Special thanks to the owner of the Perth branch of Addicted To Audio, Dan, for allowing us to audition and take photos of Ultimate Ear's UE 11 Pro in their beautiful showroom. We appreciate the staff's kindness in assisting us.
Overview
The availability of UE's line-up (excluding UE 5 Pro & UE 6 Pro) for purchase as a UIEM on DROP sparked my interest in UE. I would have loved to do a 2-part series breaking down and comparing the 5 IEMs that were made available on DROP. Unfortunately, my dealer only had the UE 11 Pro (4BA) and UE 18+ Pro (6BA) available for audition. I will cover the UE 11 Pro in this post and UE 18+ Pro in the near future.
I auditioned the UE 11 Pro with my Sony ZX300 and Samsung S9 for an hour. Each 【X】 denotes a reference for some test tracks used to come to my conclusions.
Sound Impressions
The UE 11 Pro has an excellent sub-bass extension which is blatantly audible due to its massive boost in the region 【1】. Picking up and amplifying any low end frequency in the mix, the pseudo sub-bass rumble from the dual BA woofers produces a constant hum in songs which don't have a well-defined bass presence 【2】.
In addition, the punchy mid-bass was a tad boomy 【3】. Depending on your taste, some may find the bass presence intrusive. After all, this IEM is geared towards bass-heads and musicians who need a clear-cut low end presence brought forth for monitoring.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the bass was not overbearing despite its presentation discussed above. This is because the 3-way crossover was well implemented; the lows are distinctly separate from the midrange involving female and higher male vocals 【4】.
On that note, my favourite aspect of the UE 11 Pro is its nearly spot-on midrange tonal quality with regard to vocals 【2,4,5】. To my ears, the fullness in the mids blends well with the UE 11 Pro's gentle upper midrange to make vocals sound almost organic. But, it falls short (for me) since the boosted low end lends a little more warmth than I'd like to the mids.
This well complements the UE 11 Pro's highly intimate presentation, positioning these vocals up close to the listener.
However, the UE 11 Pro has its limitations when it comes to deeper male vocals 【6】. They aren't as well separated from the bass section and tend to sound a little puffy.
Being a bass monitor, the treble primarily bolsters the mix with some top-end sparkle to partially balance out the lows, preventing the UE 11 Pro from sounding overly dark 【2】.
It doesn't do much more than this as its resolving ability was not particularly impressive, especially with cymbals and hi-hats 【7】. It takes effort when attempting to monitor articulation of treble percussion, when I'd rather get lost in its sweet vocals and thunderous bass.
This isn't necessarily a bad feature since the UE 11 Pro is marketed for its bass, which it clearly excels in with the likes of the IDM genre 【8】. It depends on what the user prioritises in their sound at the end of the day.
Conclusion
All in all, the UE 11 Pro can be described as having an L-shaped frequency response (V-shaped but with a much larger emphasis on the bass). Although its bass can come across as loose with the Rock genre 【2】, it sits incredibly well with vocal-centric Indie and Future Bass Pop, where the mix fundamentally emphasises vocals over a bass beat/slam 【5, 9】.
I am excited to hear what UE has to offer with their higher end UE 18+ Pro (4 proprietary BA + 2 Truetone BA = 6 BA). More specifically, I am interested to hear if the UE 18+ Pro takes resolution up a notch over the UE 11 Pro.
I hope you've enjoyed my short impressions of the UE 11 Pro! Join the discussion on our dedicated Reddit post and stay up to date with our latest reviews and impressions on Facebook and Instagram :)
Test tracks for reference: Artiste 1 – Song 1, Song 2. Artiste 2 – Song 1…
Falling in Reverse - Popular Monster. Joe Hisaishi - My Neighbour Totoro (Dream Songs).
MY FIRST STORY - Missing You, Fukagyaku Replace, Shissou FLAME.
The Midnight - Sunset, Los Angeles.
Aimer - Marie, SUN DANCE. ONE OK ROCK - Stand Out Fit In.
The XX - Angels. Josie Dunne - Stay The Way I Left You, Same. Valley - Park Bench, Namedropper.
Of Monsters And Men - Stuck In Gravity. Andrew Lloyd Weber - Til' I Hear You Sing.
Royal Blood - Out Of The Black, Figure It Out.
The Glitch Mob - Come Closer, We Can Make The World Stop, Carry The Sun.
Gryffin - Bye Bye, Nobody Compares To You. Billie Eilish - bad guy.