When approaching the écoute audio demonstration table at AXPONA 2025, my first question to Kendall Liddle, co-founder of the company, was “of all ideas, why create an active headphone design with a tube-driven stage, into wireless headphones?”, to which I was immediately told, “Because you shouldn’t need to be tethered to your home hifi, to experience your music at its best.”
This surprised me, since I could see a mountain of challenges to put something like that together into a compact, low-power headphones design. Kendall Liddle is also the creative director and product designer for écoute audio and has more than 20 years of experience in working from product development concepts into a brand. By researching the company, I found out that écoute audio was also co-founded by its CEO Joshua Fairbairn, a Canadian product development expert based in Guangzhou, China, and the CEO of MorphoMFG, a design, development, and contract manufacturing company with an already extensive history in consumer electronics. The two founders both lived in Montréal, Québec, when they met, which explains the name (écoute meaning “listen” in French).
And suddenly everything about the écoute audio TH1 headphones seemed more credible and consistent. Because the product being demonstrated at AXPONA 2025 was already a refined, solid product that was able to impress the demanding crowd that attends the largest audio show in North America. And when I asked about écoute audio to the other companies happily exhibiting their heavily wired big-sized headphones tied to tube preamps at the Ear Gear Experience, none seemed to know much about it. And they all reacted with understandable surprise at the reference of a built-in tube preamp.
Hands-On Experience
Fast forward, I finally had the chance to seat and talk to the company in the (quieter) last day of the show, collect a one-pager sheet with vital information that I didn’t have, and enjoy a listening session. First thing to say is that these are Bluetooth 5.3 headphones that deliver what anyone these days should expect from a premium product in the wireless category, including built-in microphones for calls and voice assistant use. The platform even provides pleasant voice prompts to guide the user during use and activation of features.
The construction with a pleasant fabric-wrapped headband and aluminum earcups with replaceable fabric earpads was reassuringly solid and noiseless. The fit was comfortable, while weight is probably a bit on the upper limit for headphones that will be used by people moving around (still lighter than previously attempted “active” headphones). The headband also didn’t allow me to tighten the pressure as much as I would like to be able to lean forward and not have the headphones move about in my head. These retail for $799 USD, which is right there with current premium wireless models, such as from Focal, DALI, or Bang & Olufsen.
The first thing I tried, before playing any music, was the Active Hybrid Noise Cancellation. The fabric earpads provide good passive isolation to start. When I activated the ANC by pressing the dedicated button on the right earcup (the voice prompt confirming the option is reassuring and pleasant), the whole room environment of the show disappeared, and for a while I did enjoy the silence while still watching everything around me. Whatever the platform is, the ANC works well. A second pressure on the button told me I was in transparency mode, and suddenly I could hear conversations taking place close by, but not the room noise as such - which indicated the transparency was tuned for adaptive awareness. A third press and the voice announced ANC Off, and the room noise floor was again present, even if dampened by the passive isolation I first experienced. Good marks overall.
Then I started listening to available music from Tidal running on a tablet. Not in wireless mode, but connected directly via a 3.5mm port - which Écoute says is the option preferred to use an external phono preamp if anyone still wants to do that. The TH1 headphones have a USB-C input, which is used for charging the battery and also to listen to digital audio sources, supporting high-resolution audio up to 32-bit/384kHz. When in wireless (which I didn’t try) the Bluetooth module supports Sony LDAC or SBC from Android devices and AAC from Apple devices. Écoute already mentions Bluetooth LE Audio and LC3 streaming support from compatible devices - which is reassuring. The company is still working on the firmware to refine the user experience (the volume up/down sounds are still too loud and detract from the quality), and the design of the dedicated control app. No doubt LE Audio will be something the company will promote when available.
Active Headphones
What makes the écoute audio TH1 headphones truly interesting is the active design, using a Korg Nutube 6P1. This is a miniature, low-power dual directly-heated triode device developed by Noritake Itron, a manufacturer of vacuum fluorescent displays, in Japan. This is not a traditional vacuum tube, but as reported already by audioXpress in earlier articles, it does enable some unique attributes which are musically pleasant and easily relatable to a real “tube sound,” analog experience. The Nutube 6P1 device is complemented by a Class A/B dual-mono amplification stage, preceded by onboard digital processing to enable personalized sound tuning preferences via the app and a built-in DAC for the digital sources (USB and Bluetooth). Whatever the source, the analog result will be sweetened by the preamp stage that will be feeding the 40mm titanium-coated Mylar diaphragm dynamic drivers.
As écoute audio explains, this “tube preamp” stage brings “analog warmth and depth to digital” and even benefits wireless (compressed) source signals, taking the whole experience closer to a premium hifi sound. I heard multiple familiar tracks (Tidal lossless) and can confirm that the sound is definitely very good (as in better than the average headphones). The sound was balanced and well-rounded, not lacking any detail in multiple music genres and tracks, even if bass heavy for my taste, since I didn’t have time to change the response preferences.
The TH1 headphones provide a great sense of space and effortless reproduction, very reminiscent of listening to a fully analog hifi setup, which is very pleasant. The combination of a built-in DAC that independently processes the left and right audio channels, and the dual-mono amplification creates that level of power dynamics, detail and definition that I would expect from premium wired headphones. As écoute audio intended, providing the experience of a complete hi-fi system, engineered into portable headphones.
I couldn’t play with the app in wireless mode, but I was told that it offers customization beyond a standard EQ, giving users the ability to custom-tune their headphones by “directly adjusting the frequency response curves in the headset's firmware.”
In summary, this is a product with a very original concept that managed to combine a solid technical approach with a unique design that fully realizes the vision of an “analog, tube preamp” stage built-in into wireless headphones. Not easy to do. The end result delivers on all fronts, making the whole clever marketing concept more convincing and even appealing.
www.ecouteaudio.com
