The coolest looking headphones

Q: What do you think the coolest looking headphones are?

A: From a "look ma, I'm in a sci-fi movie" perspective, the Sennheiser HD800, which is certainly the most distinctive headphone out there today.

from an "old world cool" perspective, the Audio Technica ATH-ESW9 has always reminded me of the New Yankee Workshop, except for headphones.

From a "wow that craftsmanship is incredible" perspective = the Fostex TH900. Unless you have seen it IRL you will not fully realize how awesome the urushi is.

But for sheer luxury, you have to go with the Ultrasone Edition 10, with its zebrano wood and lambskin it looks like something you would find in an art deco museum in Miami.

Some thoughts about the Ultrasone Pro 900

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.

Why do Ultrasone headphones sound different?

Q: What's with Ultrasone headphones? Why do they sound different than everything else out there?

A: Few headphones polarize audiophiles as much as Ultrasone. Folks either love the sound, or hate it.

In essence Florian Konig, Ultrasone's founder, came up with this paper on how to bounce sound waves off the ears rather than into the ears directly to create this surround effect with normal headphones. They called this effect s-logic, and have been refining the technology ever since. Only Ultrasones have them. More details here -- this is what makes Ultrasone headphones sound so different.

Folks who love S-logic love Ultrasone. They sound unique, and in my opinion the only way you can figure out if you are a lover or a hater is to listen to them for yourself and decide.

If the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation were headphones

If the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation were headphones:

• Picard is obviously a Sennheiser HD600, because he is neutral
• Guinan is a Beyerdynamic T90, because she is great for critical listening
• Geordi is a Sennheiser HD800, because he is overengineered
• Deanna Troi is a Grado, because she is too bright and gets on your nerves after a while
• Tasha Yar is a Sennheiser Amperior because she, like the Amperior, was discontinued abruptly
• the Tamarian aliens from the episode "Darmok" are Ultrasones because noone can undertand what they are saying
• Q is obviously a AKG Q701, obviously

Review: Ultrasone Edition 10

"The best headphones ever!" I read recently online. The Ultrasone Edition 10 headphones certainly meet the criteria for audiophile goodness. Huge price tag (over $2000!), limited to only 2010 pieces (each of which has its own serial number), extraordinary level of hype when they were introduce, glowing reviews from the few who were fortunate enough to listen to one.....they must sound absolutely fabulous, right?

Well, these headphones look gorgeous. They will certainly make you feel cool as you roll in your 1936 Ford down Ocean Drive in South Beach, Miami, but a critical issue will reduce your overall level of enjoyment, despite the "butterfly-inspired design", the Zebrano wood, and the Ethiopian sheepskin leather earcup covers (I "kid" you not!) that are featured in these headphones.

And the problem, simply put, is this: The S-Logic technology kills the sound more thoroughly than a Klingon warrior with a bat'leth.

The drivers are positioned weirdly, somewhere waaay below where my ears are, and I have normal size ears positioned where normal humans grow ears (I can confidently say that if you were Abe Sapien from "Hellboy" the Edition 10 would fit you just right). And even if it did fit (or probably because it did not), the S-logic just makes everything sound so weird. It just plain sounds wrong.

You must be either [a] mad or [b] have more money to throw around than Warren Buffet to buy the Ultrasone Edition 10, no matter how gorgeous they look, and no matter how high the hype level is. I mean, you could do better by buying a used Ford Festiva for the same kind of money. You wouldn't look as cool driving down a busy Miami street, but you would certainly sound better.

The moral of the story: just because they are expensive and are finely crafted using exotic materials by  dwarves in Moria, does not necessarily mean that they sound as fantastic as they look.