Often when boutique hi-fi brands make a more mainstream product – like bluetooth headphones or TWS earphones – they end up delivering a product that’s somewhat of a mixed bag.

UX3000 | final

A voice in English tells you when the headphones power on, connect, disconnect, enable or disable ANC, and power off; a funny fact is that the accent sounds to me like a posh Italian person trying to speak English – it’s so weird! But if you are after a set of headphones that can transport you in a different way and truly manage to lose you in your music (without noise-cancelling, we fully accept), there are cheaper and better options out there. Although this doesn’t have any functional impact, it doesn’t feel great and the plastic does creak a bit if you squeeze it. Where they’re not made of plastic, the UX3000 are built from nicely pliant, memory foam-filled pleather at the contact points. Although many headphones now feature touch controls, I personally prefer this type of physical interaction on full-size headphones as it gives you clear physical feedback as well as a lower rate of accidental actions.There is a constant high-pitched hiss when the headphones are on; it is subtle, but clearly audible. The additional layers of things like strings, sitar, and light percussion are nicely layered, with good separation. The Edifier W820NB (review here) is clearly similar in shape to the final and both provide a comfortable fit. The highs are slightly recessed compared to the Focal Listen Wireless resulting in a slight loss of detail in comparison.

final UX3000 review: not quite the best UX - Soundphile Review final UX3000 review: not quite the best UX - Soundphile Review

In this final UX3000 review, I’m looking at the brand’s first foray into wireless full-size headphones. Please note you need to turn the ANC off when finished using the headphones otherwise it will drain the battery. You have to disable ANC and then you can actually power off the headphones, which is extremely inconvenient and a rather poor design choice. This is enough to almost completely remove the rumble of a bus or of a subway train so that you can enjoy your music without resorting to a raise in volume.The controls are very intuitive and easy to use: the power on/off button also doubles as play/pause, the two volume buttons do exactly what the label says and the ANC button actually requires you to long-press it to activate its feature, but is otherwise clear in its function. With its clear and accurate details together with rich and vast soundstage, UX3000 achieved good noise-cancelling performance and exceptional sound quality even for audiophiles.

Final Audio UX3000 | Audio Emotion Final Audio UX3000 | Audio Emotion

By featuring a completely new driver which is designed to be strong against stress and having its high-frequencies being applied with a slight correction through anequaliser, UX3000 delivers pleasing sound quality without the tiring sound characteristic typical for Bluetooth audio products. The headphones are foldable and the earcups rotate 90 degrees so they have good portability and don’t take up much space in a bag.I have tested these with a wide range of tracks and you get a good amount of breathability in regards to separation. UX3000 comes equipped with sensors not just on the outside of the earcups, but on the inside as well. The AKG N700NC M2 also supports Samsungs Scalable Audio Codec but this is only applicable to Samsung phones.