Ultimate Ears 700

The Ultimate Ears 700 earphones are described as ‘Noise-isolating Earphones’. Unlike the other models, these are earphones, suitable for portable use. But they also deliver a good quality home performance. Or they would, except that they lack the 3.5mm to 6.5mm adaptor required for use with high quality home theatre or hi-fi equipment.

They come with is seven sets of ‘seals’ to allow for different ear canal sizes and shapes. Five sets are silicon and and two are foam. Ultimate Ears says that the passive noise reduction is as much as 26dB.

It was certainly reduced by quite a lot. Normal outside noise was reduced to non-bothersome levels.

I spent many hours with these earphones inserted into my ears, and they proved to be very comfortable with the pre-attached silicon seals. The cable noise was a little intrusive. Brushing against the cable, or its own weight jiggling it up and down when I was walking, resulted in noise injected directly into my ear canals. This could be best kept to a minimum by sliding the small ring that kept the left and right ear cables right up to my chin.

The earphones are marked for left and right, but being so small I found the need to examine them closely every time.

Sound wise, they were clearly very sensitive. You will not find them limited in volume level with even quite low output portable devices. With home equipment you can do whatever damage to your ears you like.

They were clearly extended in their frequency range, with good bass and an excellent attack on cymbals, but they did tend to emphasise the upper midrange/lower treble a little. This would have made some music sound a little tinny were it not for the solid underpinning of bass. They did occasionally threaten sibilance on the human voice, and tended to emphasise any white noise in the reproduction chain.

Nonetheless, they were solid performers with the added capability of portability.

 

Overall
Features
Value for money
Performance
Ease of Use
Reader Rating0 Votes
Very good sound quality; Excellent sensitivity; Comfortable; Good noise rejection
Physical cable noise; No 6.5mm plug adaptor provided
4.2