From the Founder’s Treasury of Anecdotes, Part 15: How a Comparison with Focal Can Be Completely Off the Mark.

Building and presenting professional headphones is actually not that difficult. More details on that tomorrow.

What is sometimes fascinating, however, is when forum writers—and even reviewers—make comparisons that completely miss the point. It would take quite a bit of staff to counter all of this accumulated nonsense, but I already wrote a blog about that some time ago. Still, some contributions deserve to be mentioned separately.

For example, the Thomann portal Amazona—unfortunately without naming the author—is currently enthusiastically writing about a new headphone from Focal, a closed-back model priced at 799 euros.

It will certainly be a solid product that is being sold there at a proud price, and I fully understand the author’s enthusiasm.

But one statement did surprise me somewhat—although it also pleased me:

“I rarely use closed headphones because I get along much better with open ones, but my Ultrasone PRO 1480 i, which I really love, don’t stand a chance against the power of the Focal.”

Why did this surprise—and please—me?

Well, the PRO 1480i from ULTRASONE was, in 2016, our brand’s entry-level headphone, sold at a price of 99 euros. Mentioning it in comparison with a model almost ten years younger and costing eight times as much means two things:

The Focal has a relatively easy time in comparison with the ULTRASONE PRO 1480i, since the two devices are not comparable in any detail. The ULTRASONE is open-back, the Focal closed-back—a major difference in listening perception. The technology used today, for example in the open Signature FUSION Open Back (or in the closed FUSION, which would actually be more comparable with the Focal), has evolved significantly over the past ten years. If the outcome were any different, the new Focal would be a complete disappointment.
And this is the pleasing part: even after ten years, the entry-level headphone from ULTRASONE is still the author’s favorite device. What proof of the pioneering technology of our S-Logic system—and what proof of sustainability through the durable construction of our products!

My opinion on this:

Of course it annoys me when comparisons are made between products that are not actually comparable.

But in this case it makes me happy, because the mention of ULTRASONE’s former entry-level model documents not only the superior price-performance ratio, but also the sustainable, long-lasting quality and the unique sound.

ULTRASONE has always been technologically ahead of its time. And at the moment, we clearly are once again!