Review + Giveaway: Flare Isolate Pro

Disclaimer: The Flare  Isolate Pro were sent to us free of charge in return for our honest opinion. We can give one pair away to a lucky reader as well. EDIT: THE GIVEAWAY IS OVER

 

Flare Audio

It’s not the first time we talk about Flare Audio on Headfonia, as a matter of fact we have reviewed their full sized R1 and their R2A & R2PRO earphones. While the R1 – the first fully open headphone according to Flare – received mixed feedback, the IEMs were quite successful. Now Flare is back with something new, this time not to listen to music, but to block sound. Although “block” isn’t the good word for it. Keep reading.

Flare Audio originally is a British loudspeaker technology company who believe that artists and engineers, not loudspeakers, should create sound.

This is how Flare describes their selves on Kickstarter“Flare was born to unlock the issues surrounding sound by developing new patent-pending technologies and products that truly revolutionize our experience of sound.We don’t follow rule books, we look at everything we do with a blank page so that we can unlock new understanding. We use suppliers who focus on achieving the highest quality components, whilst ensuring their efficiency enables a cost effective product.”

Flare Isolate Pro 2

The Isolate Pro

The what what? The Isolate Pro doesn’t make sound, it simply is a hearing protector using the latest technology to protect your ears while sleeping, travelling, going to concerts and clubs, doing or visiting motorsport and working.

Flare’s founder and inventor, Davies Roberts, could not understand why traditional ear plugs were so bad at doing their job (we’ll get back to that later). When he looked into it, he realized that ear protection was taking the wrong path in using plastics, silicone and foams to absorb sound. Solid metal is a good conductor and so had been discounted as unsuitable for use in ear protectors. Until now. What Davies has discovered is that, in order to conduct sound, metals need a direct connection. Without a direct connection solid metals block sound perfectly! (according to Flare)

SUB_0825_malits

“When you isolate a small piece of metal or dense material in soft foam inside your ear, sound waves can’t penetrate from the flexible medium of air and it becomes the perfect isolator”. Understanding this principle is what inspired them to develop the perfect ear plug. Flare continues: “Traditional earplugs, particularly the standard foam ones, rely on absorption principles to attenuate sound. Trying to absorb sound in this way requires a large amount of material to work well: examining anechoic chambers demonstrates this with their foot-long spikes of foam. Traditional ear plugs and defenders cannot block low frequencies from entering your ears very well. As well as being unpleasant to listen to, they make sound muffled, leaving you feeling disconnected, or as if you are underwater. Low frequencies produce the most energy, and this is not absorbed properly by the plastic or foam used in traditional ear protectors”.

ISOLATE® technology works by a revolutionary approach in the materials used. Noise is blocked by a dense material suspended in soft memory foam to isolate it from the effects of conduction. The result is total direct noise isolation for your ears for the first time ever without any electronics. ISOLATE® has been tested in-house against a typical foam earplug using a direct sound source, this measured the attenuation level achieved by the different materials.
Aluminium is a great metal that is strong, lightweight and cost effective. Titanium (our version) is used in ISOLATE® PRO. Being harder than aluminium it maximizes isolation and can stand serious abuse without breaking. The red trace below is the source signal which was a headphone unit, the pink trace is a standard foam earplug, the green trace is Isolate (aluminium) and the blue trace is Isolate Pro (titanium). Each square on the chart represents -10dB of sound attenuation.

d5876691188677e1ef3bb06b6f213837_original

ISOLATE®: Solid Aerospace Aluminium – 17.5mm long, 8.5mm diameter, 1.76g
ISOLATE® PRO: Solid Titanium Grade 5 – 17.5mm long, 8.5mm diameter, 2.86g

 

Kickstarter

Flare likes Kickstarter and all of their before mentioned products were launched via the group funding platform. The Isolate Kickstarter project was extremely successful. It finished with Flare achieving a final total of £462,171, which is a tad over the £25,000 target! The campaign finished rated number 1 popular project in the world out of 4174 live projects, and a staggering £73,850 was pledged on the final day. It seems a lot of people are looking for good and affordable hearing protection.

I believe the Kickstarter Isolate units will be sent out to the backers in September. For those who didn’t find the Kickstarter project in time, the Isolate now is available for pre-order on Indiegogo.  These buyers will receive their Isolates in October.

The Flare Isolate is available in several colors and prices start from £24/€28/$32 for the aluminum version and £48/€56/$63 for the titanium version. The story (My experience + using the Isolate) continues on Page two, right after the click HERE or below

COLOUR-ISOLATE-straight-row_afeavh

3.3/5 - (78 votes)
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Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

59 Comments

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Joe Liew

    Feeling lucky!!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Joshua Loke

    Always looking forward to Flare Audio products. Own an R2pro – great uiem!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    remy

    Feeling even more lucky !

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    aditya mada prahasta

    I yeeeeaaaarrrnnnn to have this headfonia. fingers cross!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Zoltan K.

    Comment left 🙂

    • Reply August 21, 2016

      Lieven

      Very original as well 😉

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    José Núñez

    Nice giveaway!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Thom van Oijen

    Fingers crossed.

    I wonder how they compare to the Etymotic Research ER-20 Earplugs. These were pretty cheap on mass drop and they pleasantly surprised me in terms of sound quality. Much better than the alpine music pro’s. They don’t block a lot of sound though. So it doesn’t offer the best protection in loud concerts.

    You didn’t say anything about how much sound was blocked. Is it a good amount?

    • Reply August 21, 2016

      Lieven

      It’s a pretty good amount yes, but I bet it depends on how your ear canals are shaped to put the Isolate in. I could barely get them in but the reduction in level was quite a bit, which is normal with a tight fit.

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Edward Swann

    What a fantastic idea. wonder why its taken this long to discover such an invention.

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Alexandru Trutiu

    ❤️ Great giveaway! ❤️

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Pinki M

    Great going HFN.

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Gareth Hailes

    Interesting

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Michael Parfenov

    Really want to try in on a plane.

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Anderson Yamamoto

    Here we go!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Jesper Mikkelsen

    My ear needs a pair these – urgently????

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Anindito Hindarum

    i am a lucky person :))))

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Brent S

    I’ve been intrigued by these ever since I saw them – it would be great to try them

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Kenny Lim

    already kickstarted a titanium one. hope I will win another pair for the missus

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Kevin Tabata

    Could really use these!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    astvihhad jahid

    Great!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Phuc Nguyen

    Thanks for the giveaway ^^

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Phillip Houseknecht

    I could sure use something to save what little hearing I have left!

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    Thuan T.

    Thank you for your generosity !

  • Reply August 21, 2016

    david b.

    i’m in!

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Idham Yuandi

    I’m in

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Jonathan Kurniawan

    Nice giveaway!

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Kenneth Z.

    Nice giveaway guys

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Agung Haskara

    I have Flareon on Pokemon GO, then I shall have Flare-IN ear isolator

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Tim

    Nice giveaways

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Harrison Paul

    This is a great opportunity. I am a musician who has seen the effect of hearing loss on individuals and how it profoundly effects their ability to enjoy and make music.

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Davi Dias de Souza

    This one is mine!

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Hristijan

    Exelent giveaway !

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Keegan Lin

    Lemme have it!

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Ade Suhendra

    THIS IS FLAREE R2PROO

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Dickson Chan

    Lemme have it!

  • Reply August 22, 2016

    Ross Denton

    Excellent comp – in it to win it! 😉

  • Reply August 23, 2016

    Edder Vega

    Waiting to win one day

  • Reply August 23, 2016

    Kei

    Fingers crossed!!! ????????????????????????????????

  • Reply August 23, 2016

    Aleksandar

    Excellent!

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Gideon Lim

    Nice IEM, hope can get it 😀

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Duy Khanh Tran

    Way to go Headfonia!

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Denny

    This needs an unicorn tears audiophile version :p

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Dan

    Thanks for the contest!

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    WEIX

    Thanks for the contest 🙂

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Mariano Garcia

    Very nice.

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    John Banerjee

    These look amazing. I’d love to win a pair of Flare Isolate Pro’s

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    iani martinez

    goodluck!

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    John Vincent Romero

    I use public transport a lot for work and have tried using regular hard foam to block out the noise; bad idea, really dangerous as it muffles everything. Hopefully the Flare does the trick for 😀

  • Reply August 24, 2016

    Marc filip hora

    My 1st iem on this brand

  • Reply August 25, 2016

    Tim

    feeling lucky!

  • Reply August 26, 2016

    James Bashkin

    Lucky is what I am feeling.

  • Reply August 26, 2016

    David E. S.

    My little brother will like them a lot.

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    jeff

    feeling lucky 🙂

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    Luigi

    i am not gonna win haha

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    Olav Geurts

    Love ‘m, they ‘ve got flair!

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    Ilkin Jafarli

    Woud love to win one

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    Ilkin Jafarli

    Would love to win one. I hope I am the lucky one.

  • Reply August 27, 2016

    Justin

    Great review. Hope I win.

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