How often does your technique teach you something completely new about your physique? Rarely for me – especially when said revelation is about the very thing that makes most of my income these days, my ears and testing the best wireless headphones on the market. But today was no ordinary day.
The highlight product (and I mean that literally as well as metaphorically) are UE’s Fits headphones, which have been available in the US for a while now, but have just arrived across the pond in the UK.
UE, also known as Ultimate Ears, is an attractive Californian audio giant that can lay claim to some of the best Bluetooth speakers we’ve had the pleasure of testing – see the Wonderboom 2 as a prime example.
Now, the information you need to know here is that these headphones involve a customization process, but they do all the fitting while you wait – no audiologist, no silicone two-piece kit, no sending off prints, no long wait to pick up the headphones. Remember ideas like Avery’s custom ear tips to solve your terrible AirPods fit? This is nothing like that.
What you do is: download the UE Fit app, remove the headphones from their slightly embarrassing, sterile packaging, place them in the case, and follow the prompts. The whole thing takes about three minutes. And the results blew me away.
It wasn’t a great start. When putting the earplugs in my ears, the translucent tips (which actually cover the entire driver housing) were too big for my ears. However, the app assured me that I could hold them in place until the magical wizardry happened.
This is the part that will really amaze you. The app warns you that this will happen, but still, I bet you’ve never experienced anything like this. You only get one shot at this, but the parts of the earpiece that sit in your ear warming up while wearing them. Almost immediately I felt the thermoplastic move, loosen, caress and assimilate with the folds of my ears.
At the end of it all, UE asks if you want to take a selfie (at which point you notice that they’re lit up in purple), and although I don’t usually buy into the very idea of it, in this case I did. So help me, I posted it above…
Physics lesson: achieve optimal fit, reap the rewards
It almost makes me sad that in one set of UE Fits’ lifespan, they’ll probably only have to do this transformative warm-up dance once.
It seems a shame when you think of the considerable effort that must have gone into pushing those powerful heating elements inside the driver enclosures! I’m almost tempted to order more tips (which is possible and probably offered in case you messed up the first time) for $30. While I’m deciding if I want to buy these just to do the test again for fun, I should note that they are light sensitive, so UE warns you to keep them in their pill pack until you’re ready to go.
Nothing I’ve tried before, not even the best true wireless headphones, boasted this particular feature. I’m honestly amazed more hasn’t been done.
As any audiophile will tell you, if you let them, it’s only when a decent seal is achieved between the ear tip and ear canal that the sonic talent of any in-ear headphone or monitor can truly shine. And that’s what’s happening here. Now Fontaines DC’s Bloomsday it sounds especially angry, dark, brooding and downright dissonant and jagged. It’s a lesson in physics: get fit, reap the rewards.
This isn’t a full review of the UE Fits (that would take time), but other features worth noting are a single dynamic 10mm driver in each earcup, up to eight hours of continuous listening on a single charge, and “over 20 hours of playback ” using extra juice out of the box. You can play/pause music and answer calls directly from the headset, and you can customize the headset’s control buttons using the UE FITS app to activate your voice assistant, skip tracks or control the volume.
With strategically placed dual microphones, UE tells me the headphones are designed to reduce wind noise and improve call clarity in any situation.
What I know so far is that they fit so i never have to fiddle with them during use which is unheard of. Okay, I’ll say it: I’m shocked at how oddly small and kind of squashed my right custom tip looks compared to the nice oval left one. That’s not a complaint though; I love how they fit It’s just… I never knew how weird my right ear looked on the inside.
Anyway, no one can see this once it’s in my ear, right? Then it’s best to put them back…
https://www.techradar.com/news/i-tried-ues-automatic-heat-to-fit-earbuds-and-theyre-a-revelation/