OK, I will start by saying that these headphones are solidly built, and that fit and finish is excellent. Also, Ultrasone has stood by its design philosophy solidly through the years, and you have to commend them for standing by their principles.
But the fact is, either you are going to love the Pro 900 or you are going to hate it, no in-betweens. These headphones are more polarizing than Grados, and for one and only one reason -- S-logic.
S-logic based on this paper that Florian Konig, the founder of Ultrasone, wrote. I read it when I first tried to figure out what the term "S-logic" meant, and I think it is the best (and probably only) detailed explanation you are ever going to get on the topic, unless you count the rather vague statements on the Ultrasone website. The problem is that the paper is translated into English in such a clumsy way (I assume that it was not initially written in English) that many of the concepts are almost impossible to understand. It's like the paper was written by a Tamarian ("Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel"). If you don't understand what I mean by this, well, you probably never will, it's a Star Trek thing :-)
Basically, as far as I can make out (disclaimer: it's been a while since I have thought about this in detail because it gives me a migraine) the sound gets better if you place the drivers in a "decentric" fashion (i.e. in an inhumanly low position and angled weirdly) then something called "head-related transfer" occurs and then the sound that travels through regular air conduction (via the drivers) and head-related transfer function are both picked up the brain and combined to create a magical 3D sound. You with me? Good, because I'm not sure I am.
Now to be fair, HD800 also utilizes a somewhat eccentric driver placement, and many IEMs add a component of bone conduction, and Ultrasone has a ton of patents for S-logic, and Florian Konig is clearly a very smart man, and his paper offers a reasonable scientific hypothesis to support decentral driver placement, so maybe there is something to it. I should also add that Ultrasone claims that their headphones subject you to less EM radiation than other headphones, and that you are less likely to sustain hearing loss with their headphones. Rather than depend on my biased opinion, read the paper for yourself and decide!
Suffice to say that depending on your perspective, S-Logic technology either improves the sound like the Traveler (whose name was unpronounceable by Humans) improved the warp drive of the USS Enterprise, or kills the sound more thoroughly than a rerun of a Star Trek Voyager episode.
I am of the latter persuasion.
But the fact is, either you are going to love the Pro 900 or you are going to hate it, no in-betweens. These headphones are more polarizing than Grados, and for one and only one reason -- S-logic.
S-logic based on this paper that Florian Konig, the founder of Ultrasone, wrote. I read it when I first tried to figure out what the term "S-logic" meant, and I think it is the best (and probably only) detailed explanation you are ever going to get on the topic, unless you count the rather vague statements on the Ultrasone website. The problem is that the paper is translated into English in such a clumsy way (I assume that it was not initially written in English) that many of the concepts are almost impossible to understand. It's like the paper was written by a Tamarian ("Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, Picard and Dathon at El-Adrel"). If you don't understand what I mean by this, well, you probably never will, it's a Star Trek thing :-)
Basically, as far as I can make out (disclaimer: it's been a while since I have thought about this in detail because it gives me a migraine) the sound gets better if you place the drivers in a "decentric" fashion (i.e. in an inhumanly low position and angled weirdly) then something called "head-related transfer" occurs and then the sound that travels through regular air conduction (via the drivers) and head-related transfer function are both picked up the brain and combined to create a magical 3D sound. You with me? Good, because I'm not sure I am.
Now to be fair, HD800 also utilizes a somewhat eccentric driver placement, and many IEMs add a component of bone conduction, and Ultrasone has a ton of patents for S-logic, and Florian Konig is clearly a very smart man, and his paper offers a reasonable scientific hypothesis to support decentral driver placement, so maybe there is something to it. I should also add that Ultrasone claims that their headphones subject you to less EM radiation than other headphones, and that you are less likely to sustain hearing loss with their headphones. Rather than depend on my biased opinion, read the paper for yourself and decide!
Suffice to say that depending on your perspective, S-Logic technology either improves the sound like the Traveler (whose name was unpronounceable by Humans) improved the warp drive of the USS Enterprise, or kills the sound more thoroughly than a rerun of a Star Trek Voyager episode.
I am of the latter persuasion.
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