There’s no denying that I’ve been of fan of SOL Republic since the original Tracks headphones and up until the Tracks Ultra. So when the company announced a few months ago that it had finally decided to manufacture headphones that would go over the ear, instead of the usual on-ear design, I knew I had to test them out.
Typically when I take a pair of headphones through it paces, I use a select handful of tracks from various genres so that my tests are always equal. The first thing I noticed with a set of hip hop songs, was that the Master Tracks seemed to tone down the heavy bass that I had been used to hearing from the other SOL Republic headphones. At first, it somewhat bothered me if only because I enjoy bassy music, but as I switched around to dance, pop, classical and rock music, I began to appreciate the fact that the Master Tracks actually had better balanced audio reproduction than the previous headphones. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a nice amount of bass there, as I found with Flo Rida’s “Wild Ones” and Souls of Mischief’s “93 Til Infinity” but the larger sense of space allowed the high, mid and low frequencies to be a little more equal.
I also threw on Kaskade’s 4AM (Adam K & Soha Mix), which thumps pretty hard, and again, though there was plenty of bass, it wasn’t quite as punchy as other headphones I’ve tried, and made for a more clubbish type of sound. I then decided to check out a few sample tracks from AC/DC, Motley Crue and even Chuck Berry, which highlighted the Master Tracks’ ability to separate instruments nicely, as the various sounds surrounded me, giving me the impression of being right in the middle of each performance.
Now onto the design, I immediately fell in love with how SOL Republic designed these headphones, specifically with the tuxedo color scheme that I tested out. As with other headphones in their line-up, the package included a polymer headband that is nearly indestructible, with a thick pad that lies on top of your head. The earpieces were also much larger than with other models and they were amply padded, providing a superior level of comfort, even for extended periods of use. The package also included a removable headphone cable that includes controls for volume and for answering phone calls. As we’ve seen with other SOL Republic headphones, the design is kept simple but also classy and the X3 sound engines, as previously mentioned, roared.
With each new headphone line, SOL Republic keeps one-upping themselves and this well-rounded headset is easily my favorite of the bunch. It’s without question the most comfortable headset I’ve ever worn and the nicely balanced audio is more than worth the $200 price tag.
Final Score: 5 out of 5
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/review-sol-republic-master-tracks?cid=roadrunner