3. Sound Quality

Nitpicks about omissions aside for the moment, looking at the Ozma 7 from a purely audiophile point of view paints a far more pleasant picture.

Due to the physical characteristics mentioned earlier, the Ozma 7 deals with outside noise cancellation in a very effective manner - they simply clamp down on your ears, which isolates you from the outside world. This clamping is not in a painful sense, mind you, but there is a definite "noise vacuum" around your head when you put the Ozma 7 headphones on.

Even without any music playing, most outside noises are at least dampened. For example, the constant whir of drives and fans from computers in our often loud office is reduced to a far more distant and respectable dull noise. When playing music, watching a DVD or enjoying games, this noise cancellation comes into its own - it doesn't allow outside noises to overtake the output of the headphones.

Aside from this useful noise cancellation feature, the other big advantage with the Ozma 7 is the S-Logic audio system. This system claims to "prevent sound from becoming locked in, instead making it seem broad and detached"; it calls itself "natural surround sound". Certainly, from listening to the Ozma 7 set, we'd certainly believe that this technique is not doing any harm.

Designed primarily for DVDs, the sound quality from the Ozma 7 is a cut above what you'd expect from your average set of headphones in all areas, and for audiophiles it will prove worth the asking price. As Ultrasone promises, sound seems to come more naturally from around the head rather than being fired directly at your ears, though it may take some concentration to notice the subtle differences.

The headphones handle positional sound in videogames very well, and in music and films it has a more natural bass (compared to the "thumping-for-thumping's sake" sound that we've heard out of headphones in the past). It would have been nice to be able to control the bass in the same way that one can with the Speed-Link Tritons, however.

In Conclusion

For audio fanatics, the Ozma 7 might be worth a look. Everyone else, including high-end gamers, will probably miss the microphone a great deal. The lack of a control unit we can live with, but without a microphone the appeal of the Ozma 7 will be limited to a far more select group of listeners.

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