Ultrasone edition 8, will I be blown away? - Page 2

I've been drooling and dreaming about the Edition 8s since this hobby started.

 

Lets just say when I finally bought them I returned them after a week......

 

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And purchased the Limited Edition 8s.

 

Not because I'm crazy but because the newer batch of edition 8 ru's have a black foam strip on the hinges that makes an insanely annoying sound.

 

Overall, these are one of the best headphones I've heard. Top 10 list for sure!!  And I love my Edition 8s to bits but I find it hard to recommend these. I have a kinda love hate thing going on vs Ultrasone. Their qc and build quality on a 2000 dollar headphone is absolute rubbish.

 

We all know these are amazing sounding headphones, and probably one of the best looking out there. But considering I returned a 1500 headphone a week after purchase, to get a 2000 dollar one just so I can finally stand handling them ONLY to apply superglue to them 2 days after..  is sad. And the strain reliefs here kinda squeaks alot. The ethiopian sheepskin is gorgeous, but rather tough. Cheaper stuff like the B&W p5 have softer and more comfortable leather and earpads. 

 

And for the record, I do believe the Edition 8 Limiteds sound better than the Rutheniums. I wasn't bowled over by the Ru's but was actually taken aback by how the Limiteds sound. And I wasn't expecting any difference to begin with. I keep telling myself these are the SAME HEADPHONES, but the Limiteds sound better. Strange. Maybe I did get a dud set of Rutheniums. The headband stitching was sloppy, floppy and TOTALLY different looking from the Limiteds.

 

If you do go ahead with the purchase, do pray you don't get the dud set. But Ultrasone do have great customer service that replies promptly.... as long as you don't ask difficult questions. Like 'hey, whats the material on the cups made of? what percentage of this alloy is ruthenium? It can't be 100% ruthenium because ruthenium is a pretty hard metal, and I scratched my edition 8 surface by scrubbing it too hard with the soft cloth included in the packaging.' In which case, they will cease to acknowledge your existence, and of course ignore you.

 

 

Finally. I must say even if the execution of this product, German handmade and all, could be better. The product itself is amazing. And if you get the right, non-faulty set, you would have gotten quite an amazing sounding headphone. For me, they slot above the LCD2 and the Beyer T5p/T1 and below the HD800s in terms of sound quality. And the rest of them are butt ugly :D and cringe when powered directly from a portable source. My pair will be a family heirloom passed down from generations to generations, and hopefully, by grace of German-built quality, they'll last their part. Certainly got off on the wrong foot I must say :D  but superglue fixes most things...

 

 

 

 

 

The ED8-10 are nothing like legitimate flagships such as T1, HD800, and LCD-2/3.

 

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IMHO the Edition 10s are a little shrill and overtly bright, but when toned down with a good amp, sounds better than the HD800.

 

People who claim that the Edition 8s and 10s are not 'legit' flagships are just afraid that something so beautiful can't possibly sound 'flagship' because flagships are meant to be big, bulky and ugly.

 

BUT..  to each his own. This is what I feel.

 

They won't be kings of the hill like the LCD2 and HD800 because of this perception of them from the head-fi crowd, as well as Ultrasone's own pricing and quality control but they are very very legitimate flagships to me.

 

 

 

 

Looks did not factor into my comments about their legitimacy as flagships.  I find the EDs very ugly, however. YMMV.

Edition8 in my opinion is the overall best closed headphone in production today (I have owned LA-2000 and L3000 before). I have owned one for over 2 years. I have however just sold it as I like the HE-500 better and when I can't use an open phone I just found that I was using my JH13 iem's far more than the Ed8.

 

 

X2.  Take your time, try out different phones.  ED8 are great (the best?) closed headphones, probably the ones I wear the most, since I *need* closed phones. But honestly there are open headphones that sound better at 1/2 the price.  HE-500 for example.  And there are open headphones that come close at 1/4 the price, like HD600.  And without knowing the sound of other headphones, you won't appreciate the quality of better headphones.  LCD-2 are my favorite, but only because they do nothing wrong.  Without appreciating this, they might sound rather plain and disappointing for their price.

 

I'm with @eurariote. I don't see many replies mention much about opened vs closed. But at least to me in sampling a few different closed headphones, to -me- the Ultrasone Ed8's are my best for my tastes.

I personally don't believe in comparing the Ed8s to the LCD's SR-007/9 or even the Ed9/10 as these are simply different headphones - basically an attempt to compare apples to oranges - it's not about a different league but just simply different types altogether.

My other closed is the V-Moda M-80 as my "best value for money" closed headphones which I use for travel & stolen, less of a big deal. The M-80s give extremely great value for $$ SQ-wise.

But for my ultimate home/office the Ed8s are worth it.

Go to your local audio water cooler and go listen to them. There are multiple reasons why you can't hear the difference between good and bad gear. You could just be new to listening. Have nothing to compare them to. Had a broken set up. Bad source/Bad amp. Or, and your wallet will thank you for this one: You may just never be able to hear the difference. In the last stance... there would be little point in dropping 1K+ on gear. So... yeah... try some high end headphones first.

I tend to agree with nc8000.  I think it's the best headphone available for my tastes.  Once the bass dialed in (somewhere between 30 and 50 hours...hard to say because I didn't put the clock to it) they just became such a fun experience.  That was 2 years ago....they are still as much fun today as they were then.  I think I have bought and kept or sold about 30 or 40 more headphones since.  Just seem to always be looking for a little different sound to listen to once in while.  The Edition 8 is not the most accurate headphone out there, so if your taste is analytical, then you probably will not get into these at all. 

 

Journey can be more expensive. I have a pair of ED8 coming my way.