Ultrasone Meteor One

To look at, the handy, foldable design of the Ultrasone Meteor One has a definite resemblance to the Ultrasone Isar, although this gaming headset is a little lighter at 240 grams. Both the comfortable, tight rather than loose fit and the high level of shielding from the outside world appear almost identical in both closed over-ear systems. What differs, apart from the design of the ear cup surfaces, is the ear padding. However, with a width of 37 mm and a height of 62 mm, the interior of this model does not offer significant advantages in terms of space, so there might be problems if you have larger ears. In view of the lightweight, portable design, it is evident that the Ultrasone Meteor One is not a standard gaming headset for stationary use. The design and construction of these wireless over-ears are obviously meant for mobile everyday use, especially as the dust and water-resistant finish according to IP54 protects the system when outdoors. Like the larger model, these headphones arrive folded in a space-saving hard-shell case.

Battery life

In terms of power, the Ultrasone Meteor One offers a respectable runtime of a good 53 hours at a higher volume level. However, if the RGB illumination on the ear cups and the latency-reduced gaming mode is permanently active, the usage time is reduced to 25 hours. A complete charging process via the USB-C connection takes just over two hours. A USB-C to USB-A charging cable with a generous length of 80 centimetres is included. Also, wired use of the headphones is possible as an alternative to Bluetooth operation, although a 3.5 mm audio input is not available as standard. The solution is a second USB-C boom microphone with a mini-jack cable that is intended for connection to games consoles and measures 120 centimetres. In this respect, cable operation is tied to the gaming microphone, which, in addition to the lack of volume control and microphone mute function, might be perceived as a drawback.

Operation

The Ultrasone Meteor One supports Bluetooth standard 5.0 and offered a long range of 13 metres within an urban environment, which proved stable even through several rooms. However, in low-latency mode which bridged a distance of twelve metres, isolated dropouts occurred. Pairing the Ultrasone Meteor One can be done by holding down the power button on the left side; this switches the system on and puts it into pairing mode. A double press activates or deactivates the RGB lighting, while each additional press switches between the available modes. These include static variants in green, blue, red and violet as well as three light effects with alternating colour effects.

If a wireless connection is established, a 3-button remote on the right ear cup is used to control the unit. The middle button controls playback and enables you to answer and end phone calls while pressing it twice calls up a voice assistant. The plus and minus buttons can also be used to control the volume and to select a track by pressing and holding the plus button briefly to skip forward and the minus button to skip back. Pressing the two buttons on the outside at the same time switches the gaming mode on and off again.

Speech quality of the microphones

For everyday use, the Ultrasone Meteor One has four integrated microphones, which ensure good speech intelligibility, even if your own voice is perceived as a little muffled when talking on the phone. Ambient noise is at least slightly attenuated. If the flexible USB-C boom microphone is used wirelessly or the wired USB-C microphone version with pop protection is used in passive mode, the speech quality increases even more. Both gaming microphones transmit the user’s voice very clearly, while background noise is reduced more effectively. Although particularly loud sources of interference can limit intelligibility, this was not the case in a busier setting. The other side of the conversation was also perfectly intelligible with all three options.

Gaming mode

In terms of audio codecs, the Ultrasone Meteor One supports the higher-quality AAC format in addition to Bluetooth standard SBC, but low-latency variants such as aptX LL or aptX Adaptive are not available. Instead, the low-latency mode is supposed to ensure that there is no noticeable offset between picture and sound when playing computer games or watching films. When using the SBC codec, the synchronicity of games, films or series is also significantly improved. However, the following should be noted: In order to benefit from the latency optimisation, the headphones must be re-paired as soon as the gaming mode is switched on. This is not unusual in itself, but with their competitors, the disconnection and reconnection are automatic, so that in the best case, you don’t even notice it. The low-latency mode is basically deactivated when these over-ears are switched off, which is particularly inconvenient. If you want to use the gaming mode, you have to switch on and pair the headphones every time, activate the low-latency mode, disconnect them and reconnect them until they are ready for use.

Sound

As with the Isar, the Ultrasone Meteor One uses a special driver arrangement, the manufacturer’s proprietary S-Logic technology. The aim is to enable realistic spatial perception via headphones by involving the entire ear in the listening process. In direct comparison, however, the Meteor One seemed much more direct, impulsive and crisply tuned.

The powerful, rich bass response of these headphones makes watching action-packed movies and playing games, as well as listening to music, a lot of fun. The entire low-frequency range sounds extremely powerful and defined. While the upper bass range has a dry punch with bite, there is substance in the low bass, which doesn’t come across as too powerful.

A characteristic of the Ultrasone Meteor One is a present midrange that has a subtle, charming basic warmth and a full-bodied reproduction of voices. At the same time, the reproduction of voices has high intelligibility, which benefits vocals as well as spoken content, so these over-ears can also be recommended for listening to audiobooks and podcasts. The reproduction of high frequencies starts off lively, with verve, setting accents without becoming too boisterous. Although the energy flattens out a little in the upper registers, the tuning seems coherent and performs excellently as an all-rounder. This is also true at moderate playback levels, although these headphones can also be turned up loud if necessary, as there they have a high output.