Ultimate Ears In-Ear TripleFi 10vi Monitors Reviewed

User and Reviewer Experience

With these headphones we had decided that we would take as broad of an approach as possible listening to these headphones on a broad array of devices ranging from a cell-phone, which this model would most likely be bought for, all the way to a home theater amplifier.

When it came to putting the monitors on, the process was very unique and was nothing like any other headphones we had used before. Not to mention, I personally have despised in-ear headphones because they never fit in my ears… so naturally I was skeptical that they would fit me properly and stay on. The mechanism that UE employs effectively is by having a semi-rigid part of the wire towards the end where the actual monitors are that enables you to wrap the cable around your ear to hold the actual speaker in place.

Below is a great video UE did in regards to fitting the monitors correctly.

After getting them to fit right, we proceeded to test the headphones in our Nokia N900 phone. Upon plugging them in, we noticed a painfully loud interference at which point we remembered that Nokia’s headphone jack is not compliant with the Apple iPhone/iPod standard. Because of this, in order to use this pair of headphones in our phone we had to give up the microphone functionality and use the extension cable which immediately fixed the issue as there are only 2 contact points on it as opposed to 3. We then proceeded to test this in multiple branded phones ranging from HTC to Motorola without any of these sorts of issues. So we can simply say that the issue appears to be isolated to the N900 and likely other Nokia devices.

Furthermore, we also asked the opinion of others who are musicians, audio producers, and the like. The majority of them instantaneously noticed the difference between the UE TripleFi 10vi’s versus standard audiophile headphones like the HD 555 and Beats by Dre among others. Most people upon listening to a full song with these monitors immediately had a change expression. Many people tended to get extremely excited about how good their favorite songs sounded and at times refused to return them back. Simply put, these monitors stand out significantly to the point where they make poorly recorded music sound bad. For example, many Beatles records that were recorded in mono are noticeably degraded in quality when compared to their studio mastered and re-mastered counterparts. This phenomenon is especially noticeable in genres such as techno and trance where there is very little to no distortion due to recording. As such, we found that these monitors allowed us to experience music in a much different way than we had in the past. We began to be able to break down Rap and R&B beats of various artists very easily to the point where every minuscule instrument and sound was easily recognizable. Most notably, we and everyone we spoke with simply began to hear things in songs that we hadn’t heard before. This always seems to happen whenever we go up a grade in quality of audio equipment. Having upgraded from Sony and Razer headphones, these monitors sound great for personal listening or critiquing certain songs.

When it came to isolation, the UE TripleFi 10vi’s did a great job of blocking out most ambient noises and as the volume went up there was a point where the entire ambient environment disappeared completely. As for leakage, there is almost none. These monitors are designed for the listener and only the listener to hear them and one would literally have to take them off completely and point them in the direction of the nearest person for them to have even a remote chance of hearing whatever may be playing.