On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,”
the kick drum loop receives plenty of high-mid
presence, allowing it to retain its punchy edge. The sub-
bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered
with almost no sense of bass depth, while the vinyl
crackle and hiss that are usually relegated to
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vocal performances are delivered cleanly and clearly
through the Tempo’s drivers, but this is once again an
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and highs.
Orchestral tracks, such as the opening scene from John
Adams’ “The Gospel According to the Other Mary,”
actually sound the most natural of all genres. The
lower-register instrumentation gets an ideal level of
bass presence, while the higher-register brass, strings,
and vocals receive ideal levels of high-mid presence,
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sounding thin or brittle.
Perhaps the most useful and impressive aspect of the
audio performance is how well you hear both the audio
and your surroundings. It would be relatively easy to
converse with a fellow runner, and at most volumes,
you should also be able to hear any crucial
environmental audio, such as sirens and approaching
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that comes with the open design.
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intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone
8, we could understand every word we recorded. The
typical Bluetooth distortion fuzzed up the edges of
words, but the audio was particularly crisp despite this,
and the overall mic signal level was strong.
Communication with a solid mobile signal shouldn’t be
an issue with the Frames Tempo.
Perhaps the
most impressive
aspect of the
audio perfor-
mance is how
well you hear
both the audio
and your
surroundings.