So what's the word on the new Ultrasone HFI-780????

[acegazda]

I love the look of the hfi-780s, but I wonder how they sound stacked against the esw9s? sort of the same price bracket.

[slwiser]

Originally Posted by acegazda

I love the look of the hfi-780s, but I wonder how they sound stacked against the esw9s? sort of the same price bracket.

Well we should not have to wait long for that since I have one on order, it should come in either later today or tomorrow.

[Denver Max]

I'm not done with burn-in, but wow, those people that shout so much about the Proline 750 here are not kidding at all. Coming from the DT990 as well, I am very impressed with the sound presentation that I get from the Proline 750. The bass to me is on par with the DT990, which is a compliment to them in my opinion, and I like the treble even more on the Proline 750. Just a better presentation overall. The only limitation that they have is the soundstage.

[DoomzDayz]

no doubt the soundstage is one of the best for the price range in closed, though? the s-logic to me as an engineer and getting into sound research is well.. logical. i'm curious as to how the 2500's soundstage compares to other open cans. i'll have to do more research on the emissions thing they tout though..

[slwiser]

Originally Posted by DoomzDayz

no doubt the soundstage is one of the best for the price range in closed, though? the s-logic to me as an engineer and getting into sound research is well.. logical. i'm curious as to how the 2500's soundstage compares to other open cans. i'll have to do more research on the emissions thing they tout though..

Concerning the emissions thing, when I take my headphones to work a friend usually samples them. He has a hearing aide. With most headphones I bring in he gets bad feedback but whenever I bring in a pair of Ultrasone he has no problem with feedback.

[Dexdexter]

Originally Posted by ecclesand

From Headwize:

"The polar-silver-colored HFI-780 is specifically designed for DVD and gaming. It projects a speaker-like sound image valued by gamers. The low frequency ranges are tuned to reach the highest possible synergies with DSP-Systems like Dolby Headphone and Yamaha's Silent Cinema."

Indeed, the HFI-780 most likely will not provide the most neutral listen. That, said, I think that the HFI-680 is gonna be a nice surprise and the genuine darkhorse of the new Ultrasone line.

I have its predecessor, the HFI-650 and it's a marvelously pleasant listen, lacking just a bit of the soundstage presence of its PROline (now PRO) counterpart whilst managing to avoid some of the more harshly revealing top-end aspects of the 750/2500.

I'm hoping that the new S-Logic Plus element (essentially Ultrasone's marketing term for the new HFI series' ear-cup geometry, which is now the same as that found in the Edition 9) will elevate the 680 into my new portable favorite. I expect to be demoing a pair shortly.

[slwiser]

Have you seen this frequency curve for the new HFI-780 compared with the UE9?

It looks tantalizingly like the UE9.



Source: Careless Headphone site in Japan. I made the combined graph letting the lines mingle as tight as I could place them. I am hoping for good things from them.

[holland]

The scales are all off. I don't think the picture is worthwhile. One needs to be stretched vertically, but I can't tell which is which.

[Shahrose]

Originally Posted by Denver Max

I'm not done with burn-in, but wow, those people that shout so much about the Proline 750 here are not kidding at all. Coming from the DT990 as well, I am very impressed with the sound presentation that I get from the Proline 750. The bass to me is on par with the DT990, which is a compliment to them in my opinion, and I like the treble even more on the Proline 750. Just a better presentation overall. The only limitation that they have is the soundstage.

proline 750 has much better bass than the dt990. more depth, way tighter, hits harder, same amount of control, more texture.

but i agree about the soundstage, dt990 kills it in this regard.

[Dexdexter]

Originally Posted by slwiser

Have you seen this frequency curve for the new HFI-780 compared with the UE9?

It looks tantalizingly like the UE9.



Source: Careless Headphone site in Japan. I made the combined graph letting the lines mingle as tight as I could place them. I am hoping for good things from them.

Again, as the 780 are essentially identical to the 680, only juiced for fatter bass reponse to attract movie-lovers and gamers, I think you might be happier going for the HFI-680s if using mainly for music.

[ricthaman]

well,

Owning a pair of HFI-2200's I can say that the S-logic does it's job fairly good. But not in the sound stage department.

For sound stage, my K701 blows the HFI out of the water. But because the decentralised positioning of the driver in the ultrasones the sound will reflect in your ear first. You know, through the anti-helix ant stuff. This ensures that the sound comes in as natural as possible for a headphone. Thode weird shapes in your ear amplify and influence the different frequencies. So your ear shapes the music for you. As it would in a natural situation.

So I notice this very clearly. It sounds much 'easier' than any other headphone. Though in my opinion it doesn't sound any more spacier.
There's a perfectly logical explenation for that too, but no time to explain this right now..

and yes, I too would advise to try the PL750 first, or maybe the HFI2200.

greetz

[Shahrose]

i have to disagree. i know what they were trying to do with the s-logic, but it doesn't make the sound any more natural (to me anyways). if u can imagine listening to speakers/drivers that are slightly in front of u rather than right beside you, that's pretty much what s-logic is. just compresses the soundstage and makes it seem like the stage is in front of you. it has some similarity to crossfeed in its effect, but it's not the same. anyways, i don't care much for s-logic, didn't impress. the sound doesn't surround/envelope your ears as much as conventional phones such as the dt990, since the majority of it is coming from in front of you; some people may prefer that, i don't.

[acegazda]

Originally Posted by slwiser

Well we should not have to wait long for that since I have one on order, it should come in either later today or tomorrow.

cool thanks

[slwiser]

HFI-780 were delivered today....out of the box the music has more width that I thought it would...

I think once a few people listen to them some will be surprised. But there are those where the S-Logic thing just grates on them..the image width is expanded all right out of the box...

I fully expect them to take some time to settle into what they will finally be. I will see. I am happy with this purchase hearing what it is giving out of the box. Out of the box they have the famous Ultrasone grip on my head.

Time to take it over to the Easy Chair where my UE9 is and compare todays HFI-780 to the long broke in UE9. First impressions are these are baby UE9s. Great value for ~200$ US. Note that I ordered mine from stock before the recent 20%+ dollar adjusted wholesale prices came into effect. From just a few short cilps:

They do Earl Klugh's guitar the right way.
They do the Piano very well.
They do Hotel California well.
They do Vanessa Mae's Destiny right.

Of course just the out of the box quick impressions.

Did I say they were just "out of the box."

[slwiser]

Originally Posted by holland

The scales are all off. I don't think the picture is worthwhile. One needs to be stretched vertically, but I can't tell which is which.

I did this intentionally to make the responses of each headphone more centered on the other. What these curves essentially represent are the volume output levels for each frequency. From a review of the sites methods it appears that they set the peak response at -20 dB where ever that may hit. For these two curves this displaces the HFI-780 curve below the UE9 if the charts axis were the same. No one that I know uses frequencies above 10K to set their volume level. What I did, knowing how I listen to music, a simple turn of the volume knob will put the mid-frequencies together so I move the HFI-780 curve up to get these frequencies normalized so to speak.

At least this is my story in how and why I did it. It may not make any sense to anyone else.