Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Let down by poor ergonomics, 28 Jul 2008
The Good:
They sound amazing for the price. The bass is deep, but controlled, and the mid and highs are clear and precise. I've owned several other low to mid-level canal phones/IEMs but these are probably the best sounding buds I've found in the sub £100 price range.
They are also very stylish to look at.
The Bad:
The cable is a complete and utter pain.
It's rubbery and bouncy, so fairly resilient, but this causes a lot of iritating cable microphonics. If you're sitting still while you use them, they sound great, but if you're wearing them while walking you'll end up with monotonous loud thumping and scraping passing through the wires into your inner ear.
This isn't a problem unique to these particular buds, but it's one of the worst examples I've come across, and it's made worse by some of the ergonomic design decisions that Sennheiser have taken.
The main cable is far too short, so most people will have to use the cable extension. The extension cable makes the overall cable far too long, and the connector is far too bulky and heavy, so it swings around as you move and sends a riot of noise into your ears.
The usual way around any cable microphonics is to loop the cable over the top of your ears before inserting. However, the problem with this method is that the earbuds have been ergonomically designed to be placed in the ears with the cable pointing down. You can either wrap them over your ears, with the wires bending back abruptly on themselves or wear them upside down and the wrong way around (i.e. the left bud goes in your right ear and vice-versa).
This removes some, though not all, of the cable microphonics but you then end up with the rest of the cable slightly too tight under your chin for complete comfort, and it's annoying that the earphones end up the wrong way around.
Conclusion:
I'd really love to be able to recommend these earphones to everybody, but I can't. The best I can say about them is that they sound fantastic as long as you keep still, but seeing as they are most likely going to be used with "portable" players that's unikely.
If you're going to use them while on the move you might end up tearing your hair out trying to work out ways of making the cables quiet and comfortable.
I'm now looking for an alternative, but I can't help thinking that although I might find something that has less cable microphonics, I'm unlikely to find anything in a similar price range that offers the same audio depth and clarity, which is a major shame.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good product worth considering, 14 Jul 2008
These are a very good set of headphones for those who are prepared to spend a little bit of money, probably at the high end of what the average person would be prepared to pay, and at the low end of what a serious audio enthusiast would be expecting, which makes for an excellent compromise.
My first impressions of these is that they are very nice sounding and hopefully this will improve as they break in. Comfortable and very good at blocking out the noise. As others have commented the cable can cause some interference if not restrained, I have used a small bulldog clip as a shirt clip and this has worked fine and removed all interference and distortion from cable flap.
These have offered an immediate improvement in the sound quality to the extent where they are nearly on a par with good quality traditional speakers. What has particularly impressive is how these are able to show up a poor recording. All the minor distortions from cheap recordings or low quality audio rips are audible and therefore it is important to make sure that music is ripped at the highest possible bitrate - it is worth the extra disk space!
Overall I am giving these 5stars as they are comfortable, the sound is very impressive and for a set of audio headphones the price is excellent. Don't be put off by the minor problems that can be caused if the cable flaps, pinning it in place with a small clip (sadly not provided) fixes this instantly.
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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy these, they are faultless., 25 Feb 2008
I have five or six pairs of Sennheiser phones for different uses. I bought these for my iPod and they are faultless. They are by far the most comfortable earphones I have owned, they fit perfectly and I can leave the equaliser on flat as the sound if perfect.
They are a major improvement on the Sennheiser CX300s I was using before and far better than the Etymotic ER6is which, though fine in many ways, are much less comfortable and have no real bass when used with an iPod.
Don't look any further, buy these - you wont use the fancy case though as it is rubbish.
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