Sennheiser CX 300 II-Black

Bloated and muddy bass with a veiled midrange and a lackluster treble. 

These are horribly overpriced in Australia and can be found at an authorized dealer from $60-$100, although I bought mine way back in the middle of 2009. What can I say, there are so many things out there for the price that whoop these thing sonically that there is absolutely no reason to own this. The amount of counterfeits floating around astronomical. I must say they are quite durable though.

These were my first step into the world of audiophillia.

I had an old pair of Sony over ear IEMs which needed to be replaced for use at the gym. That is when I thought that I would try the Sennhieser CX-300 II. I have a pair of HD-448 full circumaural full size headphones which are really nice and I had read a lot of good things about their equipment.  So, I decided to buy them at Best Buy for $50 knowing that Best Buy has a really good return policy if I didn’t like them.

I opened the package in the parking lot to be sure that there weren’t any problems. First of all the packaging is difficult to open. The plastic pinches the wire just below the strain relief next to the speaker unit. After getting them out of the package I was pleased to hear that right out of the packaging they sounded better than the old Sony or the Ink’d IEMs.

This comparison isn’t that complimentary considering that the two the Senn’s are being compared too are sub $20 units. They have a much stronger bass and fuller sound in all areas. The Ink’d are great for the gym but  in a quiet environment their sound signature is full of holes. They have a lump in their bass around 200 Hz that drops out between 500 Hz and returns just after 1 kHz.  The Senns on the other hand are a bit boomy in the lower bass from 20 to 200 Hz but transition well into the midrange. The highs are bright and do not suffer from the bass as others have said, But I must say that I HATE sibilance and a warmer sound is much preferred to a bright sound at the expense of too much sibilance.

The dreaded  J-Wire…

Now some people like the J-Wire  and some prefer the Y – Wire configuration. The 1/8 plug is 90 degrees, but sticks out rather far and doesn’t have a strain relief which is a poor design. The junction point is dominated with a ¾ by ½  chunk of plastic where the larger diameter wire meets the two branching wires going to the individual speakers. If worn casually the light weight wires are comfortable and I don’t notice them, but when working out the long J-wire tends to fly about and get caught and pull on the speaker for the right side. This configuration also prevents me from getting comfortable over-ear configuration.

After buying these I decided that I had to get a pair of IEMs that contained a microphone and controls for my iPod. I researched and considered getting the CX 400 or MM50 but both have the J-Wire configuration.

Take a Note Sennhieser… Offer your products in both configurations! It really can’t be all that difficult to produce a CX 300 IIJ and CX 300 IIY.

Best Part Of these Headphones are the Bass.....  And Worst Part Of them is Bass.... Yess...... Audio lack quality... In fact no detail at all.. mids and highs are not present.... various instrument goes unheard... 

Don't go for these earphones if audio quality is your concern.... These are just suited for thumpy music found in electronic and hip hop.... that to below expectation....

I bought these looking for a replacement to an older pair of in-ear's, and happened to stumble upon these.

At first, I was very pleased with the sound, as it was a drastic difference compared to my older pair. Only now i realized that these are IEM's after visiting this sight. It was only after i bought my AKG 240's I truly noticed the sound quality.

The sound quality you ask? Well they are very nice overall, as expected from Sennheiser. The only big flaw is the amount of bass seems to drown out all other sounds. The high's seem to disappear every time the bass kick's in which is obviously a great draw back.

Otherwise these are very comfortable and fit nicely into your ear and stay there like they should. The isolation is superb, and coming from a person who takes a clankity bus every day to school, that means something. No leakage either.

I would recommend this to Bass-heads, or people who mainly listen to Rap, Hip hop, or love bass solos.