Headphone Reviews

Measurements

Raw frequency response plots show the Sennheiser Urbanite has a seal that's reasonably easy to achieve and delivering reliable bass response. Raw plots also show the desired hump centered at around 3.5kHz is basically missing, which produces there marked drop off after 2kHz in the compensated plots. Response above 10kHz is about right.

Compensated plots do much to reveal a pretty obvious lack of energy above 2kHz. Response below 2kHz is excellent.

30Hz square wave displays very good shape and a strong and linear waveform top. This coupled with the very low distortion in the bass seen in the THD+noise plot indicate the excellent bass responce heard in listening.

300Hz response shows the leading edge to be a bit slow and lacks enough overshoot to sound lively and quick. Some noise can be seen subsequent to the initial transient, which can also be seen in the impulse response, but the level of this noise is fairly modest. I heard the treble as low in level but fairly well articulated.

THD+noise plot shows a very low distortion headphone with outstanding power handling capabilities, which can be seen by the significant displacement between 90dB and 100dB curves. This is a headphone that will play loud and clean.

Sennheiser's impedance spec is 18 Ohms, but I measure about 22 Ohms which can be seen in the impedance plot. Impedance and phase plots show very little in the way of spurious noise. This indicates the acoustics around the driver are very nicely designed indeed.

Isolation with the Urbanite is simply outstanding at -22dB broadband. This is one of the best on-ear headphones I've measured in this regard.

With only 18mVrms needed to achieve 90dB at the ear, the Urbanite is very efficient and will easily be driven to loud levels with portable devices. Very good isolation makes this a good choice for the moderately loud environments metro dwellers experience. Please be careful to remain aware of your surroundings when wearing headphones in high traffic areas.