[Teebs]

Finally received my pair in the mail, after it being stuck at customs for a week. Initial impressions compared to the Pulse.... the creaking! My pair creaks a ton when moving my head around. Most of the creaking seems to be coming from the swivel mechanism area. The plastic also feels a lot hollower than my other Ultrasones. That's the only big downside. I've also noticed that the black cable is super microphonic, so decided to just use the Pulse's cable which doesn't have this issue.

Really like how these sound. The bass is riding a fine line between control and loss of control. There's a slight woolyness to it which gives it a little more substance compared to the Pulse. The Pulse's bass is tighter, more controlled but also has a certain thinness to it. X has that nice low end rumble which was a little lacking on the Pulse.

The other difference is in the treble. Pulse has a little more sparkle to it which is either a good or bad thing depending on the person. For me it becomes too fatiguing after a while and I'm enjoying the X's slightly tamed treble by comparison.

So far extremely pleased with these. I WISH they'd made these with the same quality plastics as the rest of the Ultrasone line but alas this will have to do. Thankfully these sound awesome!

 

[TWerk]

I don't really understand why they went cheap-o on the build. It's a $300 headphone, should have the same standard as the other ones. It's not a $50 headphone. My HFI 780 from way back when doesn't creak and feels similar to my Signature Natural.

Not sure why they tried to really cut corners like that in build with this model.

Well - probably to save a dollar but at the ask price, they shouldn't be creaking.

 

[Teebs]

I don't really understand why they went cheap-o on the build. It's a $300 headphone, should have the same standard as the other ones. It's not a $50 headphone. My HFI 780 from way back when doesn't creak and feels similar to my Signature Natural.

Not sure why they tried to really cut corners like that in build with this model.

Well - probably to save a dollar but at the ask price, they shouldn't be creaking.

Yeah it feels very cheap which is a pitty. My unit is really creaky although it may depend on the luck of the draw as some users have mentioned it not being too bad. If I use these while watching a video or movie, and eating a snack at the same time... the whole headphone creaks while chewing.

That being said, they're at $199 currently on drop, which is far more reasonable than what I paid for them... which was just north of €300 with the shipping and import fees. I am super happy with them though. Yes they feel like $50 headphones but the sound more than makes up for it. They sound so good. Pretty rare to have such powerful somewhat controlled bass without butchering the mids.

 

[TWerk]

Wow those dropped 100 before I could blink my eye. That's cool.

 

[Ichos]

In my opinion, except for the creaking sounds, the headphone is built like a tank.
It is made from plastic but it feels very sturdy and durable.

 

[e-dub]

So no one has used the balanced cable on these or any other Signature headphones, huh?

 

[PopZeus]

So no one has used the balanced cable on these or any other Signature headphones, huh?

I have. It sounds like you would expect a balanced version of the SE cable would.

 

[e-dub]

Nice, thank you, @PopZeus! Has anyone tried the balanced cable with any of the other Signature headphones?

 

[Blackrao]

Tried the new pads on the signature x and it really made it sound completely different. So much more treble and even more bass than before xD but now we got the fixed S logic fins

 

[AlwaysForward]

Ordered. I have a thing for DJ cans. The price /tuning narrative brought me from Ultrasone curious to no brainer gotta try it out at least

 

[Evshrug]

So no one has used the balanced cable on these or any other Signature headphones, huh?

I didn't get the second run package, but I used my own 3rd party balanced cable (mentioned in my impressions), and it's fine. My portable player sounds best with it's balanced cable, which is why I got the cable, but I'm also happy using a 4.4mm to 3.5mm adapter and using it with more normal amps and sources.

As a side note, my contract with Drop ran out at the beginning of the month, so I don't know if I'll still be informed about future stuff, but I still want to thank everyone for interacting with me here with this project, as we all shared our feedback with Drop's product managers and Ultrasone. I do hope my customizations weren't considered must-do actions for everyone, but rather I liked the headphone so much that I was willing to spend a bit extra of my own money to "make them my own" and spend more time with the headphone, because I already enjoyed the sound. To Paraphrase @Teebs , these do walk a great line between bass that is controlled and unleashed, while not muddying the mids and treble, and I do still have these at my computer desk because they're fun to listen to.

 

[e-dub]

I didn't get the second run package, but I used my own 3rd party balanced cable (mentioned in my impressions), and it's fine. My portable player sounds best with it's balanced cable, which is why I got the cable, but I'm also happy using a 4.4mm to 3.5mm adapter and using it with more normal amps and sources.

As a side note, my contract with Drop ran out at the beginning of the month, so I don't know if I'll still be informed about future stuff, but I still want to thank everyone for interacting with me here with this project, as we all shared our feedback with Drop's product managers and Ultrasone. I do hope my customizations weren't considered must-do actions for everyone, but rather I liked the headphone so much that I was willing to spend a bit extra of my own money to "make them my own" and spend more time with the headphone, because I already enjoyed the sound. To Paraphrase @Teebs , these do walk a great line between bass that is controlled and unleashed, while not muddying the mids and treble, and I do still have these at my computer desk because they're fun to listen to.

Did you try the cable with other Ultrasone Sigature headphones, or only with the Signature X?

 

[Evshrug]

Did you try the cable with other Ultrasone Sigature headphones, or only with the Signature X?

This was the first Ultrasone I had hands on time with, though the two cables I bought also works great with my Sennheiser HD 560S. I wonder if the more expensive silver-plated copper cable would open up the HD 599 a bit too, but I loaned that headphone to my mother’s yoga practice a few years ago.

I also have balanced cables for other headphones, and my general experience is that you want to choose between balanced and single ended cables based on what your amp is optimized for (the iFi Zen Air CAN didn’t really sound much different between SE and BAL, both were fine, and I have an old FiiO DAP where SE was better than BAL), and I prefer cables that “open up” the sound with what seems like less resistance, not cables that change the frequency response like an EQ. And most of the time, I’m perfectly fine with stock cables, unless I want to bling them out with pretty shiny cables I mostly bought the balanced cables for my Ultrasone and HD 560S because I wanted to see if balanced worked (I knew it did for the HD 560S), an experiment for the sake of you guys.

 

[e-dub]

I'm just wanting to injure if the cake works with other Signature models, or only the Signature X.

 

[Evshrug]

I'm just wanting to injure if the cake works with other Signature models, or only the Signature X.

If it helps, the reason I thought to try the balanced cable was because the Signature X was using the same balanced one-sided entry socket as the HD 599, and balanced cables were available for those. If you ever see a TRRS connector plug for the other signature models (four metal contact points, three black rings) that don't have a microphone, then it's possible the drivers have a balanced wiring setup.