The Package

The headphones came in this big box. Inside, the headphones lay very well protected so the postal services definitely have to go out of their way to break these headphones during shipping.


With each set of HFI-680 headphones you get a carrying pouch and a demo CD. Besides that you also get a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter which is actually pretty cool. The outside of the 1/8" jack and the inside of the 1/4" adapter are threaded so you actually screw it on rather than using a push connection.

Closer Examination

The first thing I noticed while pulling these headphones out of the box was the build quality. They are built like tanks, rock solid compared to my other high end headphones. The design is good and ideally suited for use on the move, unlike the rest of my high end cans which are only suited for home listening. Both the build quality and design makes the Ultrasone HFI-680s much more versatile than my other headphones.


Even though the headband is relatively slim it is extremely solid. Made from thick quality plastic it is both flexible and durable, same thing goes for the wishbones that hold the ear cups in place.


On the headband there is a major "Ultrasone" logo that does not add anything to the looks of the things in my opinion.


All folded up these headphones do not waste much space which is really neat if you need to tug them away in a back pack of some sort. If you want to prevent them from getting scratched you can use the pouch they are supplied with. Folding them only takes about 10 seconds once you got the hang of it. The construction is quite simple and works even when you are in a hurry to put them away.


Both the ear cups and the headband are well padded. Generally speaking the Ultrasone HFI-680s are quite comfortable to wear, but they are born faulty. The headband puts way too much pressure on your head, the clinching force is overwhelming and will annoy the hell out of you if you have a normal sized head. What I did was to extend the size adjusters fully and let the headphones stretch over a box two nights in a row to reduce the pressure. After that procedure the headphones are so much more comfortable to wear. The fact that they put too much pressure on your skull by default is sort of logical, it is better to have them too tight than too loose since you can always expand them a bit, but it is almost impossible to tighten them up once they are loose.


The size adjusters on either side of the headband can expand a lot so that the headphones can accommodate anything from a really small head to a really big one. Tactile feedback is very little and the friction between the adjusters and the head band is just enough to keep you from unintentional altering the size. Even though the resistance in the system is very little you can easily feel if you have moved them one or two notches.


One of the things that shocked me was how heavy duty the plastic is. All the joints and plastic pieces are incredibly though. The HFI-680s are having a single cable entry which means that the cable for the right ear cup is routed through the headband. The cable is passed down to the ear cup through a hole in the pivot ball that allows the ear cup to twist and turn. You can turn the ear cups roughly 90 degrees around the Z-axis, and X-axis which leaves plenty of room to tweak the position of them.


The cable enters the left ear cup in a massive rubber stress relief.


The cable that the HFI-680 uses is less than ideal for portable use because it is long, thick, and stiff / microphonic. The cable is however of a solid quality much like the rest of the headphone. A small but noteworthy detail is the jack and the 1/8" to 1/4" adapter it comes with. The adapter is of the screw on type rather than push on which means the cable functions well both when you are hooking it up to a 1/4" plug at home and when you are using it one the move with a DAP or DAP plus headphone amplifier combination.


The ear cups also feature a variety of different logos and details. They are made of plastic with a metal look-a-like finish.