Just Listen to Video and Music

Video

A much more normal workload for me is watching movies, streams, and videos. This is where overall comfort is most important, since I’m wearing headphones for 4 or 5 hours at a stretch.
 

  
Thankfully, the Immersa Pro are very comfortable. All that foam padding adds up to decent comfort, though after an hour or two, my ears get a little damp. Headclamp force is on the high side, and there are some plastic ticking noises and cable rustle that happen when you move your head around.

The cable rustle is the most noticeable noise, and the most annoying, especially when neither of my reference headphones have cable rustle.

Listening

So, I was hanging some pictures in my room and I needed to get some hooks. If you are renting a house like I am, you can’t just drill into the walls. You must use crown molding hooks. Yes, life tips and hardware reviews, that’s what we do here at guru3d.com. Off to the hardware store. On the way back, I stop at the corner liquor store, you know, for some liquid inspiration. I grab some good beer and line up at the checkout. Over the speakers was playing Michael Jackson’s Human Nature. I haven’t listened to Thriller in years! I used to own the vinyl version of Thriller, my hipster cred, the one with the inside spread of MJ with a baby tiger, of which Human Nature is the second to last track on Side-B.

So, we start our listening session with Thriller. I have three headphones lined up, the AKG K7XX, Asus Orion Pro, and the Immersa Pro. The AKG K7XX are driven by an external Audio-gd Sparrow A DAC. It’s quite unfair to compare the Cougar Immersa Pro against a pair of high-end headphones, but I’m actually shocked at how good the Immersa Pro sounds. It sounds a lot like the AKG K7XX, more than I’d like to admit. First is the bass. The Immersa Pro has a ton of bass, which can be unleashed or tamed in the UIX equalizer settings. You can further customize the sound with the UIX equalizer, but I left every setting to off or neutral. On Billie Jean, I could see Michael in the studio listening to the kick drum, at how persistent and menacing it is, and that is how it should be. The Immersa Pro delivered a very satisfying, if a bit too much, bass line.

Since I’m in MJ-Mode, I turn to Dirty Diana, from Bad. The opening bass can shake your walls, but there’s a lot more going on here. It gets the midrange right. You know, Michael has a delicate voice, a lot like Prince, and the Immersa Pro did a damn good job. On PYT, for example, a more aggressive vocal style, the Immersa Pro sounded very balanced, and better than the Asus Orion Pro that I’ve used for gaming since forever. Punch. The Immersa Pro has really good dynamic punch. It’s not Grado levels, but it’s very good. Many songs I found myself air drumming and jerking around doing my famous interpretive dance moves. I’m sure you’d like to see that in a video review. 

The down sides. The Immersa Pro has an immediate sound, it’s coming from inside your head, and not a lot of space. The AKG 7XX, for example, has a massive, expansive, soundstage that enables you to reach out with your arm and pluck an instrument out of the space in front of you. The Immersa Pro, in contrast, sound mostly in your head and a bit narrow. Second weak spot is the treble. While it did resolve the bells in Human Nature, the cymbals, and sibilance were not as strong and clear as the AKG K7XX. The Immersa Pro does a better job than the Asus Orion Pro, but not nearly as good as the AKG.

Bass is not always bass. Frequency response is one measurement that can be misleading. Just about any smartphone, headphone, earphone, Lego set, boasts a 20Hz-20KHz frequency range. What’s misleading is that bass, especially deep bass, like in Dumb Girl by Run-DMC, needs to be felt in the body, and takes something a little bit special for headphones to pull off. The Immersa Pro provide a lot of bass, but it’s not especially clean bass. It’s not very deep either. The AKG 7XX, my current reference, have a low bass that can sometimes shake down your spine. It’s very subtle, and very clean, but it’s there. The Immersa Pro is not quite so clean, preferring to deliver the punch, but not the substance. It’s not bad, really, just a different way to tune a headphone.

What you get with the Immersa Pro are surprisingly good sounding headphones, that has a microphone, and RGB LEDs. They offer good detail in the midrange, a little soft in the treble, and a solid, punchy bass. I think for the price, the Immersa Pro are hard to beat.