Logitech UE 4000 review

The Ultimate Ears brand is still most often associated with high-end and professional in-ear monitor style earphones, but the latest UE 4000 on-ear headphones are firmly targeted at consumers. They have a microphone, volume controls and a three-ring 3.5mm headset connector, which allows you to use the mic with most mobile phones. You can also plug them into a standard 3.5mm stereo headphone port if you want to use them with a PC or MP3 player. The headphones come with a soft carrying case, but unlike many headphones designed primarily for phone users they don’t fold up for convenient carrying.

The UE 4000s look pretty smart, particularly in the black and white colour scheme of our test unit. The cups are closed, but have a broader and more natural sound than we’ve come to expect from headphones of this type. The UE 4000s’ light but securely fitting design is fantastically comfortable. We could happily wear them all day despite their on-ear cups, which are much cooler to wear than most similar designs. They also block out a surprising amount of background noise and don’t leak to any significant degree, making them a great choice for muting the sound of a busy office or train carriage.

The headphones sound reasonably good. None of our music was unpleasant to listen to and there’s no massive overemphasis of either bass or treble. However, we expected better of a pair of £80 headphones. There’s plenty of detail at higher frequencies and fairly natural, if not very detailed bass. This lack of detail extends to the lower mid-tones, which leads to guitar-based indie and punk in particular losing some of the punch we’d usually expect from their guitar and bass sections.

If the UE 4000 headphones were cheaper, we’d be happy to recommend them, but even though they’re among the most comfortable on-ear headphones we’ve reviewed, their sound quality isn’t quite good enough to justify their relatively high price. If you don’t need the headset features and are looking for similarly priced cans then the Sennheiser PX 210 BT headphones support both wired and wireless connections, are very comfortable and fold away neatly.