Sennheiser Eco Ear Canal Headphones - Black

I already owned a pair of these and came to the reviews to see if others' disappointment was similar to my own. Reading no end of reviews I learnt a lot, first I thought that perhaps I'd bought counterfeits or that as others had mentioned the much lauded "bass-driven sound" was a con. Bass was certainly absent on mine. Then I read further about "the fit" and others' experiences experimenting with the different sized rubber cups that come supplied. I played around with mine and low and behold the bass is there, rich deep sound. I know nothing about headphone technology but a millimetre move deeper into your ear releases all of the sound that these things were clearly designed for, bizarre, but a relief to discover the sound quality. On the down side as all humans' ear canals must vary a bit there may be some people who find it impossible to achieve this fit and can't enjoy the full quality of these great earphones. Once I'd achieved the bass sound I wanted I noticed the other common observation, when I move my head the sound of anything brushing the cables is magnified inside your head, if you clear your throat the sound is hard-wired directly into your brain too. The other point that perplexes people is one cable being longer than the other, the instructions with mine clearly indicate that this is to pass the left phone behind your head before inserting. And there is an advantage to this as it clearly does minimize the sound effect of any friction with the cable. My main criticism would be the great importance of achieving the correct fit in order to release the full sound and the poor instructions that come with them in reference to this issue. Perhaps in typical corporate fashion they didn't want to admit to any weakness in the product because they do require some tweaking to get the right fit.

SUMMARY, great sound but you have to get them deeper into your ear, when you achieve this you will also notice that cable friction sound can intrude, however passing the extra long cable behind your head minimizes this.

I have avoided the ear canal type headphones for a long time but after my latest headphones broke I looked around and found that most companies are concentrating on the ear canal types so decided to give them a go.

After being a happy Sennheiser customer for years I decided to go with the CX300's after reading other customer reviews. I made sure that I bought from Amazon's main store rather than the cheap marketplace versions as I have tried some fake CX300's off Ebay and they are awful.

The best tip I could give is to find the best fitting of the three supplied ear pads and to ensure that the headphones are securely in your ears. I went for the medium ones at first but found they were coming out of my ears with the slightest pull on the cable. The larger ones were fine, making the phones stay in my ears and also making sure of no sound escaping. It's important to push the headphones right into your ears as the bass tends to be the thing that suffers when the phones are not pushed in well.

If you are not used to these style of headphones then beware that as they are right in your ears you can hear things that you might not normally hear with headphones If you are walking and listening you can hear every footstep reverberating through your body! Furthermore, if you are eating you can hear every sound from inside your mouth very clearly! It's weird but part and parcel of using these sort of headphones I'm afraid!

Once the headphones are fitted well the sound quality is very rewarding with great bass, excellent bright treble and the biggest bonus for me was hearing midrange sounds of things like guitars and keyboards which is where you truly hear parts of the music you will have never heard before. Some people might say that the sound is bordering on harsh but I think it's exciting and involving.

I have also tried some Sony MDR-EX71SLB headphones that a friend owned, which were great but gave a more warm and subtle sound and that might be more to some people's taste. One way in which the CX300's are better than the Sonys are with regards to the volume levels as the output is much higher. As a result you don't need to pump up your volume control so much and use more battery power.

Lastly the cable length of 1.2 metres is ideal for me after owning Sennheisers with 1.0 metre lengths which is too short

Bottom line - Highly recommended!

I previously owned the black CX300's which broke a few weeks ago after being battered around for the best part of the year. I got stuck using your basic in ear headphones until these arrived, and you really notice the difference. The bog standard headphones felt uncomfortable and sounded pretty bad.

Then these white CX300's arrived, nice and cheap and the sound quality (especially base) is pretty awesome still. But the main thing is the cable, the white ones have a kinda rubberised cable, which feels nicer and a lot more flexible than the black one. The cable is what broke on the black ones, the sheathing breaking in two places.

I heartily recommend these CX300's, and the eco packaging's a nice idea too.