I am glad you came on board. Unfortunately neither this headphones nor especially awful AMP/DAC or bad BT RF WiFi modules deserve any attention & can not be recommended. While premium quality materials do deserve high grade that's about it when it comes to those headphones. Drivers aren't anything special & better ones can be found on much cheaper alternatives. The pads look good and quality built while still offering comfort & preventin sweating to much but then again their property clipping mechanism is a big minus. Amp DAC is a rather laughable as even cheaper Chinese DAP's come with better ones. The sound judging by your impressions is also nothing special including separation & the sound stage. While bas look like relatively easy to iron the difference between channels is a spoiler, mids are tad pushed back which is also a spoiler but it can be easily equlised the highs are bad & hard to equlise. In practice this means being tied to the per channel full band EQ (30 bands parametric) which is hastle. All in all pretty much disappointing from such a famous brand. Keep up the good work, finding good headphones especially in value for money category is a very hard thing.
This is an outstanding review. I really like how you followed up on the problems you found. I'm sure this will be of much interest to the team @ Sennheiser who developed & released this. I mean, they're probably not surprised, but I'm sure they didn't expect anyone to actually investigate the reasons for the poor performance. As usually audio review are just hand waving without much insight into what's wrong or concrete directions on how to improve.
I just wish that they had engaged You or someone like you before releasing this dud to the public. Would have saved a lot of money and effort. As it stands, this headphone apart from the materials quality has nothing going for it. And the material quality is utterly wasted in this case.
Excellent journalism, wish there was a "give this man a beer" button somewhere, you definitely deserve it ;]
You have to be very careful about the Sennheiser products you look at. Some of them are very high quality stuff, while most of it seems to be generically engineered to be mass-produced with their label stuck on as a profit booster. Most of their low-level consumer fruit is nothing special yet it still costs hundreds of dollars while their professional grade products are sometimes a little cheaper.
Personally I find open backed headphones far superior for game playing. It actually provides an advantage in shooters as you can easily pinpoit directional sounds much more than a closed back set.
Of course, this has the disadvantage of disturbing those around you.
But, if you don't have that problem, then always go with open backed headphones, especially for gaming, as they simply deliver a far superior sound stage.
It's not just for gaming, closed headphones are just inferior in every way outside of isolating noise. Wireless are also flat out inferior, put them together and anything better than got garbage is actually noteworthy.
You just need to broaden your horizons. I recently was in Japan had had a chance to listen to a bunch of headphones from $200-$4000 and it was amazing. There is no inherently "better" technology. Just which fits your tastes. In that regard, wireless is just trash, and so are "gaming" headphones.
Wireless is not necessarily trash. Sennheiser developed lossless wireless tech for their wireless HD650, though I doubt it is used in these gaming headphones. Lossy wireless isn't even necessarily bad. No human can reliably tell the difference between a properly encoded lossy audio file (AAC, Vorbis, etc.). True, headphones do not directly transmit such file formats, but in principle excellent fidelity is possible. Bluetooth in general is not great for audio quality, but with aptX it has at least the potential for good listening, though I have not heard any supporting devices myself.
Agreed. There are many closed circumaural headphones that sound great. I use a closed backed Beyerdynamics DT 150 but there are many more depending on your taste: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/
Has there ever been a closed can that sounded better than an all else identical open one? Ever?
Yes, a good set of closed cans will sound better than garbage open ones, but all else equal I've yet to see an example where the open headphone was not markedly superior.
"Sounds better" is highly subjective sweeping generalization but you certainly get closed headphones that have similar frequency response, distortion and harmonics up there with the best open backs. A nice example is the MrSpeakers Aeon that comes open and closed. Again completely subjective whether the closed "sounds better" but it's well regarded.
I made an account just to reply to this. Sony R10 Apparently the best dynamic closed headphone ever made. If you read about them, they are often compared to even the best electrostatic headphones there are. They have the "advantage" of being closed and thus isolating the listener from unwanted background noise.
Sony only produced from what I remember roughly 2000 units as they apparently made a losswith every sold unit as it was a more of a "look we can" than "this exists to actually make money" kinda thing. They developed together a biotech company a bacteria that produced the biocellose that was used for those cans. Lots of other over the top stuff for them.
I really would like to get the chance to listen to a pair, but they are just that rare.
I read that someone that bought them back in the day in england had some higher up from Sony personaly deliver the headphone.
Sony in the particular case used organic diagrams that ware approximately an order of magnitude thinner than usual & much more elastic but the same material would simply be to fragile for a open design. It always whose a very hard task to achieve a good implementation even with big resonance boxes for speakers involving additional barriers it's an art to be more precise. Same simply can't be used on headphones.
Simple as it is drivers need to dance (actually diagrams do). When ordinary materials used it's much easier to secure more optimal ripples with something that has a air flow than with something that is siled up. I prefer semi open back over the ear headphones. There are examples of closed back headphones which achieve outstanding bas (where cans need to dance the most) but those are rare (MEE 6 Pro being the last surprising one's in my case even more because those are tiny in ear [achieved true dancing driver]), they simply cannot have the sound stage as wide as open one's equally made.
I prefer open back also, with one huge advantage other than sound that you can hear what's going on around you. I use Audiotechnica for gaming, but I don't think I've ever seen a wireless open back headset outside of the real expensive wireless audiophile Sennheisers (with no mic).
Excellent work. It would be cool to see phase plots for latency measurements in future wireless testing. I’m not sure if test software is capable of sending samples to two drivers at the same time, as that would be important.
Aren't the left vs right frequency responses a little extreme to be down to cup position? Maybe that USB port or the mic boom are causing sealing issues (given the extended bass of the left ear). Was there a consistent difference when you tested?
As I mention, it's just possible my budget measurement rig calibration if a bit off, or the positioning of the headphones was indeed a bit off as well. The general shape of the FR remains roughly the same.
I didn't notice large issues with L/R balance in subjective testing.
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29 Comments
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ZolaIII - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
I am glad you came on board. Unfortunately neither this headphones nor especially awful AMP/DAC or bad BT RF WiFi modules deserve any attention & can not be recommended. While premium quality materials do deserve high grade that's about it when it comes to those headphones. Drivers aren't anything special & better ones can be found on much cheaper alternatives. The pads look good and quality built while still offering comfort & preventin sweating to much but then again their property clipping mechanism is a big minus. Amp DAC is a rather laughable as even cheaper Chinese DAP's come with better ones. The sound judging by your impressions is also nothing special including separation & the sound stage. While bas look like relatively easy to iron the difference between channels is a spoiler, mids are tad pushed back which is also a spoiler but it can be easily equlised the highs are bad & hard to equlise. In practice this means being tied to the per channel full band EQ (30 bands parametric) which is hastle. All in all pretty much disappointing from such a famous brand. Keep up the good work, finding good headphones especially in value for money category is a very hard thing.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Right, I forgot to share the EQ targets:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9adunymvqjbqwqs/AACeWpI...
Here are the impulse responses to be used for convolution, preferably via Equalizer APO.
The C1 target keeps a bit more of the warmth and bass of the default of the headphones while the D1 is a more flat target with wider soundstage.
ZolaIII - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Thanks for sharing.igavus - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
This is an outstanding review. I really like how you followed up on the problems you found. I'm sure this will be of much interest to the team @ Sennheiser who developed & released this. I mean, they're probably not surprised, but I'm sure they didn't expect anyone to actually investigate the reasons for the poor performance. As usually audio review are just hand waving without much insight into what's wrong or concrete directions on how to improve.I just wish that they had engaged You or someone like you before releasing this dud to the public. Would have saved a lot of money and effort. As it stands, this headphone apart from the materials quality has nothing going for it. And the material quality is utterly wasted in this case.
Excellent journalism, wish there was a "give this man a beer" button somewhere, you definitely deserve it ;]
mooninite - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
You have to be very careful about the Sennheiser products you look at. Some of them are very high quality stuff, while most of it seems to be generically engineered to be mass-produced with their label stuck on as a profit booster. Most of their low-level consumer fruit is nothing special yet it still costs hundreds of dollars while their professional grade products are sometimes a little cheaper.Oliseo - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Personally I find open backed headphones far superior for game playing. It actually provides an advantage in shooters as you can easily pinpoit directional sounds much more than a closed back set.Of course, this has the disadvantage of disturbing those around you.
But, if you don't have that problem, then always go with open backed headphones, especially for gaming, as they simply deliver a far superior sound stage.
BenSkywalker - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
It's not just for gaming, closed headphones are just inferior in every way outside of isolating noise. Wireless are also flat out inferior, put them together and anything better than got garbage is actually noteworthy.Byte - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
You just need to broaden your horizons. I recently was in Japan had had a chance to listen to a bunch of headphones from $200-$4000 and it was amazing. There is no inherently "better" technology. Just which fits your tastes. In that regard, wireless is just trash, and so are "gaming" headphones.Sivar - Monday, July 15, 2019 - link
Wireless is not necessarily trash. Sennheiser developed lossless wireless tech for their wireless HD650, though I doubt it is used in these gaming headphones.Lossy wireless isn't even necessarily bad. No human can reliably tell the difference between a properly encoded lossy audio file (AAC, Vorbis, etc.). True, headphones do not directly transmit such file formats, but in principle excellent fidelity is possible.
Bluetooth in general is not great for audio quality, but with aptX it has at least the potential for good listening, though I have not heard any supporting devices myself.
Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
There's really nothing preventing closed headphones of having good imaging and wide sound stage.bunkle - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Agreed. There are many closed circumaural headphones that sound great. I use a closed backed Beyerdynamics DT 150 but there are many more depending on your taste: https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/BenSkywalker - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Has there ever been a closed can that sounded better than an all else identical open one? Ever?Yes, a good set of closed cans will sound better than garbage open ones, but all else equal I've yet to see an example where the open headphone was not markedly superior.
bunkle - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
"Sounds better" is highly subjective sweeping generalization but you certainly get closed headphones that have similar frequency response, distortion and harmonics up there with the best open backs. A nice example is the MrSpeakers Aeon that comes open and closed. Again completely subjective whether the closed "sounds better" but it's well regarded.whyaname - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
I made an account just to reply to this.Sony R10
Apparently the best dynamic closed headphone ever made.
If you read about them, they are often compared to even the best electrostatic headphones there are.
They have the "advantage" of being closed and thus isolating the listener from unwanted background noise.
Sony only produced from what I remember roughly 2000 units as they apparently made a losswith every sold unit as it was a more of a "look we can" than "this exists to actually make money" kinda thing.
They developed together a biotech company a bacteria that produced the biocellose that was used for those cans.
Lots of other over the top stuff for them.
I really would like to get the chance to listen to a pair, but they are just that rare.
I read that someone that bought them back in the day in england had some higher up from Sony personaly deliver the headphone.
ZolaIII - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
Sony in the particular case used organic diagrams that ware approximately an order of magnitude thinner than usual & much more elastic but the same material would simply be to fragile for a open design. It always whose a very hard task to achieve a good implementation even with big resonance boxes for speakers involving additional barriers it's an art to be more precise. Same simply can't be used on headphones.iamlilysdad - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
Did they make an open version of the R10 to compare the closed version to? If not, then that does not answer the question.The closest comparison I can think of the Sennheiser 800s compared to the 820. Open and closed of the same headphone.
BenSkywalker - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Air pressure?Either your headphones don't isolate so you get proper airflow, or they do isolate and you get echo/reverb issues.
ZolaIII - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
Simple as it is drivers need to dance (actually diagrams do). When ordinary materials used it's much easier to secure more optimal ripples with something that has a air flow than with something that is siled up. I prefer semi open back over the ear headphones. There are examples of closed back headphones which achieve outstanding bas (where cans need to dance the most) but those are rare (MEE 6 Pro being the last surprising one's in my case even more because those are tiny in ear [achieved true dancing driver]), they simply cannot have the sound stage as wide as open one's equally made.astrocramp - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
I prefer open back also, with one huge advantage other than sound that you can hear what's going on around you. I use Audiotechnica for gaming, but I don't think I've ever seen a wireless open back headset outside of the real expensive wireless audiophile Sennheisers (with no mic).willis936 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Excellent work. It would be cool to see phase plots for latency measurements in future wireless testing. I’m not sure if test software is capable of sending samples to two drivers at the same time, as that would be important.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
I thought of ways to measure latency but I didn't have anything practical in order to achieve it.In general, latency with the GSA70 dongle wasn't an issue in gaming or everyday usage.
willis936 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Windows stereo mix to output to a known low latency DAC and the device under test. ARTA has a setup for measuring phase if you have a two channel mic.Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
I'll add this in after the AMD weekend is over.bunkle - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Aren't the left vs right frequency responses a little extreme to be down to cup position? Maybe that USB port or the mic boom are causing sealing issues (given the extended bass of the left ear). Was there a consistent difference when you tested?Andrei Frumusanu - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
As I mention, it's just possible my budget measurement rig calibration if a bit off, or the positioning of the headphones was indeed a bit off as well. The general shape of the FR remains roughly the same.I didn't notice large issues with L/R balance in subjective testing.
yacoub35 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
How much radiation is it cooking the user's head with during long-term use? :)Dug - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
Wow, ugly and not good all for $349.Thanks for the write up and testing.
crotach - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
This just looks so plasticky like it came from a Kinder Egg. I guess it would be ok for 50 euros.Eliadbu - Monday, July 8, 2019 - link
I wonder how this headset compares to my Astro A50 (gen 3) .