First Listen: Ultrasone Edition 8 S-Logic Headphones
The Ultrasone Edition 8 headphones arrived last week. At $1499, these headphones compete directly with the Sennheiser HD 800s that I’ve been reviewing lately. This is a premliminary review, with more to come later.
For those of you unfamiliar with Ultrasone, they are a German headphone company (as are Sennheiser, AKG and Beyerdynamic). Founded in 1991, the company is focused on headphone design and manufacture (whereas the other German brands also make microphones among other devices) and has many patents in this field.
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My initial impression is that the Edition 8s are extremely well done. Frequency balance is very linear, and the dynamics are impressive. Low-level information is well presented, and yet the Edition 8s don’t seem to fake this transparency. The sense is that high frequencies are smooth and have low distortion. The bass end of the spectrum seems well balanced as well.
So, what’s not to like? Well, really there isn’t a lot to criticize (so far, more on that below). I’d say the mid-treble might be slightly bright, but this seems like a very small error so far. Deep bass may not be as strong as one would hope for, and bass definition might be a little higher. I think.
Beyond that, we have spatial characteristics. For this, the Edition 8s have a technology called S-Logic Plus. The idea is similar to the concept that Sennheiser has employed on the HD 800: place the drivers so that your outer ear is involved with the result that you get a sense of space that is closer to live music. If you’ve read my HD 800 review, you’ll know that I found that the Sennheiser technology does indeed add a sense of space around instruments but that it doesn’t simulate the imaging of speakers or live music. I’d say the same thing about Ultrasone’s S-Logic, though I think the airiness is a bit higher on the HD 800s. In any event this is good stuff backed by inaccurate marketing.
But before you get the impression that I think S-Logic is a minor thing, I need to tell you about one other important design goal behind it. In an AES paper, Ultrasone’s Dr. Florian Koenig explains detailed experiments that were conducted to find the headphone architecture (closed, open, centered driver, offset driver, offset geometry) that minimizes perceived frequency response variations between listeners. It seems that, partly due to different ear shapes, different listeners perceive headphone frequency response differently. All other things being equal, a headphone would be better if there were a smaller variance in perceived response across listeners. S-Logic Plus, as far as I can make out (AES paper 116.AES 2004 is written in full and unrepentant Germglish), is the latest version of the architecture that Dr. Koenig found minimized perceived response variance.
Of course, I can’t tell you whether this really works, because I can only be me. But the Ultrasone Edition 8s sound pretty darn good, and part of it could be that I’m hearing what the designers intended more than I am with other headphones.
Now, back to the preliminary nature of these comments. When I wrote that I was better able to understand the HD 800s over a few weeks than I was initially, several readers wrote that this seemed odd, bizarre or inexplicable. I’m not sure if I was supposed to know before I took them out of the box that they were nirvana induction devices, or if a quick listen should have done the trick.
Just to be clear, there is solid if not unassailable reasoning behind always offering preliminary comments with a cautionary note attached. Here’s the deal. First, an experienced person would be cautious about quick conclusions about complex phenomena. The Western musical canon easily qualifies as complex, as does the human hearing mechanism. And complex, by definition, means there is a lot to understand. Now a savant may be able to understand complex phenomena quickly, but your humble servant is no savant. Even if he were, there is a second problem. To perceive a characteristic of a device (e.g. headphones), one has to feed the device a signal that triggers the characteristic. When using music as the signal, it can take a while to listen to enough music (triggers) to get a grip on the resulting characteristics.
Some of you may be wondering if I’ll ever get around to comparing the Edition 8s to the HD 800s. For you, now that I've explained the limitations of preliminary findings, here are my first thoughts:
- The Edition 8s are a little more accurately balanced in the upper midrange
- The Edition 8s are slightly brighter than the HD 800s; not sure which, if either, is right
Discussion Topics
- Bad Firmware Update to Oppo BDP-83
- Anyone bought the new Sony BDP-S350 BD player?
- Oppo BDP-83 Blu Ray Player
Blu-ray Discussion
- Speaker recommendation 2-channel, for paycheck to paycheck music lovers
- Magico V3 vs Magnepan 20.1
- Quad 2905
Comments
Correct me if I am wrong, but AKG started out as an Austrian company, not German. Though they are part of Harman now.
frym:
AKG did indeed start in Vienna, Austria in 1947. Sorry for the geographical imprecision.
It seems to me that a very significant difference between the two designs of the headphones has been overlooked. The Sennheisers are open back headphones and judging from appearances, the Ultrasones are sealed back phones. Obviously these differences will have different sonic consequences which I am sure that their respective engineers have worked to resolve. But a major liability of open backed headphones that cannot be removed is the exposure to sound outside of the headphones, unless of course one utilizes active noise cancellation, which neither of these designs do. As a location recording engineer I have used open back headphones for many years (Stax SRX, Grado's and Sennheiser 600's). I have never heard a top ranked sealed back headphone that approached the transparency of the best of the open back designs. From your comments it would seem that the two headphone systems you are comparing have reasonably small sonic differences, yet the closed versus open phone approach has huge implications in terms of their application. If indeed the Ultrasones are in the sonic league of the open back Sennheisers, and offer a greater degree of sound isolation, then for me the choice would be clear. Your comments please. Thanks.
Peter:
I wouldn't say the sonic differences are small, but of course that's a matter of perspective. And, yes, the Ultrasones would seem to have greater isolation than the HD 800s, though I haven't tested isolation to see if the difference is large. So far, the Ultrasone's appear to be in the same sonic league with the Sennheiser's, though that is an overall comment, not one specifically focused on transparency. I wonder if recording places different priorities on sonic characteristics than listening for pleasure does?
I'm curious about your impressions of their comfort and adjustabilty, and how this compares with the Sennheisers. Although the audio performance is critical, the comfort of the cans will often trump performance for long term listening enjoyment.
TomC
TomC:
I think the comfort of the Ultrasone's is excellent. I would rate it slightly higher than the comfort of the HD 800s, mostly because the HD 800s can put some pressure on your neck due to the large earcups. But please don't misunderstand, the HD 800s can be worn for long periods -- they simply feel a little weird at times. Some people might object to the earpad material on the Edition 8s. It looks like leather (it is very thin Ethiopian sheepskin) and while perspiration wasn't an issue for me, it might be for some or it might be just a "feel" issue. Headband pressure seemed to me to be the worst issue with both models.
The Ultrasones do have small earcups, and for some listeners this might be a problem. I can't really say much about adjustability -- both the Edition 8s and the HD 800s easily fit my head, but your mileage may vary.
How is the build quality, tell us about the construction...and how does it compare sonically to AKG 701/702?
The build quality seems fine to me, though I'm not sure how to evaluate this. For example, we don't drop or otherwise abuse test samples. Certain users might do this in the course of studio or performance work or travelling. If like those people you want to know about robustness, I really can't help.
The Edition 8s don't strike me as nearly as architectural as the HD 800s. But they use a lot of metal in their construction, which may be reassuring.
We don't have the AKGs in the lab, so I can't comment on them (we're working on it).
Tactile feel when you're handling them can provide some hint of build quality. Do the plastic parts squeak when you're holding, spread, and twisting them to get them onto your head or laying them down? The HD 595s I use will give a bit of a plastic squeak when I first lift them by one ear cup off the shelf hanger Sennheiser provides with them, but that goes away within a second or so and no amount of twisting or flexing will produce that squeak again until after they've been sitting around for some long period of time. To me, this means there aren't a lot of really thin, cheap, ill-fitting plastic pieces that you might find in a $40 pair of Sonys, fer instance.
Handling feel is a great measure of build care and quality. Like when you open up a Mac Pro's aluminum case to add memory. It's all so right, like you've opened the engine bay of a Porsche. Compare that to opening the piece of shit plastic case of a Dell and you cut yourself on all the poorly formed sharp metal pieces inside. It's all so lame and shows that they don't care about their product, like opening the hood of a Yugo. Both the Mac and the Porsche will far out-perform and out-last the Dell and the Yugo, and you knew that from just looking at it and touching it. True, you can't tell much about how good the drivers in a pair of cans will sound or perform by looking at the headband, but it's still a nice way to just the overall quality.
The mechanical parts of the Edition 8's appear to be entirely constructed of metal and leather. That may answer your question right there. They feel pretty solid, though the materials are light weight for comfort, so this isn't quite like a Pass Labs class A amp with 1/2" sheet aluminum panels.Headphones don't really have a user interface other than the sliding adjustment of earcup positioning (feels very good), so some of the handling elements by which we judge other products simply aren't there.
That said, I don't think the design of Edition 8s is particularly attractive. It isn't bad, but it isn't anything special either.
I also am not in love with the standard mini-plug and short (around 4') cord. For desktop listening you need an extension cord, and I don't like the weight of the dangling connector.
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