Sony ULT Wear – The base above all

A simple trick that many headphone manufacturers use is tinkering with the bass response. JBL and many others call it their “signature sound”, but what they have done is mainly to add a little extra bass, and perhaps the even lower sub-bass frequencies that you can hardly even hear. It works to the extent that a lot of music then sounds heavier and more intense, but that's not how it sounds in the original recording, so you can argue that it's not how those who recorded the music want it to sound. For classical or acoustic music, turned up bass is less suitable.

In any case, there's no getting away from the fact that boosted bass is popular, and Sony, which has long made headsets and speakers with a dedicated Bass Boost button, has now taken the concept a step further. No, sorry, a step is an understatement. It is a new product series, ULT, and when Sony presents it, bass is mentioned in every sentence. At this stage, the series consists of three bluetooth speakers in different sizes and the headset ULT Wear.

The ULT Wear is quite similar to Sony's popular 1000X series which stands out for its fantastic active noise cancellation, but the ULT Wear is cheaper than both the WH-1000XM5 and its slightly cheaper predecessor the WH-1000XM4. And then we have the ULT button, where you switch between normal mode, ULT1 which Sony describes as Deep Bass, and ULT2 which they call Attack Bass.

Bass beyond reason

How does that sound? In normal mode, the headphones sound absolutely fine. You notice an emphasis on the bass that's a little boosted already here, and I may lack some clarity in the midrange. The handsets support Sony's LDAC technology for high-resolution sound that is found on Android mobiles, but if you use an iPhone, you have to settle for AAC, which is what Apple supports.

If you press the ULT button and switch to ULT1, the bass becomes comically exaggerated in my opinion. Regardless of whether it is music where the bass is already heavily mixed from the start or if it is in the background, it is allowed to take over without any great finesse. The sub-bass is also really turned up.

If I press one more time and switch to ULT2, it's hard to hear what the music sounds like at all, it's so drowned out in the bass. It's a bit like listening to the sound coming from a car with the car stereo turned up to maximum but with the doors and windows closed. The idea is probably that it should be a bit like standing next to the bass speaker at a concert, and of course you feel the pressure in your ears then, but it doesn't sound good.

I have listened to both bass heavy music and more normally mixed music without finding any music that sounds better in the ULT modes. If you are the type of person who immediately goes in and turns up the equalizer control for the bass to maximum, you will probably appreciate the ULT modes.

Having now dismissed the actual selling point for the headphones, I have to say that I still think they are a good and affordable pair of over-ear headphones. The ear pads are comfortable and I can wear the headset for a long time without it hurting.

Noise reduction good but not the best

ULT Wear has active noise reduction and borrows technology from the more expensive 1000X headphones, but is careful to point out that the noise reduction is not at the same level as in these. That's right, but it's not bad for that and the headphones still do a good job of creating a quiet bubble when the noise cancellation is on. What really impresses me is the listen-through mode, which you switch to with a button. Then the external microphones are used to let the ambient sound into the headphones so that you can talk without taking them off. It's a standard feature in active noise canceling headsets, but I've never heard it sound as good as this. It practically sounds like I wasn't wearing the headphones at all.

As I said, there are a couple of buttons, but you control most of it with a touch panel on the right cover. To pause or play the music, double tap and you can swipe up and down to adjust the volume or sideways to change tracks. The problem is that the panel very easily interprets my presses as swipes. I get audio feedback indicating what I pressed, but if someone comes and wants to talk to me, they have to wait a while because it takes a couple of tries before I manage to pause the audio. As an alternative, I can put my hand over one ear cup. Then the sound is muted and the listen-through mode is activated. However, it would have been more practical if the sound was paused instead. As it is now, I have to rewind if I listen to talk.

The sound during phone calls is also clearly approved. The headset is good at removing background noise in conversations at the expense of making my voice less audible. In a quiet environment it sounds really good, and if I stand next to, for example, a kitchen fan, I can still hear well while the fan is not heard. If I'm standing next to traffic, however, it starts to be difficult to hear what I'm saying.

Even if you are not interested in extra bass, ULT Wear is a good pair of headphones for SEK 2,300. If you're more interested in bass than music, ULT Wear will be the best headset you've ever heard.