I can remember being a young guitar player flipping through the pages of my favorite guitar magazines. Among the articles I liked best were interviews with players and recording engineers. Invariably, the articles featured pictures of these individuals in some kind of recording studio. One thing that I always seemed to notice in these photographs was the presence of a set of headphones close at hand. At the time, I didn’t realize the importance of headphones, but over the years, I have come to realize just how valuable great headphones are for studio work.

Professional headphones (or “cans” as most studio professionals refer to them) have been used in recording studios forever. They are utilized for tracking, mixing, mastering, as well as for personal monitoring. In some cases, these high end headphones carry a hefty price tag that can go into the thousand of dollars, and like a guitar player with a loyalty to their favorite axe, most audio engineers will take their headphones with them when working away from their home base.

In 1991, a new company entered the headphone market with some of the most significant advancements in headphone technology to date. Their ideas and design concepts would turn the industry on its ear (so to speak) and their products would quickly become an industry standard for professional recording engineers and musicians around the world. For this review we will be looking at two models in the “PRO” series by Ultrasone in their “PRO 550” and “PRO 750” models.