While True Wireless Headphones are all the rage, there are still some very special tethered earphones out there. One such pair is called the Stride, spawned from a partnership between NuForce and Massdrop.
Priced affordably at $75, the Stride are essentially just an iteration of NuForce’s BE Live5 headphones. They pack a stylish design with a metallic purple casing, along with plenty of features and a fabric-covered hard case that makes it easy to take them anywhere.
The Stride earphones have a gorgeous housing of polycarbonate and aluminum connected by a sturdy rubber tether for a sporty look and feel. The buds come with a selection of eartips to customize your fit. The sound tubes protruding from the rounded housings are set at an angle, making it easy to insert the 8mm drivers into your ears for a relatively tight fit, and on the cord, they have a weighty control/mic piece.
The Stride come with a pretty, fabric-covered case that fits easily in your pocket, along with a small USB-to-Micro USB charging cable. The Stride earbuds charge in about 1.5 hours, with a solid 8 hours of playback.
With an IPX-5 rating, the Stride can withstand sweat, dirt and water. An easy-access control piece dangling below the right earbud, which is pretty standard, offers pause/play/calling from the center button and volume controls above and below, which also default as song skip keys by holding down the button. The Stride also has magnets at the backs of the housings, making it easy to keep the buds together when you carry them.
The Nuforce Stride offers a clear and balanced sound signature, with some nice bass and solid detail in the midrange and treble. Adding codecs like aptX and AAC gives the Stride a sonic leg up on a lot of earbuds around the $50 to $75 price point. Its Bluetooth connection also pairs and works well without interference or latency. In short, the Nuforce Strides offer balanced sound that should please a wide audience.
