boAt NIRVANAA TRES Triple Driver earphone review: Rich bass, great highs on a budget

In a market already packed with good quality and jazzy in-ear earphones, the entry of a new player is not unusual; everyone is looking to grab a share of the pie. boAt Lifestyle, known for affordable audio solutions, has lately launched a pair of budget earphone dubbed the NIRVANAA TRES. The new earphones are the upgraded version of the NIRVANAA DUO that was released with dual drivers a year ago.

The NIRVANAA TRES triple driver earphones are positioned as a 'flagship' killer that can deliver a high definition audio and deep bass sound.

Design, Build, Specifications

The NIRVANAA TRES isn't designed like any regular pair of in-ear earphones. The enclosure of each earbud is built using plastic and have an attractive glossy sheen. The dual-tone and glossy finish make the NIRVANAA TRES look good. The earbuds have a round shaped — red grille on the outer surface, which helps to enhance the audio while still maintaining the beauty of these earphones. The ear tips are tilted with an ergonomic angle making them comfortable to slip into the ear canal.

The cable is sturdy and feels soft, making it easy to roll up and stow away. However, it sometimes gets tough to uncurl it after being rolled up for a long time. The cable and the driver enclosures are average; however, boAt could have opted for a flat cable instead of round for a better tangle-free experience.

The cable has an in-line remote control with the microphone and media control buttons housed within. A three-button cluster is used for adjusting the volume level and playing or pausing a track. This controller module seems flimsy and the tactility of the buttons are not efficient enough — they are pretty hard to press and control. Pressing down twice on the middle button skips to the next track, while pressing it three times reverts back to the start of the track or to the previous track respectively. The middle button is also used to answer and reject calls, and a long press, lets you summon the voice assistant on your smartphone. The earphones come with a gold-plated 3.5mm angled connector for better connectivity and comfortable use respectively. There's also a velcro cable tie and a protective carry pouch to accommodate the earphones and its accessories.

The earbuds ship well in a box with five sets of silicone ear tips in different sizes. We found the latter pretty comfortable to wear as the ear tip does compress enough to fit snugly within the ear canal.

As for the specifications, the headphones feature a hybrid-driver system, with two dynamic drivers and a balanced armature for a good audio delivery of both highs and lows. Each earbud features a 6mm driver with a frequency range of 20Hz-20KHz. The rated impedance is 32 Ohms and it has a sensitivity of 90db.

Performance

The NIRVANAA TRES earbuds perform well when it comes to punchy bass with enough kicks and thumps. Bass-heavy tracks are handled well — a punchy bass with ample kick without sounding too hollow. Even at high volumes, the bass is well controlled. Vocals sound decent and crisp, and there is a fair amount of separation noticeable between the instruments. The division in the mid-range frequency is distinct, thereby allowing the vocals to shine through. The highs can get shrilly at times, but as long as you don’t push the volume too high; this isn’t very noticeable. However, it completely depends on the soundtrack, its amplification and the equalizer settings set by the user.

The in-line remote control does a decent job for phone calls too. However, ambient noise isn't shunned properly. The noise isolation is not what it tends to promise. Wearing the NIRVANAA TRES on a busy road can be pretty disturbing.

Verdict

The NIRVANAA TRES with a triple driver system manages to do quite a lot of justice to your audio tracks. With a rich bass, great highs and decent mids, the earphones manage to deliver as per expected. Priced at Rs 2,986, the earphones demand a fair price for the audio quality they can produce. However, the below average overall build quality in comparison to the steep retail price could put the user into a second thought.