Decibell Kinetic One Earphones — Immersive 4D Sound
Using headphones or earphones provides a more personal experience of audio delights. It is about enjoyment, whether you put them on to escape the crowd or to listen to music. Over the years, these devices have become more smaller, more durable and portable to adjust to the times. The user experience is evolving toward more mobility and immersion, and that is what Decibell provides with their Kinetic One earphones.
The trend is towards mobility with the popularity of smartphones and tablets. Smartphones are becoming just as powerful as desktop computers. More users have smartphones today than computers, and this market is being followed by app developers. That includes platforms for streaming, gaming and since the COVID-19 outbreak, video conferencing. The comfort and convenience of being able to access data and entertainment from your fingertips, from anywhere is what mobility brings.
When delivering the audio for these apps, users will have to do with the speakers on these devices. For the most part they are fine, but other times it can be a struggle to hear what is being said or played. This can be a challenge when in a public place where you want to listen to music without disturbing those around you. Likewise, you may want to hear audio because you are in a virtual meeting. You could also be in a noisy environment where you can barely hear anything from your app. This is when earphones are needed.
This is a featured gadget segment for HD-PRO. This is not a deep dive into the technology, but more on the product. The review is a prototype of the Kinetic One, which is at the moment holding a Kickstarter campaign (link provided at the end of this article). There are many options available in the market for earphones, but what makes the Kinetic One different from others? Let’s find out.
(Note: I have paired the earphones to an Android device, so the results might be different for iOS users.)
Haptic, Portable, Immersive 4D
Those are three words we want to hear in 2021, as features. The Kinetic One was designed to meet that purpose. From a user standpoint, what makes a product are its features. Let’s take a look at each of those.
The Kinetic One haptic audio allows users to feel the sound. Low frequency audio creates vibrations that can be amplified to resonate in the ear and felt by the body. This is the type of sensation a user perceives with a haptic feedback, that is ideal for gaming and watching thrilling action clips. Users will not only hear an explosion while playing a war game, but they will feel it as well. It is like being at the actual scene because of the depth in realism haptic audio brings.
This is also an immersive experience. It is like having a surround sound system in your ears. The immersion is due to the noise isolation feature provided to give users more of the audio while minimizing outside noise that could affect quality. With 3D audio, you are getting sound from more than two channels (stereo) either by hardware or virtual through software. Either way it brings more depth with hyper-realistic and engaging ways to listen to audio. 4D brings elements of spatial awareness and directionality so that users can perceive where a sound is coming from.
The freedom to listen to audio from anywhere is what portability brings. The Kinetic One was designed to be durable for user smartphones. It is for a modern on the move lifestyle, whether for listening to music while taking a walk or to pass the time while riding a bus. The earphones are wireless and have a collar that fits securely around the neck that connects to your smartphone via bluetooth (BT). It is an easy setup without any additional configuration. On the left side of the collar are the audio controls for volume, the USB-C charging port and power button.
Test One: Music
The very first thing the earphones would be used for is listening to music. This is what people mainly would use earphones for. I play several tracks and different genres. The sound quality is good, and the frequency response has a wide range. The earphones fit nicely in the ear. There was never any moment it felt lose and about to fall off. This keeps the experience immersive.
You can really feel the bass kick in at lower frequencies. That was a feature Decibell reports in its marketing of haptic audio. While bass can be overpowering, the Kinetic One doesn’t allow too much of the bass to drown out the rest of the audio. There is clarity in the separation of frequencies, allowing the user to discern audio from various ranges. At full volume though it may not be the most pleasant example for bass heavy songs, which can rattle the ears with vibrations.
In general, usability for music is excellent. Listening to mellow music like jazz and bossa nova was quite relaxing. Even though the Kinetic One is bass enhanced, lite sounds are not amplified greatly. In jazz, the bass is the beat, that carries the rhythm. As long as the earphones can reproduce it that is fine. If you are listening to bass heavy hip-hop tracks be careful. At some point it gets really loud and it is not the type of earphones to handle the volume of pressure building up in the driver. You could blow out your ears with prolonged vibrations, because the bass can really be intense.
I noticed the clarity was on spot. I can understand the lyrics in the songs much better. You can both feel and hear the percussion carrying the beat. You can tell the separation of the voice from the background, so there is depth. At the same time you can feel the direction in which the audio is coming from. With normal headphones/earphones you listen to sound in your ears. With the 4D experience the sound has direction that gives a spatial awareness to the user.
Most of the tracks I played were lossy MP3. The quality depends on the compression, but the high quality MP3 had the best playback. Less compression and more quality. Music from streaming formats like Spotify delivered better quality. YouTube and Vimeo also had much better results than the MP3 tracks. Tracks with a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz with a bit rate of 128 kbps tend to have the best quality.
Test Two: 3D Audio
The takeaway here is that all audio tracks for the most part were not produced with 3D or 4D encoding. I tested for 3D audio from some YouTube channels to get a feel. Those effects are really created in the earphones with a dynamic 10 mm vibrating coil. Features like this are usually found in much larger headphones, so being able to fit this in a smaller form is amazing.
Some of the audio was encoded more for high end systems that use a decoding system like THX or Dolby Atmos. However I did encounter some tests for the earphones. What I noticed is that the audio were mastered using virtual sound effects, so the playback can be supported on any speaker, headphone or earphone. That was fine so long as it gave a 3D sound.
If you want to know what a 3D sound test is like, try this link using your earphones. It is probably best experienced with high quality types, and the Kinetic One is one of them. Before, I used a simple stereo headphone and it sounded horrible. The low frequency sound was distorted and higher frequencies sound too tinny. Rumbles sounded like the headphones are about to crack.
Test Three: Mobile Gaming
I tried out several mobile games like Mobile Legends and Need For Speed. I am using the Android versions of these games, so there might be differences for iOS users.
With Mobile Legends the experience seems to be the same with any gaming headphone. While loudness can be annoying at times, when playing a game like Mobile Legends it can be more engaging. I was hoping to feel those “death blows” when I get hit by an opponent, but that was not the case. The haptics were mostly from the explosions, but it was not like you feel as if you were blown up. It was just vibrations that resonated in my ears.
Need For Speed was the usual thrills. It was pretty much the same experience as with ordinary headphones. However, I did “feel” the impact when crashing a car but overall it was not the haptic experience I was expecting. This probably requires more external interfaces like a pressure sensing chair that really gives you that crashing feeling. Otherwise the haptics were not game changing.
I don’t think most games were developed for the 3D sound experience quite yet, so I didn’t notice too many differences. You can get the same virtual sound effects from other headphones, but not the haptic audio. Nothing dramatic to that effect but it is something that can be improved.
Test Four: Movies
In the past, people might think it is a bad idea to watch movies from a smartphone. Here we are now doing just that to pass the time. Watching streaming movies from a smartphone with the Kinetic One using Netflix was enjoyable. You can hear the dialogue from the actors much better along with some directionality of sound.
At some parts you can hear the sound “traveling” toward you. It really seems like surround sound for earphones. When watching “John Wick” you can somewhat feel as if the action is coming to you. Even “Black Mirror” episodes had some new impressions with the sound quality. You are not going to really need haptic effects for watching most movies. Just watch the show and enjoy the high quality audio.
Test Five: Virtual Meetings
The final test was with virtual conferencing and meeting apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype. It does not have to utilize any haptic effects for this one, just high quality audio reproduction. Audio quality scores a win for all apps tested. The Kinetic One does add more clarity to audio. The level of quality is more a function of the Internet connection, so the faster the better.
You don’t need a separate microphone, the collar has a microphone built-in. It is also placed at a comfortable location that picks up voice just fine. There were no issues with any calls on Skype or conferences with Zoom or Teams. These earphones are so comfortable to use and less bulky. It also appears more acceptable in conferencing, rather than wearing bulky headsets. The Kinetic One just hangs around your neck. When you are on the go it is much easier to carry and use with smartphones.
Test Six: Sensory Experiences
If you know ASMR, then this is what I am talking about. Along this line would be meditation and mind relaxation audio techniques. Going over several ASMR clips online, the sensory audio experience was quite different than with usual earphones. With 4D, the sounds come at you with a haptic feel.
The sound of pouring water for example feels like it is “running” through your hair. Who would have thought the sound of wind blowing can be soothing with vibrations in your ears. The immersion of sound along with the relaxing audio can actually help people rest or sleep better. This is just opinion based on using the earphones.
Final Remarks
These earphones gave quite a good impression. It is for the “Experience Age” in a post-iPhone era. These can be a daily driver for mobile users. There are other options, but they don’t have the 4D immersive experience. For me that is about better clarity with audio, because it is much different with all the depth and detail in sound. Most apps may also not support true 3D or 4D audio since the content was not produced that way. Therefore the effects are mostly virtual.
Since the earphones are immersive, it is not recommended for people to use while driving a car. The immersion helps minimize distractions from the outside, but people lose sense of where they are and those around them. Always be careful when combining this with outdoor and recreational activities.
There is no official data on how long the earphone’s battery will last. The capacity is 200 mAh. I charged the prototype unit only once, when first removed from the packaging. Full charge will indicate a blue LED light (red when not fully charged). The tests were not all conducted on the same day, but estimated usage time was 5 hours total without the need to recharge.
This is recommended for those who want to try something new. It is not going to be like a Sennheiser in terms of the ultimate audio quality, but it is more about the user experience. You are not thinking about using these earphones for music production or audio engineering, but for entertainment and recreation. It also fits the on the move and always on the go lifestyle. All you need to pair with your smartphone are earphones like these.
One final tip, don’t put the volume all the way up to full. Look for your sweet spot between 1 to 10, where 1 is the minimum and 10 is maximum. An area between 5 and 8 was used in the testing, and considered optimal for audio quality.
Check out and support the Decibell Kickstarter Campaign for the Kinetic One:
