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The Ultimate Ears 700 earphones may be aspiring to the old ‘the best things come in small packages’ adage, but it’s not one we generally subscribe to. After all, you can’t fit in a 50-inch Pioneer Kuro inside a matchbox, and we do love our big TVs here at Electricpig. We take a look at whether tiny size means tiny sound in our Ultimate Ears 700 review.
The Ultimate Ears 700 earphones are something of a follow-up to Ultimate Ears’s Super.Fi 5 Pro headphones, but they’re really quite a different beast. For one, there’s their size, an especially intriguing factor considering each bud houses two separate drivers. Also, the bundled soft rubber tips make sure they’re comfortable to wear all day long.
The sound produced is very different too, with an unmistakeable focus on the treble. The high-end detail provided by the Ultimate Ears 700s is quite staggering. You can hear every single little quirk in vocal and instrument tracks alike, but then such detail does come with a price.
Feed the Ultimate Ears 700 some rubbish old 128kbps MP3s, encoded five years ago, and you’ll be able to hear every ugly little digital artefact and fault. The worst affected tracks seem to be those with cymbals flamming all over the shop, inviting all sorts of sonic nastiness. Of course, it’s not the earphones’ fault per se, but it’s definitely something to consider.
Read our Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5 Pro review now
Indeed, the effect is a lot worse in these earphones than with the Jays q-JAYS, a pair with a similar design and a sound signature that the Ultimate Ears 700s have taken some heavy cues from. Comparatively, these headphones have an even more intense high-end, giving that extra notch of sonic detail. Some will find it too harsh though, and when we cranked the volume to get a bit more audible bass presence, the treble did become a little hard on the ears.
That’s the only problem with the Ultimate Ears 700s – the relative volume of the treble is a little off-balance. The bass is definitely there, and even the ultra-low sub-bass quality was pretty impressive, but it leaves the limelight to the admittedly eye-opening high frequencies. If you love your headphones bright and intense, the Ultimate Ears 700s are a great choice, but we can’t help but feel that many listeners would prefer the easier-going but still superbly detailed Jays q-JAYS.
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