KLH Ultimate One

I should be studying for exams but I'm temporarily brain dead so need to talk about something more fun than statistics, even for just a bit.

@Ainsworth (awesome name by the by) dropped mention of the KLH Ultimate One headphones in the Verite thread and my curiosity was piqued. More than a passing resemblance to the Klipsch Heritage HP1 that never made it to production from the gimbals down and the fact that the person spearheading this project was David P. Kelley, formerly of Klipsch, got a raised eyebrow out of me. Eh, nothing but supposition at this point, but the resemblance is uncanny (even if they stole the headband design from Focal instead of Klipsch). MSRP is also close to what Klipsch was targeting.

Tyll's video from CES 2017. See around 2:00:


One difference between this and the unborn Klipsch is that while the HP-1 was meant to house a 40mm biocellulose/biodynamic driver, the Ultimate One houses a 50mm pure beryllium one. Big driver in a housing designed for a smaller one brings Sony MDR Z7 to mind— I liked the Sony cans, but not really enough to buy it despite my brand fanboyism and appreciation of the stellar build.

Found some measurements of the Ultimate One by Brent Butterworth, which is a name people on here might be familiar with given his history in the published audio space. He's got a database of other headphones to compare against including the HP-3, and while I may not necessarily agree with how things look on his coupler or editorial comments about how the HP-3 sounds "normal" (HAH), it's a useful data point nonetheless. Do note that the Focal and Klipsch measurements have two sets of FR, he was in the middle of a transition from KB0065 simulated ears to KB5000 and wanted to keep both for posterity. The KLH only comes with KB5000 measurements, and yes the differences in FR are significant enough to warrant notice:

KLH Ultimate One Measurements:


https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...-ultimate-one-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203
*third image in link shows FR comparison with HD6XX, HE400i, and the Nighthawk

Klipsch Heritage HP-3 Measurements:


https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...heritage-hp-3-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203

Focal Clear Measurements, for something more normal-sounding:


https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...3:focal-clear-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203

No KB5000 measurements but the bass response should be similar— the way the bass drops off into the midrange is reminiscent of the Bowers & Wilkins P9, which I've been meaning to listen to:


https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/i...-p9-signature-headphones&catid=263&Itemid=203


Has anyone here gotten ears on these yet? Just based off the measurements and guessing what sticking a large Be driver in a small housing might do kinda puts me off, but I'm still gonna try getting ears on these when I can, maybe see if I can generate squiggles of my own.

EDIT: Some grammar and FR added to save clicks. For blue and orange traces, blue is old pinna while orange is new (which was used for the KLH).

 

It's a different color variation of a sivga sv007
Sivga is a supposedly good $80 Chinese woody. Housing is propably built by winintone who makes most of the fancy Chinese Wood headphones. You can bulk buy them for like $15 a piece.

I'm sceptical about the beryllium driver too...well atleast the pure berylliym part.

Here is msur n550
it is quite obvious that housing and headband is from the same OEM.

N550 has a beryllium (coated) driver. It's a $70 headphone and propably the best headphone at that price range I've heard.

However it looks quite obvious that KLH is just a bulk ordered chi-fi headphone and they thought they could price it at €350 and get away with it.

 

Good catch! Probably should have tried digging a bit deeper to find that, appreciate the input. Now I'm more curious to get ears on the KLH, especially with the Sivga for comparison. Can't find many listening impressions of the Sivgas (that I trust offhandedly), so gonna trawl local to see if anyone's gotten ears on them— $80 is a bit much to spend on a lark, but I could give em to my dad or something for his birthday I guess.

Also, beignets are last place? You guys are weird (still voted for bagels though).

 

I'll bet most people here couldn't even pronounce beignet...


(it's sort of like "ben-yay"... but I'm probably saying it with a French Canadian accent)

 

"Most people" included me until embarrassingly recently to be honest, until my sister gave me a WTH look and corrected me, haha*. Nah, same pronunciation over here on my end, ben-YAY for good pastries

*In my defence we have a local dish called bagnet ("Baghdad" with the "uh" sound and... "net"), I figured pronunciation couldn't have been that far off.