Unique Melody Mason V3+ Review

Breakdown

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In contrary to a normal review I will use the same breakdown as I always do for my Custom Inear reviews:

1. Build quality & Comfort
2. Personalization
3. Cable
4. Price & Accessories
5. Customer Service
6. Sound
7. Competitors/Comparisons
8. Driveability & Sources

1. Build quality & Comfort

I didn’t ship any impressions to China as they still had the ones from the Mason V3, and as that CIEM has a perfect fit, they used those impressions.

The UM Mason V3+ monitor has a short canal with 5 tubes. As UM can’t make the canal any bigger than your ear and impressions are, it does mean those 5 bores and metal finished tubes are very tiny. There is no filter and the end of the bores either and so you have to pay attention with wax build-up. I really do advise to very regularly clean the bores as they easily seem to clog up.

Build quality-wise these are very nice and the Dreamweaver technology with the carbon fiber surely seems very qualitative. The shells look beautiful and the face plate closing is perfect. This time round there were no customization options, so you really see the gorgeous carbon Dreamweaver shell design. The whole monitor just breaths high end quality.

Unique Melody Mason V3+

Because of the special double cable the monitor looks a bit weird compared to what you’re used to, but it grows on you quickly. The big advantage is that the cable socket is always perfectly finished and invisible as it is a screw-on design. Comfort-wise these aren’t the smallest monitors of course, but they are very comfy and fit perfectly. With the original V3, the only thing I had to get used to a little was the metal finishing at the end of the bore/canal, as it felt a bit sharper compared to the typical, classic design. But this in the V3+ is a non-existent issue. Comfort is perfect.

2. Personalization

Unique Melody made it clear from the start that for this unit no personalization options would be available. The goal: showing off the new carbon Dreamweaver shells. That’s perfectly fine for me and I actually thin this set looks beautiful, but at the same time it was a bit disappointing as they did such a great job with the V3 Groot design.

The Mason V3+’s face plate and shell have a black finish and you can nicely see the Dreamweaver tech with the carbon interwoven in the shell. I hope it shows on the pictures but it’s really beautiful. The face plates have the UM and Mason V3+ logos in silver on them and there are some silver accents all over the shell and face plates of the monitor.

On the bottom of the face plate the DB-GO bass enhancement module is perfectly integrated and with the silver colored screw, it perfectly fits in and doesn’t mess with the design.

The Mason V3+ looks unique, stylish and most of all, stunning.

Unique Melody Mason V3+

3. Cable

New this time is that you can get the Mason V3+ with an upgraded cable, called the Phanes. This cable was built by Effect Audio, one of our favorite aftermarket cable brands.

The Phanes is an 8-core UPOCC silver plated palladium and gold palladium alloy combo cable. Its length is 1.2m and it’s selling for $2,100 USD if you buy it separately from the V3+.

The stock cable of course also is a Dual Tone one and it is pretty and has a top level build quality. The connectors are really nice, as well as the heat shrink memory part that goes over your ears. This part in the original V3 was a bit annoying as it was with a metal wire and it was way too long. The aluminium y-splitter has a nice V3+ “logo” on it. The braiding is nice and tight, the screw-on connectors are sturdy and the aluminium 2.5mm balanced plug has a fancy design.

UM uses a double cable in a 4-pin configuration for the Mason V3+. One cable is 6N 8-core single crystal copper and the other is 6N 8-core silver one. In order to listen to the different cable you simply switch the left cable to the right monitor and vice versa. With the original cable the difficulty was that the cables weren’t clearly marked silver or copper and you had to look (feel) for two little bumps on the side and a single bump on the other side. (The dual bump on the left was copper and on the right side it was the silver cable).

The new cable has a clear V3+ or UM logo on the connectors. V3+ on the left is the copper cable, UM on the left is the silver cable. The difference in sound of course is noticeable and I always find myself listening to the copper cable, as it to me sounds best.

Like with the JH monitors – which use a comparable type of cable – it will be very tough to find a replacement aftermarket cable for the Mason V3+.

Unique Melody Mason V3+

4. Price & Accessories

A 16 BA-driver high-end monitor doesn’t come cheap and the price starts at $3,199 USD, making it $500 USD more expensive compared to the previous model. With the upgrade cable the Mason V3+ will set you back $4,099 USD.

The Mason V3+ comes in a nice box and inside of that box you’ll find a beautiful chrome titanium storage case with a screw-on lid (Mason V3 had a titanium storage case). It’s gorgeous, yet difficult to close/open. The inside of the chrome box is finished with a soft fabric so your monitors will be optimally protected. The titanium box isn’t the biggest however and getting your monitors and the cable to fit inside is quite the challenge. It’s doable but master level Rubik-skills are welcome. If I understood well this case is no longer being supplied and so you’ll probably get UM’s suede leather soft case instead.

Unfortunately something went wrong with the contents of my box (UM Confirmed) and the Mason V3+ came delivered with 4 bags of silicone and foam tips, a cleaning cloth, an awesome cable tie and two clean and pretty looking cable converters (2.5mm to 3.5mm and 2.5mm to 4.4mm)

Usually you the inside of the box also find the plastic warranty card with serial number, which also is a 15GB USB memory stick, but it wasn’t there in my box.

So for the price you get some really nice accessories, simple but top quality.

Unique Melody Mason V3+

5. Customer Service

This time the Mason V3+ sample was sent directly by Unique Melody and MusicTeck only set up the V3+ review. But the support by LiHeng was really good, and I can’t really complain about anything. That being said, I didn’t follow the regular procedure, so it’s hard to comment on the customer service for this one.

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