Denon is also no longer the famous Japanese electronics company but basically a fabless brand that was kept as part of the Sound United portfolio, acquired in 2017 from D+M Holdings. Meanwhile, Sound United was also acquired by a medical instrumentation company, Masimo, that apparently had ambitions to enter the consumer wearable health market inspired by the Apple Watch.
The launch of the two new Denon TWS earbuds also signals the decision by the Australian company to stop selling its own Nura products, following the licensing of its technologies and designs to Denon in April 2023. As confirmed now by Luke Campbell, Nura's CEO and Co-founder, the company has effectively joined forces with Denon (part of Masimo), in what appears to be an undisclosed acquisition.
As Luke Campbell confirms in the Nura website, "the combination of Nura’s personalized sound technology", with Masimo's Sound United engineering team and consumer audio businesses is now rebranded as a new platform — Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology (AAT). This is the same exact method to create personalized listening profiles, based on existing hearing research that inspired Luke Campbell and Dragan Petrovic to create Nura Sound in 2016.
The method adapts the frequency response matched to each listener and each ear individually. The personalization works by playing a range of tones and measure an Otoacoustic Emission (OAE), which every ear generates in response to these tones. Encoded in the returning sound wave is information about our unique hearing, and Nura synthesizes this information with its self-learning engine to create a personalized hearing profile.
This is done through the Nura app. Every time the user creates its unique hearing profile, the app generates an abstract and unique colored graphic bubble that the user can post on social media as its unique "hearing fingerprint" - which is a great marketing idea.
The company's first product, the Nura Headphone was a crowdfunding success. Already in 2021, Nura launched its first true wireless earbuds, the Nura True, managing to support the same automatic hearing test, and adding ANC, Transparency, and “immersion” features in the compact form factor. In 2022, the company partnered with Swedish digital audio processing pioneer Dirac to launch the NuraTrue Pro wireless earbuds, featuring Dirac Virtuo spatial audio, being also among the first products to feature Qualcomm aptX Adaptive with includes a CD-quality aptX Lossless codec mode.
The NuraTrue and NuraTrue Pro are now relaunched as Denon PerL and Denon PerL Pro. Both models offer active noise cancellation and a more transparent social mode. The PerL Pro model features eight microphones (vs. four in PerL) and upgraded noise cancellation, automatically adjusting the level of cancellation according to the amount of leak-through, the environment’s sound, and the tightness of fit in the ears.
Denon PerL users will be also able to elevate their personalization experience through the Denon Headphones app for iOS and Android, with the ability to customize features such as selective noise canceling or Social Mode and on-earbud touch controls such as play/pause, skip track, change volume, and more.
"The era of one-sound-fits-all is over. PerL automatically figures out the optimal sound for each individual, to cater to your unique ears. I am personally blown away by how good PerL Pro is. I have not heard my music like this since I was 18. PerL is intuitive, comfortable, and ergonomic. With the launch of PerL, we are transcending the listening experience. We can’t wait to have our customers join us in this new paradigm," says Joe Kiani, founder and CEO of Masimo.
A limited number of rebranded Denon PerL and PerL Pro headphones are now available for purchase at Denon.com for $199 and $349, respectively, with a fuller rollout later in 2023.
www.nurasound.com
www.denon.com
