Ultrasone PRO900 - Page 18

Ultrasone PRO900

Why PRO900, and not 950?

PRO650 + Titanium drivers = PRO850 + Neutrik connector + Aluminium nameplates = PRO950...

I think Pro 850 makes more sense.

Pro 850 900 950, they all sound like an improvement of the old design. Something like a new Pro 1 2 or 3 would be more exciting since it will make us think it is a major redesign

I'm an Ultrasone newbie--let me get that out of the way. To date, the only Ultrasone headphones I've spent at least a decent amount of time listening to are the Edition 9 and the PRO900 (with much more time with the latter than the former). I don't think I've ever heard the 750 or 2500 referenced in the posts below....and speaking of the posts below.... Okay, Contrastique, to my ears, your wish was granted--the PRO900 isn't as good as the Edition 9. (I'll get back to what I think of the Edition 9 shortly.)

Relative to what I'm used to, the PRO900's bass is tipped up north of neutral even more than I'd like. This is a defining characteristic of this headphone to me. (To offer at least a cursory peek into my preferences in this regard, I prefer the HD650 to the HD600, and the UE-11 to the UE-10 Pro.)

Though it took me some time to get used to its signature (like a new place to live, a new sound signature can require some comfort-building time), after nearly a couple of weeks with it, the PRO900 was a fun headphone to turn to, and I did do that frequently. (Ultrasone offered to send it back for more listening time (they needed it back for a function this week), and I'm going to take them up on it.)

The PRO900's quite-prominent bass could sometimes cast a shadow on its midband and treble, especially on bass-heavier recordings/performances; but still its midband is generally quite good, and its treble performance good, neither being as detailed as the Edition 9 (which I still have a bit more to say about). I listen to a lot of piano music (classical and jazz), and the PRO900 did a more than respectable job of a well-recorded piano's sonority, but, again, does get noticeably heavy to these ears below, say, C3.

For rock, however, I was having a good ol' time with the PRO900, and want it back for more time to, well, rock with it. One of the last albums I listened to through the PRO900 before packing it up was Little Feat's most recent remaster of Waiting For Columbus, and it was a kick in the pants for an album that I wouldn't have previously thought could benefit from a kick in the pants.

Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking (one of my favorite modern rock albums, period) is a rather inconsistent piece in terms of tonal balance and sound quality from track to track (never being even good, but some tracks sounding completely hollow, others, like "Had A Dad," sounding a wee bit better). The PRO900 was like a faux remaster of this album, adding much-needed life to some of the tracks ("Standing in the Shower" really comes to mind here). Again, the PRO900 is a very fun headphone to rock out to, and I hope I get it back while there's still a touch of summer 'round here, as, since 1988, I close out summer with countless replays of the masterpiece rock-poem "Summertime Rolls" (which I've actually been listening to on track-repeat through the Sennheiser MX W9 as I type this post).

As an Ultrasone novice, I can't say much about S-Logic Plus versus S-Logic, but the soundstage on the PRO900 prototype I had was a bit wider to me than with the Edition 9--I don't necessarily think I liked that better, as the effect was a bit less coherence in terms of the space presented, relative to the Edition 9.

Now, the Ultrasone Edition 9: The more time I spend with it, the more I like it. (My Edition 9 listening time so far comes courtesy of thread.) I mean, the more time I spend with the Edition 9, the more I really like it. I'm going to have to invite thread over to my house again to get more time on my Luxman P-1 with the Edition 9, because that combo was, to say the least, very promising, very impressive. I don't often listen to full-size closed headphones (I've been more of an open-headphone guy for many years now), but the Edition 9 might challenge that trend.

Even though both of these headphones are very new to me, I feel comfortable saying that, to these ears, both are very tough for me to call bargains at their respective MSRPs, as they're expensive in what is a competitive field of headphones (with a bunch of solid competitors well below their MSRPs). One thing I'm learning about Ultrasone, however, is that their headphones (at least in my experience with the PRO900 and Edition 9) each bring rather unique personalities to the table--and if you find you like what they bring, then you'll likely have no choice but to pay the price, as their uniqueness means you're not likely going to be able to approximate their characters going with alternate brands.

I'm going to take Ultrasone up on the offer to spend a little more time with the PRO900, as I really did enjoy my time with it. And I still consider all of the above very early impressions.

(Sorry I don't have more experience with other Ultrasone models, guys. Again, I'm an Ultrasone newb, but I am starting to understand the love that's often expressed around here for the brand.)

Thanks Jude!

I'll just stick with my 9's for now

that sounded like a simple "I'm Not Impressed" review

Thanks Jude for your write-up. I am more than pleased to see the 900 doesn't beat the ed9 haha!
I am looking forward reading more of your impressions also about / compared to the ed9 as it's interesting you seem to be startled by the latter. Due more burn-in my ed9s are finally opening up and it surprised me many times already.
Anyways, thanx again !

Much appreciate it, Jude. That was an interesting impression.

Thanks for the impressions Jude. I would say that it is probably most difficult for Sennheiser fans to come over to the Ultrasone camp. I fear that the two never shall meet. Ultrasones (like lots of good gear) are quite sensitive to upstream gear. In particular, amps. IME, I have found them to sound best with faster solid-state amps. Although the Luxman is, no doubt, a high-end piece of kit, it has been oft described as being on the warm side.

Although I have never heard a Prehead myself, given its rep for being on the faster side, I have to wonder if the Ultrasone's might pair better with your "older" Meier amp. If you have the opportunity, give it a try.

re: the PRO900, we still don't know what the deal is with the drivers. How different from the 750/2500/E7/E9's are they really? I guess we'll just have to wait to hear from others after they become publicly available.

Thanks for the impressions Jude. The 900s are an item of interest to me. If, as you say, the bass seems to intrude upon the midband, that removes one of the charms of the Ultrasone for me.

I've been listening to my heavily modified PL650s and PL2500s for so long now, I've forgotten how bad they sounded relative to how they sound now. It may be that both the PL650 and the PL2500 in their unmodified state exhibited that same personality, but the memory is fuzzy. I'll have to go back and reread my posts about their unmodified sound signature.

For sure one thing that endears them to me, currently, is their ability to reproduce bass with great authority without any midband coloration.

I recently graphed the response of the 2500, the better of the two heavily modified Ultrasones that I own, and found that they actually have a gradual roll off that starts at around 80Hz. The midband is indeed flat, but the bass starts to roll off at a higher place than my ear had previously led me to believe. Don't be alarmed at what looks like shockingly high SPL's. The dB scale in my plot is actually indicated total gain above input signal.

Look at 4 other popular cans;

The other 4 popular cans above, do show a midbass "bump," a very broad and shallow boost that is actually centered around 100Hz. The bump is shallow enough to not really call attention to itself, by itself, but is noticeable when listening comparisons are done with something that does not exhibit that bump.

Even though the modified 2500s roll off earlier, they reproduce bass with more punch and authority to these ears than the other cans shown. This is probably because the midbass/lower midband is not being muddied at all.

In any event, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a pair of 900s to actually "see" and hear what they can do.

i don't know kwarth, looks like you like your bass lean, and ultrasones don't provide lean bass.

also, thanks for the impressions jude, hope to see more down the road.

Trust me, the bass is not lean. Different mic, different coupling, different generator, different metering, different measurement methodology. I'm not using a sine sweep, but rather a pink noise impulse, capture, and FFT to produce the curve. Headroom uses a sine sweep.

Ultrasone PRO900

A lot of pressure on this review, Mmm......

Burn in time it's the key with Ultrasone drivers.

Burn in time: PL650 minimum 300 hours, PL750 minimum 400 hours.
We can say, 14 to 30 day's non stop burn in time. Or 6 months of everyday 2-3 hours listing time.
This what it's take me to burn in my PL650.
So, the titanium driver like the PL750 can take even more burn in time then my PL650.

When I read the review my first reaction was: they need more burn-in.

Burn, Burn, Burn.....BURN 900 Hours, Evil phones: