Noble Audio's Astrid puts a planar driver in a $539 true wireless earphone

Noble Audio has launched Astrid at $539 / £499 / €579, available from 10 November 2026 through its own store and selected retailers. Each earpiece combines an 8.3 mm dynamic driver, a 6 mm planar driver and a balanced armature, rated at 29 ohms and 106 dB SPL/mW. It runs Bluetooth 6.0 on a Qualcomm QCC3091 with SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX Adaptive and LDAC, adds active noise cancellation, a transparency mode and two-device multipoint, and claims 11 hours per charge and 40 hours with the case, with an IPX4 rating.

Three driver types in a true wireless shell is a lot of crossover to fit into a very small space, and a wireless design has the option of doing that work in DSP rather than in passive parts. Either way the measured response is the product, because tuning, cancellation and processing become inseparable once the buds are sealed. What a buyer needs is the response with cancellation on and off, which is also where the planar's contribution would show.