Nura suffered the same quiet fate as countless startups before. The innovative Australian firm was effectively acqui-hired by Masimo, which has been amassing its own arm of audio brands. The Southern Californian medical device company previously purchased numerous familiar names, including Bowers and Wilkins, Polk Audio and Denon.
Unlike those firms, however, the Nura brand has gone away as a result. COO Blair Tripodi told me back in April, “Nura was a technology tuck-in and acquisition-hire of engineering talent to support the Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology (AAT) platform.”
The deal was initially positioned as a partnership to the outside, with a press release titled, “Nura Joins Forces With Denon.” It didn’t offer much insight into the acquisition, but did highlight “a Denon product featuring Masimo AAT, expected in mid-2023.” AAT is in effect, the new name for the Nura platform.
Image Credits: Denon
The first product was announced early today. The Denon PerL and PerL Pro bear more than a passing resemblance to the Nura True, which may be something of a relief for Nura fans. The odd name is a partial blend word of “Personalized” and “Listening,” an obvious reference to Nura’s (now Denon’s) customized sound profiles, which made the products stand out in a sea of samey earbuds.
Both of the buds are fully wireless and rely on the Denon PerL Headphone app to create custom profiles. Both also feature active noise cancelation, through the Pro feature eight mics to the PerL’s four, which should improve the sound blocking. Masimo also says the following about the Pro,
While standard Bluetooth technology compresses and decompresses audio during wireless transmission, Denon PerL Pro earbuds provide a streaming experience similar to listening to a CD. This means users can enjoy high-fidelity streaming sources with excellent audio fidelity. PerL Pro also creates a surround sound effect that enhances the overall audio experience in a compact and comfortable wireless earbud design.
You can buy the PerL and PerL Pro for $199 and $349, respectively, through Denon’s site.
Image Credits: Denon
These are the first Denon-branded Nura headphones by Brian Heater originally published on TechCrunch