Quote:
Yes...........they sounded amazing on my home stereo............sounded awful on my Clip+. They need to be amp'd for sure. I had to turn the volume on my Clip+ to almost 75%...........when I listen to them at 25% with my S4s. Returned them and bought the S4s, which Im completely happy with.
It's worth noting the 500 is rated at 105 dB/mW. If you step up one notch to the 600 (their least expensive balanced armature model) you'll get 115dB/mW. If those specs are close to accurate, 10dB higher sensitivity is huge. You'd need more than 8 times the power out of your device on the 500's to equal the same volume on the 600's.
I have the old UE original SuperFi 5 Pro's with the funky thick cables, memory wires, etc. And they're the most sensitive headphones I own of any kind by a wide margin. Even wimpy devices can drive them to hearing damaging levels.
But I agree, in general the 500's should be easy enough to drive from a typical portable player. The Clip+ is no slouch in output power. I'm about to publish full bench test results on mine on my blog. It comes close to the iPod Touch 3G in performance. So if the Clip+ really can't drive the 500's to decent volume, something is wrong.
Logitech is a big profit driven company and, like many big profit driven companies, they're largely growing through [size=11pt]
acquisitions[/size] rather than making better products themselves. Once they finish swallowing up UE I'm sure management will set their sights on the next company to assimilate rather than worrying much about the existing products except, of course, finding ways to further cut costs and increase marketing hype.
The inconsistencies in Logitech audio products have been enormous. Their PC/media speaker systems, for example, have ranged from well reviewed and liked to really awful--even at roughly the same price points. It makes one wonder if Logitech just gets their name slapped onto whatever they find that's cheap and *looks* impressive out of China rather than do much engineering on their own? That would explain the total lack of consistency.
And they've swallowed up some really cool audio companies before--like Slim Devices. The founder of Slim Devices (and creator of the amazing Transporter player) left after trying, unsuccessfully, to live under Logitech's rule after the acquisition. It's been downhill with that product line ever since. It's kind of sad really.
