JUN 15, 2024
NimishAndAkriti
Want a pair of wireless headphones with lots of bass? Well, frankly most mainstream headphones below Rs 5000, will give you bass aplenty. The problem is they they often do so at the cost of totally overwhelming other audio, so while you have thumping beats and rumbles aplenty, vocals and sharper sounds get lost. Delivering bass-heavy headphones that do not compromise (well, not too heavily, anyway) on overall clarity is quite a challenge. And that is the challenge Sony is taking on with its new ULT Wear headphones !
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The ULT Wear are part of Sony's new ULT Power Range, that promise to deliver "massive bass and ultimate vibe," They come with the Sony’s Integrated Processor V1, similar to the one seen on the much-acclaimed 1000X series headphones. Also on board are 40 mm drivers, designed to deliver what Sony claims will be "unwavering energy and huge resonating bass." Well, wow!
In terms of design, the Sony ULT are relatively regular looking, with the usual combination of two earcups connected by a headband. There is plenty of padding around, on the earcups as well as the headband, making these very comfortable to wear. The build is mainly sturdy plastic. There is Sony branding near the place where the headband connects to the ear cups.
A key change from the W 1000X series is that the earcups have hinges that allow them to fold inwards, so you can bunch them into a much more compact form factor. A number of new premium headphones do not allow you to do this, affecting their portability.
Speaking of portability, the Sony ULT Wear come with a nice, spacious case into which they can be packed for carrying comfortably. The case itself will take up some space, though. The headphones seem sturdy enough to be chucked into a backpack, if you do not have too much space going around. At 255 grams, they are not too heavy.
The ULT Wear come with touch controls, so you will have to change volume, skip tracks and do a lot more using the large touch panels on the back of each ear cup. We would honestly have preferred buttons, but we know touch interfaces are considered more...modern and high-tech.
There are buttons for two key operations, though. A large ULT button lets you add more bass to your audio by accessing ULT1 and ULT2 modes, and if you want to turn ANC (active noise cancellation) on and off, there's a button for that too.
While the Sony ULT promise to deliver some pretty hefty bass, especially if you get into the ULT2 mode, Sony claims a Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE) will restore the high-frequency elements lost during music compression, so you end up with clean sound that has a bass emphasis. Incidentally, these support Sony's high quality LDAC codec.
There are also some smart features in there, including very good ANC, spatial audio and head tracking. All that topped off with battery that can go on up to 50 hours make these quite an interesting proposition. We mean, you got bass aplenty, good battery life, decent ANC and a comfortable build quality!
The big question is whether all this is worth Rs 16,990. We have heard a bit of the Sony ULT, and well, we must confess to being impressed by the default sound (without hitting the ULT1 or ULT2 modes) is surprisingly clean for bass-friendly headphones. Get into ULT1 and ULT2 and the bass comes on really strong. ANC also seems close to what we have experienced on the 1000-XM5, which is very impressive.
We think that Sony might have been a bit unfair to theULT Wear by labelling them as mainly bass-heavy headphones. From what we have seen so far, they are headphones that can ALSO do some very heavy bass but are very good at handling other frequencies. Yes, the slight bass accent is there, but it never overwhelms other sounds. It is pricey, but this does seem like a very good pair of headphones for those who love bass, but not at the cost of other frequencies. And the smart features, good design and good battery life do it no harm at all! (As always, feel free to shoot us your queries - we will do our best to answer them!)