More and more companies are making premium wireless headphones as of late, from established players such as Bowers & Wilkins and Focal (creators of the marvellous Bathys) to newer disruptors such as Noble Audio, the folks behind the Fokus Apollo set I have here. These are a £589/$649 set of wireless noise-cancelling headphones that marks the brand’s first move into over-ear designs, with an unusual hybrid approach that combines traditional dynamic drivers and more modern planar magnetic drivers.
As a quick refresher, dynamic drivers have been used in speakers and headphones for the best part of a century. Essentially, they’re a magnet with two wires connected, inside a paper cone diaphragm. Electrical current causes the paper to vibrate at specific frequencies, thereby reproducing sound. By comparison, planar magnetic headphones suspend the diaphragm material between magnetic fields. Dynamic drivers tend to handle low-end frequencies better, while planar magnetic drivers tend to offer more precise and well-rounded sound in the mid-range and treble.
The Fokus Apollo takes both of these pieces of tech and bundles them in one set of headphones, with a 14.5mm planar magnetic hybrid driver and a 40mm dynamic driver. The dynamic driver handles the low-end, while the smaller planar magnetic is there for the mids and highs, theoretically combining to give you the best of both worlds.
That fusion provides truly sublime results across the spectrum. The top end is crisp and gorgeous, with a wonderful sparkle and precision with the constant bell hits on Ralph MacDonald’s Calypso Breakdown and on the harsh cymbal work that goes throughout The Strokes’ Heart In A Cage. What’s more, the competing percussion in the intro to Steely Dan’s Do It Again remains luscious and detailed, where it can be a minefield for some headphones.