Ultrasone PRO900 - Page 12

Accentuated as compared to a pair of book shelf speakers, true. Accentuated as compared to a live event, not so sure ....

"Generally poorly balanced and excessively loud" - wow, I guess we don't share the same taste in rock music because that's not my opinion.

Nice cichlid, BTW. Ocellatus?

Live event as in un-amplified instruments and voice? OK. Real life.

Rock concert? Schmock concert...with that, there is no standard except the performer's subjective opinion as an artist, which, while valid in that context, is certainly no standard of objectivity.

That is funny as i feel that the bass on the HD650 and on the PS-1 in both cases is a lot more out of proportion than the bass on the Ultrasones respecting the rest of the spectrum, that is why I like better the HD600 over the HD650, IMO all the did was an HD600 with more bass, period, not sure, but I see the HD650 listed in your signature, so IMO the bass was for sure not what bothered you...Also the Ultrasone sound as we have discussed 100 times is not that you buy them and will like them, you need a lot of time to get used to them...
Not sure how people can accuratelly determine how the bass of the treble should sound in a given recording, if there is no way of knowing for sure how the recording is suposed to sound (unless you made it) Do you really know how many hands screw a recording instrument before you actually hear it....

Yup, it's interesting. The bass on the Ultrasones, once you treat the problems the cans have inherently, is some of the best I've heard from a headphone. They have stronger output in the low bass region without muddying up the mid-bass and lower midrange than most. The 600 borders on muddy mids with the stock cable and the 650 is worse.

As far as judging how accurate a headphone is, I do exactly what you said. I listen to live, un-amplified acoustic instruments and voice, many recordings of which I made myself. So I know what the actual live event and instruments sounded like. Given those circumstances, it's pretty easy to pick the good ones from the bad ones.

HD650 and PS-1 do have even more powerful bass, agreed. I am not going to defend the decision-making with regards to bass/treble of a recording, I'll just stick to my own methods.

Right, Ocellatus it is

I was merely questionning the statement that bass on all Ultrasones is accentuated, quite a bold statement IMO.

In addition, while being an ex-pro rock musician may say nothing at all about one's ability to judge sound/music, it's quite bold by a very young person to claim that "sound in live rock concerts is generally poorly balanced and excessively loud ". I don't really understand how someone can make such generalizations without blushing.

Come to think of it, if it's true that rock music is generally too loud and poorly balanced, should not a true reference headphone be able to capture this?

Young I am, but 'very' might be an overstatement...

There is a vast difference between a live performance and a recording. If you want to capture the live sound, turn things up to 100 dB and you are set =).

Well, I was not aware that it was a question about the absolute loudness, unless you perhaps consider Ultrasone headphones to go too loud? In that case the problem is easily solved ...

In absolute numbers I would consider 20 to be very young, unless your profile is wrong of course. Nothing wrong with that though, but are you certain that you're much more knowledgeable than someone who's been in the music biz? Simply because rock music is too loud and poorly balanced in your opinion, that is a disqualifying factor and you know better?

I'm not sure if you mean me with the HD650 but incase you do, i had it for 2 weeks until i sold it. I couldn't stand it and actually like the 750 more. Only headphone i sold even faster was the HD580

I didnt want to bash the Ultrasones in general but specifically for their bass response, as i really like everything else they offer. What i also cant stand is the "you need time to like the headphone" slogan here for ultrasones. Actually it's the opposite. Liked them on first sight, got sick of the bass later and sold it. Pretty easy. Theres not more or less to learn about them than with others.


I can tell you how i determine how the bass and treble should sound according to the engineers who had their hand on the mix:



This is my speaker of choice. I use it in a extremly well treated room but i can't reach the flat response of the above free field measurement ofcourse . NOW in an completely untreated room with the speakers in the corner, i get pretty close to what the ultrasone 750 offers in bass response.

It can't even be called a bump in bass, it is extremly boosted.

Two Big Hallow Horns

As long as we are waiting for a definitive answer from ultrapaul regarding the drivers, I see no harm in "discussing" other ideas relating to headphones.
I'd bet some of you probably think that my intention in writing this post is to defend the Pro 750. Nope, that's not my intention. I am writing this post to bring to the forefront some ideas which to some degree have already been discussed. I wanted to add my 5 cents (It used to be 2 cents but because of inflation, it went up).

In this day and age, most of the "live" music we hear is amplified (unless you are fortunate enough to hear a "live" totally not amplified source of music).
This idea brings me to my first comparison which involves the idea of acoustics.

If you were to have a band playing in an acoustically controlled (tuned) room such as you would find in a recording studio. And, if the microphones utilized to amplify and / or record that band were of the highest possible quality and the amplification system and monitor speakers were also of the highest possible quality (by today's standards), and those monitor speakers (as you listen to them) were playing in another acoustically controlled room, then, what you would have is the best known possible standards for reproducing sound via amplification (by today's standards).

Taking all of the aforementioned into account, my first comparison involves the idea of comparing the sound of that same aforementioned audio coming from the aforementioned monitor speakers to that same audio being played through headphones as you would A/B between the audio / sound in the room from the speakers and the audio / sound from the headphones. Then, in this comparison you and perhaps others would make an assessment of how similar you think those sounds are.

The second comparison which has been "discussed" in this thread involves the idea of comparing the sound of "live" acoustic only music to that same sound as it would be produced from a pair of headphones. This is an impossible comparison. It can't be done. The reason for this is because in order to be able to hear music via headphones, that music must first be electronically reproduced either at the time you hear it or at a later time via a recording. So, yes, you could have a live band in an acoustically controlled room but unless there was a microphone "hearing" that band and that microphone was routed to an electronic sound reproduction system of some type, you would not be able to hear that band through headphones unless those "headphones" were two big hallow horns, one for each ear.
So, it seems to me, that while recording engineers try to do their best to capture a "live" so called "unplugged" sound (at times) with no attempted alteration of the sound, there is always actually some degree of alteration of the sound because of the electronic reproduction factor (which thereby enables our hearing that sound through headphones or speakers). Consequently, the first comparison I wrote about (involving electronic sound reproduction) is really, in my opinion, the only valid listening comparison where headphones are concerned.
In this post, I am not referring to graph comparisons. I am only referring to subjective opinion listening comparisons on the part of the listener.

The sound you heard could be as accurate to the recording as you can get, or better to pink noise as you can get and measure...but the problem is not that side of the listener, is the other, is the recording as accurate as it should be to the sound of the real instruments? We all know that they are not, and that is the key point to determine the accuracy in any driver, so we are always chasing a ghost, and talking of accuracy, neutrality, while most of the times we are not even sure if the material used is supposed to sound neutral or accurate....see the point...?...

While talking of audio I prefer to talk comparatively to others, and using always the same system, or better, to talk of personal preference. It is better and sounds more logical to me, to say: I prefer this to that, and with this, that recording sounds, to me, more natural...or whatever...than while using this other...but talking in general terms, and using objective judgments, in a completely subjective and unknown world, is not the way to go, IMO...

About the slogan we have, it was created after real interaction with them, Ultrasone never suggested that, nor have it written in any place. We found out that is true, and suggest others to listen the same way, to get the best results, and trust me that more than one member can attest for the opposite of what you say, me included, the first time I heard a PROLine did not like it at all, after owning it for a month, I loved it, and even feel the need to upgrade to the Editions...

James (our moderator) found the same problem...the main problem is not the sound, is the presentation that is different from the rest. The S-logic or whatever they called it, a displacement on the drivers, makes them sound different to the rest of the other headphones, and your brain is not used to the presentation as we have been listening differently for decades...They introduced (IME and IMO, alot more than others) using that dispalcement, the outter ear shape in the equation, and that gives a more personalized touch to the musical and sound experience, that will vary from listener to listener depending on the shape and size of the outter ears...

Now if you do not like the overall sound spectrum, that is different story, you will never do...I suggest in those cases to move on to a different kind of headphone/sound...

Absolutely! Yes, indeed! A true reference should be able to accurately reproduce whatever you feed it.

Well to add to the rock concerts are loud and poorly balanced argument. I agree 1000000x with Malos. Try playing a violin through the towering JBL speakers in shoreline amphitheater in mountain view, ca and tell me if it doesnt sound like a giant pile of mud

As I said before any amplified or studio produced performance only sounds like what the artists want it to sound like, and there's no accounting for taste. That's why natural, unamplified acoustic instruments and voice can be the only real standard by which to judge.

S-Logic? It's largely marketing hyperbole and really has very little to do with the actual sound produced. Almost ZERO. Depends on the size of one's pinnae.
Yes, it can be done, I do it all the time. Live sound, heard live is the standard by which I judge. My recording chain has been vetted, and characterized, of course. Pretty simple concept really, I'm not sure why people are having trouble understanding the concept.

With regard to accommodation... To a trained ear, if it doesn't sound right immediately off the bat, it's not right, period. No amount of accommodation will make it any different. The idea of getting used to hearing something that is inherently wrong and becoming satisfied with it is abhorrent to me. I do not ever want to un-train my ear. I work to keep it trained.

Does that mean I can listen to nothing less than high end state of the art? Of course not, I just never forget what I'm listening to, and as such, I can enjoy listening to stock Apple earbuds just fine, when the situation calls for it, but I never forget I'm listening to iBuds. I can fully enjoy a piece of music this way, regardless of the reproduction chain used.

Exactly, thats also how i feel.

Most neutral headphones seem lacking for rock for many people because they want them to be colored the way they want them to be.