Many people think that building headphones is as trivial as assembling LEGO. Get the parts, do a bit of soldering and screwing, package them up—and you’re done. It can’t be very expensive or very difficult.
And the construction itself surely isn’t rocket science; you just have to combine the right components.
It would be wonderful if it were really that simple. Our ULTRASONE products are indeed designed in many ways so that during assembly they either sound right—or they don’t work at all. But life always brings surprises, and one of them has remained particularly memorable for me.
We have built thousands of headphones in our company. When a product is manufactured in a series—even a small one—all headphones usually sound largely the same. They are never completely identical, because there are always tolerances, for example in the impedance between individual drivers. However, within a single headphone, the left and right sides are matched and installed in pairs with a tolerance of ±0.5%.
But once we experienced a case where everything was identical, yet an entire production batch suddenly sounded different from the previously manufactured units. Not like a JBL—but different. In such situations, the procedure is always the same: Are the measurements correct? Are there phase reversals? Are the impedances correct, including the wiring? Are there any obvious assembly errors?
In this case, everything about the quality was correct—yet the sound was clearly different.
So every single component of the headphones was removed and tested, then replaced and tested again. The process was laborious and lasted more than two weeks until we finally discovered the component that caused the difference. However, since it came from the same supplier and nothing different had been ordered than before, further investigation at the supplier was necessary.
We contacted the manufacturer, who is located not far from us and who has been producing ear pads for us since 1991. There we discovered that they had sourced the foam material from a different manufacturer. Although it had the same measured specifications, it simply did not sound the same.
A minimal cause—yet a huge effect. 🎧
EXPERIENCE ULTRASONE
- Global Shipping – free of Charge
- Because your ears deserve better.