In the rarified world of high-end audiophile equipment, there are companies selling gear designed years, or even decades earlier. Sometimes it's great, as with a classic tube amp, but other times, well, it's just outdated. Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ has a close audition of the Ultrasone Tio in-ear headphones and finds that while there's lots to like about the audio reproduction, there are a lot of areas for improvement too. And doubly so when taking the price into account...
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Classic studio earbuds, but do they hold up? Let's check them out
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Oh, Dave Taylor here, and I'm checking out these. These are classics. These are the Ultrasone
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Tio in-ear headphones, and they're almost 10 years old now, which leads to the question
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do they hold up? So let me talk about these. Let me talk about the technology
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then we'll get to the sound, and you might be a little surprised by what I have to say
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Now, they are based on a balanced armature or BA design, so it's not a triple driver
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it's not a quadruple driver, it's a single driver, and its goal is to give you really
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accurate and precise reproduction of the music. They are 18 ohm, only plugged in
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no Bluetooth, no fancy technology here, 106 decibels of sensitivity, 19 to 21,000 hertz
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reproduction, and an SPL of 117 decibels, so all the specs are there, right? Aluminum housing
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in fact, here's a close-up of the earbuds. You can see it's a pretty simple design. They're
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super light, and their whole feel is just kind of retro, and you can see the wire by how bent it is
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This is a rubber-coated wire, but I kind of wish they had one of these more fabric-oriented or
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different kinds of wire technologies, because this does have a tendency to be messy, and it can also
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bend and move in awkward ways, because it has memory, as you can see. It knows where I've
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folded it in the past, so it's going to go back to that same position. It also has a flex-supported
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connector, but again, this feels honestly like it's plastic. It doesn't feel like it's aluminum
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or metal at all, which is a bummer. It does come with a lot of ear tips, so let me start here. It
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comes with this really cool little leather carrying box, and you unzip it, and I'm just going to sort
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of let these cascade onto my table. Comes with a lot of ear tips. First, two little adapters. You've
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seen these before. Probably you won't need them, but the ear tips are obviously super important. So
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it comes with seven pair of ear tips. It comes with two pair of comply foam ear tips, if you like
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those. Remember to pinch them before you put them in your ear, and then it has two pair of conical
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and three pair of regular silicone tips. So different styles and shapes. Again, you can see
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in this close-up the different styles of ear tips. As with anything you put in your ear, it is super
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important to spend the time to try out different sizes and styles to get the ones that work best
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for you. I will say they go pretty far into your ear. It's a little disconcerting. A lot of earbuds
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seem to be fairly shallow, but these, you push them in, and they go in your ear. Now, the goal is
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obviously to isolate the ambient noise, and ostensibly the comply foam do that the best
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but they're not noise canceling. They don't do a great job of shielding you against the ambient
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noise in your environment. However, they are really good in their reproduction, so they get
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pretty darn loud. If you really need to do that, you're good. The cable itself is 1.2 meters. Again
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a little on the short side, and it does have an inline single button controller, not even the
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sort of standard three button. So push once, and it's pause play. Push twice, it's next track
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and push three times quickly, and it's previous track. So it gives you some functionality. Hidden
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in here is also a microphone, so you can use this for calls. It's a voice-optimized mic, and I found
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that it actually sounded really pretty darn good, and you don't have to do this thing. I see so
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many people do this, and it's just so frustrating where they're talking like this, because the mic
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has to be within one inch of their mouth, or they don't think it's working. You don't have to do
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that. In fact, really, you look kind of daft when you're doing that, so don't do that. Just trust
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that your devices work the right way. There is an Android app, theoretically, that helps you manage
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and tune your headphones, and how they work for you. I couldn't find it. There's definitely nothing
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on the iPhone side. I'm not exactly sure what it would deliver, because again, that was something I
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was unable to find in a Google Play search, but theoretically, it's there. So let's talk about the
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sound, and then I'm going to talk about whether it's really worth its darn premium price tag
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Just so you know, these are $499 earbuds, and you're looking at them, and looking at the design
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and you're like, no way, but way, seriously. Okay, so to listen to these, I started with some classic
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Joe Pass Jazz, and man, they sounded really good, but Joe Pass, his style of jazz isn't bass-heavy
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It's very mid-range, very highs, you know, and it just was just really clear. There's a really
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lovely precision to the sound reproduction. However, there's not much bass. There's not much
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soundstage. You don't get a big expansive feel for your music. It's just really accurate. So then I
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thought, well, what do I have that has a really solid bass line? And I thought, let's try this Skyfall
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soundtrack from Thomas Newman. There's some tracks on that that are just fantastic to listen to
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Not so much with these, though. There was just like the entire bass response just wasn't there
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and I even messed around with the equalizer on my music source, and just didn't find that there was
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a lot going on. Now, for studio monitors, for something you're going to use as an audiophile
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that might be perfect for you. You might listen to music that doesn't have a lot of bass, or doesn't
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need that really big, strong bass signature. It's not EDM. It's not trance, but if you're a more
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modern listener, I would say most modern audio people, especially people that are going to drop
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500 bucks on a pair of in-ear headphones, they're looking for that full sound reproduction. So they
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want that bass. If they turn up the bass on their EQ, they want it coming into their ears, and they
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want to be able to enjoy that part of the music, too. And these just weren't delivering that. So I
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gotta say, overall, this is, to me, representative of this like very niche part of the audiophile
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market, where there's companies that just make great gear, but they're still packaging it, and
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designing it, and shipping it, and including all the features that were relevant 25 or 30 years ago
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You know, these are tired old earphones, and they might be in-ear headphones, and they might be
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something that audiophiles really love, but the company could really do with a major rev on the
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entire system. They could do with adding some bass to the reproduction, having a different style of wire
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having a three button, not one button controller. You know, the audio is there. It's really a clean
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precise sound, but it's just, I feel, not really worth that price tag. So let me get back to the
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price, but before I get there, let me ask if you could subscribe to my channel. As is hopefully
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super obvious, I am really candid and honest. I am not just shilling products. I'm not going to tell
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you to buy something that I don't think is fantastic, and this is a great example of it
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There's things to love about this Ultrasone Tio, for sure, but there's things you really want to
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know about before you go ahead and run your credit card. So go ahead and click or tap on that
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subscribe button, and join my channel. I really appreciate you doing that. All right, well, these are
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the Ultrasone Tio in-ear headphones, and as I said, they are $499.99 at Amazon.com, and I'm going to
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be candid. I get a lot of gear. I get gear all the way from $19 earbuds all the way up to $1,200
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or more headphones, and when I put these in and I was listening to them, and then I did my research
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to go and look and see what the price was, I was surprised. I did not anticipate that these would be
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anywhere near that expensive. So take that with a grain of salt. If you are, again, an old-school
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classic audiophile, you might just say, you know, pshaw and patooey to everything I'm saying
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That's fine. That's your right to do that, but if you're a modern listener who wants a full spectrum
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and a big sound stage and a lot of presence regardless of the kind of music you choose to
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listen to, then I'm not sure these are going to be a great choice for you, particularly at their
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price point. So hopefully Ultrasone has a next-gen product on its way out in the very near future
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and I look forward to checking that out because, boy, the pieces are here. It just needs to be
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updated. That's all I got. I'll catch you in my next video
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai


