If you’ve ever searched for smartwatches, TWS, or headphones on Amazon or Flipkart, there is a good chance that you would have come across Noise products. With affordable prices and useful features, Noise products have made their way into Indian homes in a seamless manner.
While this homegrown brand is typically associated with value-for-money products, it is now broadening its horizon to premium territories. This trend started earlier this year with the Master Buds TWS, which were launched in February for Rs 7,999. The sound profile for these TWS buds was tuned by Bose, which helped draw attention to the brand’s first premium audio product.
Now, towards the end of the year, Noise has introduced its first premium pair of headphones – Noise Master Buds Max. I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of the name. While I understand the intention of keeping the name similar to the TWS to maintain consistency in nomenclature for the premium product series, the word ‘Buds’ could have been omitted to avoid confusion.
Shoving aside my issues with the name, I’ve now used these headphones for around a week in almost all scenarios possible, and can now share with you if this is a better option over other headphones available around Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000 or not. Without further ado, let’s dive in.
Design and controls: takes getting used to
Noise Master Buds Max come with the brand’s signature vinyl disc design but borrow some of the cues from other premium headphones in the market. Within the vinyl disc design, you’ll also find a 2 PM light bar that indicates pairing and power status. Notably, with time, the vinyl disc design on the earcups catches dust and takes some effort to clean up. With a metallic headband and vegan leather earcups, these headphones offer a good combination of materials that provide them with a durable and lightweight design.
I found these headphones extremely comfortable to wear, even for a stretch of 2-3 hours while watching movies. With a weight of just 262 grams, these headphones feel similar to Sony WH-1000XM5 in terms of head weight, but the earcup quality and comfort on the Sony headphones are obviously in a league of their own. With a solid clamp force, you can rest assured that the Master Buds Max will be pretty still on your head even if you shake your head vigorously.
If we talk about portability, the Master Buds Max can fold inwards, making them easy to carry around. The brand is also offering custom cases, which remind me of the case for AirPods Max for some reason, despite not looking too similar.
As far as controls are concerned, all the physical buttons on the headphones are present on the right ear cup. You get the volume up/down, power on/off, and ANC on/off buttons here. Truth be told, I didn’t find the button placement to be intuitive. Similar sizes for volume and power buttons, and their placement on the same side, meant that I had to use these headphones for around 3-4 days before I got used to them.
While the ANC button is round and somewhat easy to figure out, its placement is slightly odd, too.
Sound and call quality: solid on both fronts
The Noise Master Buds Max delivers a decent audio experience tuned by Bose, ensuring refined detail and dynamic expression across genres. The bass performance stands out with punchy depth and solid resonance, while the highs are handled with clarity and precision.
Mids, however, feel slightly muffled, which affects vocal definition at times. Thanks to the 40mm drivers and support for LHDC 5.0 codec, the earbuds reproduce sound with improved resolution and reduced latency.
The wide frequency response range of 20Hz to 20,000Hz ensures cleaner highs and richer lows, making the overall sound profile vibrant, despite minor midrange compromises. Call quality is quite decent for daily use, as with the five mics, these headphones manage to separate your voice from the background noise quite effectively.
Features and app support
The Noise app adds great flexibility and personalisation. Users can switch between Active Noise Cancellation, Transparency, and standard modes through the Noise Control setting. The app also offers toggles for wear detection and swift call mode, which auto‑answers calls when you wear the earbuds. You can adjust EQ settings for bass, mids, and treble and enable Spatial Audio, though this feature feels moderately effective.
Focus Mode is available to lock touch controls for distraction‑free listening. Dual pairing allows simultaneous connection with two devices, while the Find My Device feature helps locate misplaced earbuds easily by triggering a sound.
ANC
The Master Buds Max has been introduced at a starting price in a segment where there are some good ANC options, but it won’t have to directly compete with the heavyweights, such as Sony WH-1000XM5, Sonos Ace, or the Bose QuietComfort Ultra. This is crucial because I can comfortably say that these headphones offer the best active noise cancellation experience in this price range.
With Bose’s audio profile tuning, I was expecting decent sound from these headphones, but the noise cancellation and the effectiveness of the transparency mode really took me by surprise. These headphones come with a noise cancellation rating up to 40dB, which might not look particularly impressive on paper, but is quite effective in usage. Even in some crowded rooms, these headphones managed to handle ambient noise to a great extent and completely eliminated some of the less prominent sounds.
As I mentioned earlier, these headphones come with five optimally placed microphones that work together to read the environment in real-time and aim to block distractions across frequencies. The Master Buds Max turned out to be pretty effective in backing these claims.
If you are the sort of person who wants good noise cancellation but doesn’t want to spend a premium price, the Master Buds Max can be a good option to consider.
Battery life
The company claims that the Master Buds Max can offer a battery backup up to 48 hours (with ANC turned off) on a single charge. Without ANC, these headphones have been claimed to last up to 60 hours. In my usage, I found these claims to be largely accurate. If anything, I might have overshot these numbers during my usage. So if you’re the sort of person who travels a lot or hates plugging devices in for charging, the Master Buds Max fit the bill nicely.
With fast charging support, these headphones can provide you with a backup of up to 10 hours (with ANC turned off) in a matter of just 10 minutes. Like most other portable devices these days, these headphones also come with the handy Type-C charging support.
Verdict
Master Buds Max from Noise have been priced at Rs 11,999, but with the launch prebook offers, you can get it for as low as Rs 9,999. At this price point, these headphones come across as a surprisingly good package. Be it sound quality, ANC, or battery life, the Master Buds Max hits all the right spots. Although I’m not a big fan of the design and, in some aspects, the build quality, I would say that the first-generation premium headphones from Noise are definitely worth checking out if you’re in the market for ANC headphones priced around the Rs 10,000 mark.
Editor’s rating: 8.3 / 10
Pros:
- Good sound quality
- Impressive ANC
- Long-lasting battery life
Cons:
- Unintuitive button placement
- Vinyl disc design catches dust easily
