Sennheiser AMBEO® SmartHeadset 4+

I have been wanting a good solution that would give me the ability to make binaural recordings from my iPhone or iPad for a while now. The Ambeo Smart headset has given me this amazing, and I might venture to say underrated, ability. In an earlier review of the Smart Headset app I stated that I would update this review if I received a headset and since I have, here are my findings.

First, I’m happy to say that the app is just about fully accessible to a VoiceOver user. Using VoiceOver, you can set up your Preferences for the Smart Slider and the rocker, and enable or disable voice prompts. You are even able to choose EQ presets for the headset. Unfortunately, the QuickStart guide still does not read with VoiceOver, and there doesn’t seem to be a way for a voiceover user to set a custom EQ curve. Hopefully these issues will be fixed in a future update. Moving away from accessibility, I wish the app made it possible to Force the headset to use a specific microphone. For example, it would be nice if I could use the headset for an app that supports stereo audio for VOIP (such as TeamTalk) but tell the headset to use the telephone microphone so that I’m not constantly transmitting binaural audio to the people I’m talking to. But still, if you’re reading this review and are looking to buy the Ambeo Smart Headset, or you already own one, regardless of your ability to see the screen, I highly recommend you install this app for it onto your iOS devices.

The Ambeo Smart Headset, especially the binaural microphones, definitely lives up to the Sennheiser name. The audio quality and binaural 3D effect is incredible...but with one flaw. There is currently no way to adjust the volume level from the mics, which causes high-volume recordings such as rock bands, marching bands, and loud environmental noises to distort and become unusable. The recording level switch in the Apogee app doesn’t appear to make any difference whatsoever, no matter which recording app I use. I sincerely hope that Sennheiser and Apogee can put their very smart heads together and solve this problem. Otherwise, I fear, the smart headset will become just another novelty.

These things are great for ambient recordings and possibly some acoustic music. They give an awesome realistic 3D environment. However that is not the reason I purchased them. I deal with live music as a profession and I wanted a fast easy way to capture concert clips on my phone for social media etc. the problem is that at any modern concert I have tried them at. From Elton John, Pink, Chvrches etc they have been a miserable failure. They have a setting for louder environments but that is not enough of a pad to keep the mics from severely overloading to unlistenable levels. I don’t know if sennheiser can create a software update to reduce the gain structure further but my fear is its the mic capsules being overloaded themselves. They are not for recording live modern music. And they should not be marketed as such until they figure out how to keep the massive distortion out of the signal chain. And yes the levels in the iPhone recorder were not clipping. It’s all straight from the headset.