We had the opportunity to spend some time with yet another pair of headphones from 1MORE, which quickly became one of our favorite brands ever since our ears were introduced to their original triple driver model early last year. Now we dive into their latest addition to their family, the Dual Driver ANC (active noise canceling) LTNG in-ear headphones, which recently found their way onto the market.
This pair of headphones is specific to iOS devices since it makes use of the benefits of the Lightning connector that Apple uses on their phones. By doing this, the headphones can gather additional power from the single connection, allowing them to provide more function without the need of having to worry about additional batteries. In this scenario, you gain the feature of active noise cancellation, which helps tune out the noise around you so that you can focus on what you are listening to peacefully with little interruption. Perfect for noisy environments like riding the subway or airline trips where you don’t want to be bothered and would rather watch some Netflix or melt away to your favorite tunes instead.
Delivered in a similar box to their Triple and Quad models, they are neatly packaged in a book-like container that opens to reveal a very neat Leonardo-style sketch that explains how everything was crammed into those tiny little buds. Everything that comes with them is immediately on display as soon as you open the cover. You will find the usual leather-like hard case with magnetic flap that comes with most of their in-ear models (except for their single-driver options), along with the also-usual tie/shirt clip that I doubt anyone actually uses–at least none of us has ever used that style of clip on headphones–so it seems to be more for effect when you open the cover.
They come with eight pairs of silicone pieces that divide into two groups, including four (one pair already loaded onto the headphones themselves) pairs of tips and four pairs hook sizes that you can also add to the buds if you like to add to their fit with. All of which are to help you find the best comfortable fit for your size of ear. As always, we recommend finding the tightest fit possible (while maintaining comfort) so that you can get the most out of your low end (bass).
The cable features a nice braid to it that allows it to travel neatly across the clothes as you move without snagging anything and features an in-line remote with an all-in-one analog stick that allows you to control your tracks, volume, taking calls and more in one place. The stick pushes down to function as your play/pause/answer/hang-up and voice command trigger. The directional spread of the stick allows you to control the rest. It is basically taking the place of having the typical three button arrangement, which means that you never have to look at what you are clicking on and can fumble in the dark or while focusing your visual attention on something else. The side of that same remote has a switch that allows you to turn the active noise cancellation on and off.
The noise cancellation is somewhat similar to what you get using Bose’s QuietComfort headphones, in that it functions quite freakin well when in use. It doesn’t perform as well as the larger over-ear QuietComfort models of course, but performs above and beyond what you’d typically find with a tiny pair of in-ear headphones. You experience a good cut of a lot of the noise around you, with a focus on low to mid frequencies. For example, when I lift the mouse here up and lightly tap it down onto the desk multiple times (enough to make good sound but without hurting the mouse of course), you hear a good slapping sound of the impact mixed with the vibration of a few various loose parts like the scroll wheel and a few buttons. Turning on ANC via the remote of the headphones, all that noise becomes a small ticking noise as everything else including the lows and mid sounds of the slap are eliminated. So you will still hear people talking around you slightly and some of the noises around you, but a lot of the noise will be drained out. The results were actually surprising when we first experienced them, as we expected more of a simple/light cancellation of such noise and got a bit more (about 60% or more of the effect you get with the Bose QuietComfort cans).
Since they are only dual drivers, they don’t perform to the likes of the Triple driver when it comes to the amazing spread, but they do sound better than an average pair of headphones for sure. Especially when you can easily spend this money on a fancy name brand and still only get a single driver out of it all. These do indeed sound great and work with just about any music preference you might have, as well as watching video. We could only imagine what these would sound like if they added ANC to their triple driver headset (not to mention a built in DAC like their triple driver LTNG model on top of it all).
Now, if only they could work on a USB Type-C solution as well for non-iOS devices (ie, Android, Windows, etc). If they did find a way to bring ANC and DAC to a USB Type-C format, you would quickly find a completely new market of headphones created that 1MORE would be dominating due to price and the quality behind the brand, and may easily find the very rarely given perfect score from us of 10 (assuming of course that the price is impossible to resist as well).
These headphones, like all of their others, were also tuned by Grammy award-winning sound engineer, Luca Bignardi. Luca is an Italian engineer who has been mixing albums for a handful of artists since 1979. He has his own recording studio and has worked with names like Andrea Bocelli. You can learn more about Luca in the following video or via his website here.
Our Conclusion
These headphones are wonderful. A great upgrade from their normal dual driver model and offer noise cancellation that is superior to anything else we have tested within the price range. They are a bit more expensive ($149) than the normal dual driver model which runs between $49 and $69 currently. So there is a pretty big leap there that affects our score of these slightly. However, the drivers are larger in this model than the regular dual driver pair are (13.3mm vs 10mm) and the quality and delivery of these headphones help 1MORE maintain quite a positive final score in the end, helping to once again prove why 1MORE has become one of our most widely bragged about topics.
| (No longer sold/available anywhere) | |
Our Rating | Average Price* $149.99 |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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Specifications:
- Product Name: 1MORE Dual Driver ANC Lightning In-Ear
- Headphones Type: In-Ear
- Color: Gray
- Connection length: 1.25 m
- Wire control function: 5-in-1 Controller
- Wire: Enamelled copper wire
- Plug Type: Lightning (Mfi)
- Frequency response range: 20-20,000 Hz
- Impedance: 32 ohms
- Rated power: 5 mW
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