[jasonl]

Where did UF-30 come from?

UF-30 is developed with Ultrasone where we contributed our inputs. This is not an off-the-shelf re-brand of some headphones.

We maintain a discipline in the way we approve a product for release:
1) The sound quality has to be approved by our in-house audiophile Casey Ng, who is also the VP of Product Development.
2) Prototypes have to be reviewed and approved by a few of our distributors who are also audiophiles. We also use more than one outside independent audiophiles to review each prototype.

UF-30 was tweaked for months. The early version was shown at CES 2009 but was sent back for further refinement. The early prototype was better than any similarly priced headphones but that's not good enough for our standard (because a few audiophiles pointed out some weaknesses). Basically we want the equivalent of NE-7M for the headphone line. NE-7M defines the lowest performance acceptable to us for earphones. Soon, you will be the judge for where UF-30 stands.

 

[millionmonkeys]

Jason

What's the latest with the UF-30's?

 

[jasonl]

It is in production, my best guess is shipping around late May.

 

[Xan7hos]

Will there be another early adopters promotion again (like what happened with the NE-8/7) for these headphones? I'm definitely excited

 

[captian73]

Will they be available in the UK? And if not, why not (he jests).

 

[jasonl]

We expect to ship these around June 8. I just got hold of 3 production samples and they are simply stunning (and sounded very good too).
See UF-30 product page

We plan to reserve some stocks for initial promotional discount so please sign up for newsletter (only subscribers get the 1st notice when they are up on sale). Oh, please be patient, we expect these headphones to sell out worldwide and production will be struggling to keep up for the next 6 months.

List price is only $79.

Jason

 

[jasonl]

More photos here (these are not shown on product page):
Red

Peal White:

Black:

 

[bakhtiar]

Hi Jason.

Any idea how it's sound like ?

... In your honest opinion, which popular headphones that have the similar SS with the UF30 ?

 

[millionmonkeys]

Jason

Can you please advise - are they supra-aural or circumaural???

 

[jasonl]

UF-30 is supra-aural. As far as direct comparison with another brand or model, I am not going to say. We try not to do that with our electronics and we should not start now with headphones. I am sure many of you will post your feedback on the forum in June.

I haven't had the chance to hear many headphones, but I can honestly say that UF-30 will compete well with headphones 2X to 5X its price. It is sort of like the "NE-7M" of our headphones.

 

[kloan]

I think they look great! Looking forward to reviews...

 

[Xan7hos]

Hey Jason, when's the release date for these things? I need new portable headphones

 

[jasonl]

We should be able to ship within 2 weeks. Will start to accept order once we confirm that the shipment has left factory.

 

[Jazz1]

Would it be impolite to ask how these differ from the Ultrasone Zino? I know they are not out yet but didn't know if any insiders had experience with them?

 

[casper]

Has anyone seen any reviews/impressions of this yet? I know its still early...