Photo courtesy of Ultimate Ears

January 18th, 2009 – Ultimate Ears, semi-recently bought out by Logitech and maker of high end IEMs (in-ear monitors), has just released their new flagship model the UE 18 Pro. It features six speakers per ear. Let that sink in for a bit. Typical consumer headphones only have one speaker, high end models in the hundreds of dollars have two, or at max, three. The UE 18 Pro has 6.

There are two for highs, two for mids, and two for lows, tuned in special ports for your custom modeled ear pieces. As you’d expect, the price for what is pretty much handmade for you, is spendy ($1,350), but for the audiophiles, professional musicians and technicians that use these, it’s the cost of doing business.

I’m still kind of reeling over the 6 speakers. I can understand 3, but what is the sound difference between 3 and 6 speakers in that tiny form factor? Granted, I’ve never even tried an IEM that has two drivers, but I was thinking of getting Shure’s SE530′s. The SE530′s are pretty much the nicest sounding IEM’s you can get without getting a custom ear mold made, and they can be found at a reasonable price online.

That being said, Ultimate Ears’ products have always been highly rated in independent reviews, so I’ve been itching to try some out. Even the lower budget ones have pretty good reviews. For those of you who haven’t used IEM’s before, I highly recommend you give them a try. At first, it feels a little weird that they’re so far in your ear canal, but most good ones offer a plethora of fitment choices, so you can almost always find a size that works for you.

Once you have them in, you’ll notice much better bass, and you won’t have to turn them up the volume as high because they block out a lot of the ambient noise. In fact, I’ve used them to block out sound when I’ve forgotten my ear plugs. I have a lower end Shure pair, which have worked great but they’re getting a little beat up. Time to upgrade! Of course if you have some nice earphones, or headphones too for that matter, be sure to use a headphone amp to fully exploit the benefits of your new purchase. A nice low buck option is the bbCmoy I posted about a while ago.

Ultimate Ears UE 18 Pro

This entry was posted on Monday, January 18th, 2010 at 7:12 pm.
Categories: Asides, DJ, Engineering, Gear.

2 Comments, Comment or Ping

  1. Scott Cameron

    I have both the UE 18′s and the UE 11′s and have been a touring artist for 19 years. I can say that there is a huge difference between a 3 driver and the 4 driver UE 11′s. I can even tell a difference from the UE 11′s (4 driver) to the UE 18′s (6 driver per piece). The 18′s have the same bottom end as the 11′s but some more high end sparkle. In all the years Im yet to find a better IEM manufacturer than Ultimate Ears! They are for sure the best Audio quality and they are quite rugged too the amount of times I’ve jumped around a stage with one monitor flapping about! Great product.

    Jun 1st, 2011

  2. Sean

    Thanks for the first hand account…i still haven’t been able to try out the higher models yet

    Sep 7th, 2011

Reply to “Ultimate Ears UE 18 Pro : 6 speakers per ear!”