1MORE Dual Driver BT ANC In-Ear Headphones Review

A Closer Look and Performance

For those of you who read our review of the 1MORE Triple Driver Hi-Res BT headphones, you’ll see these look pretty familiar to some extent. They come with that soft flex neckband that houses all the controls, wireless hardware, and battery tech. It’s a great solution and keeps the weight in a comfortable position while allowing for short cable runs to the earbuds. Unlike the Triple Driver, the new Dual Driver model comes with a very different earbud design. They’re all cast from aluminium, making them both incredibly strong but also endlessly stylish. They’ve got a good weight to them too, not so much that they want to pull free from your ears, but enough that they feel like a quality and well-made product.

Stylish Design

There’s great attention to detail too, with trimmed edges on the back with a slight polish to them, and even just the general shape looks fantastic. Of course, they’re slightly larger than most in-ear drivers, allowing room for their dual-driver technology. They use their patented driver structure. It features a titanium composite diaphragm that drives the mid-range and bass, while dual PET layers deliver the bass notes, and the actual central titanium layer deals with the treble. However, they also use their custom STA-1 A5C22 balanced armature to deliver low-distortion high-frequency signals, allowing for huge amounts of detail in the sound, as well as helping deliver the noise cancelling frequencies for the ANC.

Slick Ergonomics

One cool little feature is that they’re magnetic on the back too. This means you can drop them around your neck when not in use, and they’ll simply snap together. What this does is prevent them from swinging all over the place and smacking you in the face. Handy if you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to pack them away in your pocket/bag. The included earbuds are very high quality and I found the default set to hold them in place perfectly. They grip and fit well, providing plenty of noise isolation on their own. However, with seven extra sets in the box, including some almost teardrop shaped ones, you should have zero issues finding the perfect fit.

Great Features

One of the coolest features of these headphones is the neckband. It packs in a load of extra hardware, and not just the battery and wireless tech; although the larger size that this affords means bigger battery and superb wireless performance too. However, you get volume and media controls within easy reach. There’s a power button, built-in microphone, and a slider to control the monitoring and ANC features. You get tones and little soundbites like “ANC is Enabled” through the drivers when you change controls, so at least you know what button you’ve pressed.

The drivers are mounted using durable and lightweight cables, which feed through the side of the neckband.

Weird Flex But OK…

It’s really flexible and pretty damn strong too. You can really bend the hell out of it, pull on it, fold it, and it just flexes right back. I’ve used this style of neckband on their Triple Driver model for ages myself, and it’s remarkably comfortable.

There’s very little weight at the back of the neckband, and it doesn’t tend to snag in your clothes or anything. However, with the weight pushed towards the ends, it gives it a nice anchored feel so it’s unlikely to slide around or fall off backwards if you’re out and about.

The short cables mean that you don’t end up getting your arms and clothes tangled there either. Of course, there’s a little slack on them, so if things do move around, they don’t get pulled out of your ears.

Little Ear Buds Big Sound

With 1MORE I wouldn’t expect anything short of the bass when it comes to sound quality. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. The dual-driver design certainly works well. The bass has plenty of low-end push, especially with EDM style music. The bass was a little short when listening to more intense music. Most notably the bass drum needed some more oomph on the opening track to Ihsahn’s Amr album. Thankfully,  a little roll off of the treble on the EQ fixed that up, so it’s really all subjective and based on what you listen to. That being said, other heavy metal faired just fine, but that song, in particular, is a wall of sound.

Prog Rocking

The dual driver design affords an exceptional level of detail in the listening experience. It’s not overly bright, but the treble sings with real depth, and there is a warmth and texture to the mid-range that really brings out the tones of any classic rock track or a bit of prog rock. Hocus Pocus by prog legends Focus sounded so good (as it should!), I listened to it a few more times before I finished my testing.

Chatting Away

The setup is pretty adept outside of music too, and watching some Netflix and playing some games on my tablet sounded pretty fantastic. Loads of volume when you need it, no distortion and high or low volumes, and the wireless performance was faultless too. However, it’s the microphones that really stand out for me. For making a few calls, both over the phone and on Facebook Messenger, the quality is fantastic. The microphone doesn’t pick up much, if any, background noise. Furthermore, with ANC enabled, I can sit on a noisy train and have a conversation. No background noise for both me and the other caller.