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Sennheiser PX200
Date of Review: Dec 21, 2007
The Bottom Line: A disgrace for the house of Sennheiser. There're much better choices: AKG K-26P, K-27i, Denon AH-D550.
The PX200 certainly look better than they sound.
Those are small, mini-size, supra-aural (against-the-ear) headphones. Sealed. With miniature cushions, which seem to be the part of design that is flawed.
First off, the part that usually worries most people: bass. There isn't much of it. There's barely any of it. Until the cups are pressed against the ears, that is, when bass appears. Boomy, compressed bass.
Basically, if the cups get a seal (which happens only when they're pressed against the ears), the PX200 get a "miniature boombox" bass, with the same poisonous character. When the cups don't get a seal (which is anytime), there's no bass to speak of.
There's not much isolation, either. Sure, all outside sound becomes muffled, but they don't really block much sound when just sitting on the ears silent. Sennheiser's claims of "excellent" isolation are quite fake. The material of enclosures is plastic, the cushions are miniature and never get a good seal. Open headphones (like the PX100, Koss Porta-Pro, K-24P) in the same class really can attenuate more external noise simply by having a good frequency response and reproducing bass.
When the original cushions were replaced with a couple "doughnuts" from Technics supra-aural headphones, sounding improved. Still rather artificial-sounding, but already much better than with the toyish, flimsy, small cushions supplied. Of course the "doughnut" cushions are too large, and won't hold on the small enclosures, but they might be glued on. Which will make the headphones look somewhat goofy, but then looks are the last on a list of headphone characteristics.
The overall sounding is quite akin to an 80s' transistor radio. Not the cheapish kind that sounds like a telephone speaker, but still: the same distant presentation with compressed midrange, absent bass, and everything else treble.
Technically those are efficient, sensitive portable player headphones. Foldable, coming with a nice carry case with a cable manager. They fold to about the size of glasses, with case about the same size as a sunglasses case.
These have been tried with a portable CD player, with and without an external amplifier. Regardless of the amplification, sound presentation is dreadful. "Poisonous", even. No bass, dips in low midrange, poisonously compressed midrange, darkish colouration, sound presentation akin to two small barrels with old transistor radio speakers mounted in them.
Bottom line - look nice, fold nice, there's the carry-case with silver "Sennheiser" letters on it, but the sounding is some 20-30 years behind what's available now. Not worth a bother, especially by the price they're often sold for.
