Buying a pair of good earbuds has become a bit of a minefield. While a few gems are available on the market alongside the tried, tested, and well-known brands, it’s hard always to know what you’re getting with your purchase. While features may not always be the best marker to gauge quality, not knowing what each device offers under the hood regarding its hardware is always a concern. The Tranya Nova earbuds are a great example of finding a gem amongst the many up-and-coming offerings in the market. 

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As quality is an uncompromising benchmark for the brand, its underlying Qualcomm hardware makes for good reading upon first glance at the specifications. Additionally, with features like aptX technology, active noise cancellation and seamless transition, the Nova appears to be a great buy on paper. So, let’s look closely to see how they perform in the real world. 

Build and Design 

Regarding the design, the Tranya Nova has a straightforward ethos, taken from the Apple AirPods school instead of the Samsung Buds. That’s where the similarities end, however, as the Nova has its design details that make for a few improvements over the latter. 

The first noticeable distinction is its shorter stem. In addition, the heads of each bud are also shaped very differently, allowing them to be placed in the ear with great ease. I’d go as far as to say that the Nova fits much better overall, creating more of a seal to provide better clarity of the sound and some level of passive noise cancellation. 

Additionally, the smaller stems make for a much more compact case, making it easier to carry around in almost any pouch. It’s small enough to fit into the traditional coin pocket on your favourite pair of jeans, which isn’t used for much else. 

Unlike the detailing on the earbuds’ shape, the case is a lot more minimalistic. It has a basic squashed sphere appearance with a glossy plastic finish to match the earbuds. I don’t mind the design, even if it’s unassuming. 

There are, however, some excellent takeaways on the case once opened. For starters, it has an LED indicator light on the front to provide the battery level of the remaining charge. Secondly, it also has a Bluetooth reset button, which allows you to pair with another device instead of having to first unpair on the currently connected source, which can sometimes be tricky. 

Overall, the design and build are pretty good on the Tranya Nova, both on the earbuds and the outer casing. 

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Setup and Configuration 

Being a Bluetooth-enabled device, pairing is effortless. Once you’ve opened the case lid, the LED light will flash. This indicates that the earbuds are now available for pairing as soon as they’re lifted from the casing. Upon doing so, I could immediately detect the Tranya Nova on the Bluetooth settings, both on my smartphone and laptop. 

This indicates that it offers a seamless pairing for any device, and with a simple positive selection, it commences pairing within a few seconds for both earbuds. Unlike many other earbuds, you don’t need to pair each separately to configure. When you place each earbud into your ear, you can hear an audible beep to confirm that each has been paired and is good to go. The same beep will be repeated whenever you put the earbuds into your ear to indicate that it has once again paired to the device whenever it is removed from its case. 

Performance and Features 

The most crucial aspect of any good earbuds is its audio quality. In addition to that, offering a wide range of valuable features also makes it worthwhile. 

On the latter, the Tranya Nova has several features to list. The first of these is its active noise cancelling (ANC) technology. The ANC uses a hybrid approach, which can be enabled with a 1.5-second press on the earbuds. In addition to its passive noise cancellation, the conjunction with the ANC blocks an impressive amount of ambient noise. 

The ANC technology uses six impressive built-in microphones to detect various noises with a mix of software to distinguish between your voice on the microphone and the surrounding sounds. According to the specifications, this helps reduce ambient noise by up to 43dB, which is quite impressive. Additionally, users can adjust the levels of noise cancellation to their preference, including Full, Ambient Sound and off. 

As the introduction mentions, the device is powered through the Qualcomm QCC3072 chipset, which supports aptX. Each earbud has 12mm dynamic drivers to round off the specs. 

The Qualcomm chipset allows excellent integration with various devices to enable additional features over and above aptX. It allows for great audio across the frequency spectrum and low-latency streaming through Bluetooth 5.3 support. 

In terms of the sound quality, it is excellent. With the tight fit for passive noise cancellation, it also offers great bass. Further to good lows, the mids are also excellent. However, the highs aren’t as good. The sound doesn’t distort at volumes, but it’s relatively muted when isolated. 

Thankfully, you can fix quite a bit of this with an EQ. And, Tranya has an integrated app for iOS and Android to provide a fully customised experience for your Nova earbuds. Here, you can adjust the EQ and configure two separate devices to be paired with, allowing for easy switching between the devices. One of the better features is the ability to customise each touch control. By default, the device has single, double and triple-touch options added. While each of these can also be customised, you can set fourth and fifth touch options. 

Lastly, we have the battery life. On standard usage, you can get about nine hours of playback. In addition, you can get an extra 27 hours of charge from the case for a total of 36 hours. Depending on your usage of ANC and other features, you could also eke out a few additional hours well above 40. It’s not the highest recorded among other earbuds and case duos, but it’s still an impressive haul given all the features, dual pairing and excellent audio quality. 

Further to the excellent battery life, the device has several options for charging. It supports fast charging capabilities, as well as wireless charging. If supported, you can charge the case using reverse charging from your smartphone. That’s quite useful. 

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Should You Buy the Tranya Nova Earbuds? 

With a wide range of earbuds available today, getting a decent pair is more complicated than ever. However, with the Tranya Nova, you’re guaranteed quality with several impressive features, all supported by a Qualcomm chipset to provide that extra confirmation of quality. 

It has good-quality audio, even better noise cancellation, and the ability to pair two separate devices simultaneously. You can visit the official Tranya website for more information on the Nova. The earbuds are currently on sale this week on Amazon for $69.99. In addition to that, Fortress viewers can get an extra 15% discount using the code NOVA15US.

Additionally, Tranya is also offering discounts on the

Tranya Nova Earbuds Review  Written by Evan Saunders for Fortress of Solitude