on a couple of flights (and intentionally picked wing seats—if that's not dedication, I don't know what is!). They did a really good job of making the airplane engines perfectly tolerable to where I was able to completely ignore them. At the same time, don't expect them to turn city streets silent as there are too many random sources of oscillating frequencies at any one time. No ANC technology currently available can deal with that.

I'm happy to report that 1MORE's ANC doesn't completely demolish the sound quality. In fact, it doesn't change it drastically at all. In other words, the headphones remain very enjoyable with ANC turned on. All in all, while Sony's and Bose's top-of-the-line over-ear headphones still offer better active noise canceling, I'd say 1MORE is about 70% there with their 1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ears, and that's no small feat.