New Noble Katana Universal Flagship IEM

Proprietary my ass. The only company making their own drives is Sony. That's it.

That's just a marketing term used to bullshit gullible people into paying more for a cheaper product.

 

I bet Noble is willing that no one will crack open a $1800 IEM to find out the driver configuration.

 

I bet someone (or a group of someones) will... I'll gladly donate money to the cause.

 

Let's not go full-Headcase guys.

I never see much of a point in using amateur diagnosis to ensure that manufacturers are making as little margin as possible. The product will have to stand on its own in the marketplace against competitors that aim to deliver equal or better performance at similar or lower cost. If this new Katana can beat the Jupiter/Andromeda/UERM in terms of overall fidelity then we can indeed deem it no BS and an epic win for Noble. Although "value" can always be interpreted by individual's own preferences and priorities. Capitalism FTW

 

Yes and no. I've called out other companies like JHAudio in the past for claiming proprietary drivers. Some folks on head-fi even say claim that a given brands proprietary armatures need burn-in.

This doesn't make sense at all to me and seems wrong because what "proprietary" tends to mean in the context of Sonion and Knowles drivers is that when you buy in quantity, you can have your order pre-set to a given impendance and probably a few other things versus someone buying a smaller amount of basically the same armatures. This can be important in manufacturing, so there's a reason to do it that way. Also, I'm not invalidating people's subjective experience with their earphones, just what I've heard from ciem makers.

If JHA is going to claim proprietary drivers as a talking point, then other brands should be able to as well. In the end, it all comes down to the sound.

 

I agree with OJ.
Since when do parts costs correlate to retail price, especially in audio gear? Just look at cable pricing! Companies charge whatever they want and let the market figure it out. No one is saying that the market is right, but that's just capitalism. If you think they charge too much, then don't buy it. But I am pretty sure Noble sales are not hurting.

With regard to the number of drivers, with speakers, people generally don't equate the number of drivers with how good they sound or the price. We also don't judge headphones by the number of drivers either. But with IEMs, more is perceived as better. Not sure why.

 

Because that's how the companies market them. What's the easiest way to differentiate your product from your competitor? Add more drivers! What's the easiest way to price your lineup of IEMs? Do it by driver count!

I was at the Audio64 booth at Canjam and asked to listen to their 4-driver IEM, because that was in my price range of what I was looking for at the time. I didn't like it. The rep then suggested I try the 3-driver they had, because the tuning was different. It was head and shoulders above the 4-driver to my ears, and the rep said most people didn't even pay it any attention because of the driver count. Well, who can blame them? So many people in this hobby are convinced that the more something the costs, the better it must sound, and IEM companies price IEMs with more drivers higher, then why wouldn't consumers come to the conclusion that the 4-driver must be better than the 3-driver?

 

I agree with your point except for the last bit, just because others are doing it, does not make using sleazy/bullshit marketing terms right.

FAD charges insane prices and say they use specially made drivers, but at least they had the balls to say out right its a custom tuned sonion. Tbf, most of their cost is not in the drivers anyway, 3D printing titanium, then smoothing and polishing it is not cheap.

I once tried to get a company with titanium 3d capabilities to make me a custom titanium CIEM shell (perfectly finished ones, i really liked the titanium 334's suyama had) and the cost for a custom one was more than 10k.

 

Sorry, can't help myself sometimes!!

For the record, I am not complaining about the price, I don't give two shits if it cost more than the K10 or any other iem. If it sounds good, that's great. I'm also all for capitalism. Hell, I supported Noble by recently purchasing the K10. I have also purchased several other TOTL iems. Price isn't my issue. I just wanted to see the driver configuration and was genuinely curious about the proprietary driver statement.

 

Minor observation, but it looks like both Katana and K10 have all customization options free (with a few exceptions), giving credence to the "dual flagship" idea. This has always been true for K10, but not for any model priced below it

 

Nice analogy but IEMs were my only point of reference for 3-4 years and there is a difference. K10 has poor imaging in comparison to the competition. Some people care, a lot of people obviously don't. I liked K10, they were like beer goggles for your ears, but I'm not in a position to own multiple flavours of IEM and comparative lack of imaging took them of the list.

I would be interested to hear Katana as the description sounds appealing, but my experience with Noble suggests spatial/imaging qualities are not a priority for John, whereas cohesion between drivers and experimentation with new materials obviously are.

 

I posted a little bit about my experience yesterday at Inearz in another thread, but the idea of proprietary drivers is marketing. Inearz is known as the reshell company and have seen the majority of the inside of most IEMs. The owner let me see all his measurements of different manufacturers and then told me what drivers where used. He had all the drivers that where used in stock and made the comment that when another IEM maker close by (central Florida is home to quite a few) ran out or they ran low, Inearz would buy or sell these "proprietary" drivers. For example, my Noble 6 was three sets of TWKs with a three way crossover. I am very inexperienced, but Inearz told me that the driver is the driver and that the magic happens in the crossovers and another unique building concepts.

 

Anyone get a listen of these yet? Noble had an event yesterday.

 

I thought it would be cool if the first pair of custom Katana's made were completely clear, and so it is:

 

Nice looking. Big question is what the hell do they sound like?

 

That is the $1850 question

 

The guy from Inearz has his own self-interest, so keep in mind that he's not quite telling you the whole truth, or at least he's spinning it to his own advantage.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I was most drawn to his attitude regarding the sound people prefer. He was not bent on selling me his IEM. He asked me several times about my preference for the Noble N6 and his willingness to reshell if that was the sound I was after. That went a long way with me.

 

I'm not saying he's a bad guy or not to work with him, just that his take is going to naturally make him look good. Jerry Harvey would have a different take.

 

Good word. I hear your point.