Affordable True Wireless Headphones with Spatial Audio

Thanks to Dolby Atmos and products like Apple’s AirPods Pro, spatial audio is becoming a major player when it comes to headphones and earphones. The 1MORE Aero True Wireless Headphones represent this company’s attempt to bring spatial audio to the masses at an affordable price.

Spatial audio aims to make the music you’re listening to sound like it’s coming from all around you. Combined with head tracking, another feature of the 1MORE Aero, you can sound like you’re listening to music coming from speakers instead of headphones.

Whether spatial audio will take off in the way the companies driving it want it to, remains to be seen, so was 1MORE worth the gamble on spatial audio? It’s an interesting experiment, but the Aero earbuds don’t reach the same levels as the company’s flagship EVO True Wireless earbuds.

Design and Fit

While the 1MORE EVO earphones had a unique look, the Aero clearly drew design inspiration from another part of their product line. The long stems are similar to 1MORE’s ComfoBuds, which themselves seem to have been inspired by Apple’s AirPods.

We’re looking at the 1MORE Aero in white, but they’re also available in black. Either way, both the earbuds and the charging case use a matte finish instead of a glossy one. This looks nice and also makes the case and earphones a bit easier to hold.

1MORE includes four sets of silicone eartips in small, medium, large and extra large sizes. It is important to find the tips that are right for you, as this will affect not only comfort, but also sound quality.

You don’t need to worry about taking the 1MORE Aero for a run in the rain as they are rated IPX5 waterproof. That being said, you might want to be a bit more careful with the case, as it appears that only the earbuds are weatherproof, not the case.

Speaking of the case, it’s bigger and lighter than the Apple AirPods Pro case. This isn’t a pro or con, but it’s worth mentioning that the case doesn’t feel flimsy at all.

Controls and the 1MORE music app

The controls are relatively simple. A double tap on either earbud works similar to a multifunction button, allowing you to pause and resume playback or answer calls. A triple tap activates your phone’s voice assistant, while a long press cycles through noise canceling and transparency modes.

For anything else, you’ll need to turn to the 1MORE Music app, available for iPhone and Android devices. Here you can adjust your noise cancellation options, as we’ll see later. This is also where you can enable spatial audio, update your firmware, or adjust your equalization settings.

There are two equalizer options: a custom equalizer and 12 preset equalizer packs courtesy of Sonarworks. The presets cover some music genres like Hip-Hop, Pop, Classical, and Electronic. You also get some useful options like a vocal booster and a specialized EQ curve for podcasts.

Finally, this is where you will find the Smart Loudness feature. Sort of like the “Loudness” button on stereos, this is meant to make low volume music sound more like it’s turned up.

Sound quality

Connectivity is pretty standard, as the 1MORE Aero headphones use Bluetooth 5.2 with either the AAC or SBC codecs, depending on which device you’re using for playback. It would have been nice to see higher quality codecs like LDAC or aptX, but presumably, 1MORE chose to focus on spatial audio instead.

Initially, I was skeptical when it came to spatial audio, but my time reviewing the second-generation Apple AirPods Pro had me convinced. Depending on the mix, spatial audio can sound very good. That said, the 1MORE Aero’s spatial audio is a far cry from the AirPods Pro.

I’m not sure what digital signal processing (DSP) trick Apple is using for its spatial audio, but it sounds much more natural than the 1MORE Aero. Most of the tracks I listened to with Spatial Audio enabled in the 1MORE Music app sounded a bit wider, but louder and with unnatural reverb.

Unlike AirPods Pro, head tracking is automatically enabled when you turn on spatial audio. If you’re like me, this is a minor annoyance, but if you always use spatial audio head tracking on other headphones, it’s nice to not have to toggle between two options.

As for the overall sound, the midrange sounds a bit rawer than the 1MORE EVO, but considering the price difference, the sound is pretty good. That said, it’s clear that these are tuned differently than those headphones, which probably makes spatial audio sound better.

The bass line takes PJ Harvey’s “Down By The Water”, and 1MORE Aero covers this low end well. When enabling the spatial audio setting, I noticed almost no sonic difference, except that head tracking suddenly kicked in. This is a great example of a track that works perfectly with spatial audio.

I then turned to Crosby/Stills/Nash’s “Pre-Road Downs,” a song that makes use of aggressive panning, with lots of left and right elements. The 1MORE Aero shows this without pushing it mono or showing too much separation. Spatial audio makes the bass sound a little boomier, but leaves the stereo field clear.

To test the treble, I turned to Gang Of Four’s “Dadamed Goods.” Percussion guitar stabs can be harsh on many headphones, but the 1MORE Aero handles them well. This was still the case when I enabled Spatial Audio in the 1MORE Music app, but I noticed additional reverb after checking the option.

Noise and voice cancellation

• Noise Cancellation: 42dB QuietMax Intelligent ANC

1MORE claims the Aero feature up to 42dB of active noise cancellation (ANC), which should be enough to easily drown out nearby conversation. Sure enough, cranking the noise cancellation all the way up drowned out conversation, as did a relatively tall TV nearby.

You can also choose how much noise you want to cancel. In the 1MORE Music app, you can choose between Loud, Soft, WNR (for wind noise), and Adaptive. While Adaptive mode is supposed to adjust to your surroundings, I often leave noise cancellation set to Strong.

Similar to most noise canceling true wireless earphones these days, the 1MORE Aero also features a transparent mode. This works better than I’ve seen on some products, but as is often the case, it doesn’t come close to the Transparency mode on Apple’s AirPods Pro. I never forgot I was using the 1MORE Aero, even in Transparent mode. in.

Voice quality is what you’d expect and is on par with the microphones on many true wireless earbuds in the same price range. I will say that, similar to other 1MORE products I’ve tested, the built-in microphone array does a good job of combating wind noise.

Microphone Audio Sampler – Interiors

Microphone audio sample – Exteriors

Battery and charging case

When it comes to battery life, the 1MORE Aero have similar battery life to other true wireless earbuds. You can expect about five hours of playback using ANC, or up to seven hours when you’re not using ANC or Transparent mode. This also depends slightly on the volume.

The charging case can fully charge the earbuds three times, giving you a theoretical total battery capacity of up to 28 hours. It sounds like 1MORE is playing it safe with their estimates, so you might be able to squeeze more battery out of them if you’re careful.

Finally, we move on to the charging case itself. You can charge the case via the included USB-C cable, but it also features Qi wireless charging. The bottom of the case is quite wide and flat, so wireless charging with chargers meant for AirPods or other true wireless headphones can be difficult.

Should you buy the 1MORE Aero?

If you’re especially interested in trying spatial audio, but would rather not spend the money that AirPods Pro or similar headphones would cost, the 1MORE Aero True Wireless Earbuds may be your best bet right now. Just know that the spatial audio found in the AirPods Pro sounds a lot better.

There’s nothing wrong with the 1MORE Aero, they’re just not on the same sound level as other products we’ve seen from the company. Sure, the EVO True Wireless Earbuds are around $50 more, but for that extra money, you get a better-sounding set of true wireless earbuds in exchange for no spatial audio.

Assuming you’re interested in the AirPods-style form factor and the price, there’s still a lot to like about the 1MORE Aero, regardless of whether you’re interested in spatial audio.