Ultrasone HFI-15G

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Ultrasone claims that its HFI-15G headphones employ a breakthrough technology that convincingly simulates surround sound without using digital signal processing. As the story goes, the HFI-15G's angled 1.57-inch drivers reflect sound around inside your ear, leveraging your anatomy to create the perception that you're in the middle of the action. Unfortunately, the HFI-15G ($100 list) set is relatively pricey, and--surprise, surprise--doesn't quite live up to the marketing hype.

The HFI-15G has an all-black design with the exception of some highly visible yellow branding copy and a couple of gold accents. Although small enough for portable applications, the HFI-15G lacks a folding headband and couldn't play very loud with our portable MP3 player. When we first tried on the HFI-15G, the lightweight 'phones seemed quite comfortable, but after about 20 minutes, the terry cloth-like earpiece covers began to make us itch, and the humidity level around our ears got pretty high.

Ultrasone deserves credit for the single-sided, long, 9.3-foot cord, which makes for easy connections around back of a desktop computer. The 'phones have a gold-plated miniplug, but Ultrasone supplies a 1/8-to-1/4-inch adapter to accommodate connections with home audio gear, such as an A/V receiver.

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