The Sennheiser MB 660’s are an interesting headphone. Sennheiser's new MB 660 UC wireless headset is a great combination of work and play.hey are made for the office but can also can be used away from work, to take on a trip or to enjoy your favorite music at home. Headsets.com was nice enough to let me try these out.
Features:
Fits nicely in the provided case
The provided USB dongle
The headset uses large ear cups and a well-built headband with a good clamping factor to help keep them on your head and also help block out ambient sound. These headphones use NoiseGard, Sennheiser’s version of hybrid adaptive Active Noise Cancelling, so they can adapt the noise cancelling to your environment. They also feature touchpad controls that allow you to swipe to skip tracks or pair your headphones to your phone. For voice communication the 660’s incorporate something called SpeakFocus technology that utilizes 3 microphones to help callers hear what you are saying. They also use tech to help people hear you when you are in a windy environment and the 660 can adjust to even take out your keyboard typing sound out of the equation. For music, Sennheiser utilizes aptX, to help bring cd quality streaming via bluetooth. The 660 UC have up to 30 hours of battery life and if you do happen to run out of battery, they come with an audio cable to connect them directly to your phone. Sennheiser also has an app called CapTune, which has some of the headset controls such as changing the adaptive noise cancelling level, changing the headphones language and so on. They also come with a selection of 3 separate sound effect modes for speech, music, and entertainment. Pairing is handled via Bluetooth or NFC, and there is a dongle for the PC. A nice rugged zippered case is also included to help protect your headphones when you travel to and from work or on a plane. For accessories, Sennheiser has included a micro usb charging cable, audio cable to connect to your phone\mp3 player, a plane adaptor, and a usb dongle to use with your pc.
Build:
Metal is used in the headband and hinges
Nice soft ear cups
The MB 660 seem to be built well, they have a nice weight to them while not feeling cheaply made. I liked the feel of the headphones, the clamping factor seemed perfect to me, it helped with the noise cancellation. The large ear cups easily covered my ears and the ear pads are soft yet seem breathable so my ears did not get warm after a long conference call or after listening to some music. I would also like to note that the ear cups easily fit over my glasses. The headband is also nicely padded to make wearing the headphones for an extended amount of time more comfortable. The 660’s are designed so that the ear cups swivel to fold flat so you can rest them on your neck and they automatically turn off. When you switch them back to the regular position they turned back on, quickly pairing back to my Galaxy 7. Metal is used in the headband, helping keep the making the headband feel well made and adding just the right amount of weight to the overall construction of the headphones.
Controls:
Here you can see the ANC switch, soundfield button and micro-usb
The noise cancelling worked great when used in my different offices and even allowed me to listen to music when working in two different server rooms without having to raise the volume to dangerous levels. I want to mention that I did not utilize the sound effect modes of the headphones, accessible by pressing the button labeled with a musical note. Others might like utilizing the effect modes, but I prefer the sound to not be altered that way. The controls for the music are handled by swiping or holding a finger on the right cup, and it works fairly well. The touch pad is very responsive and it becomes second nature to swipe to the right to skip a track or hold and swipe up or down to raise or lower the volume. Bluetooth can also be turned off via a switch that is protected by the headband when the headphones on your head. The NoiseGard is easily switchable between two levels depending on how noisy your environment is. You can also turn off NoiseGard if you are so inclined.
Sound:
When using these headphones via Bluetooth, the headphones could reach 60ft or more feet from my phone if I left it say at my desk. My Samsung Galaxy 7 works with AptX so that helped with the sound. I also tested them with an Apple 7 Plus and they still sounded good to me. I did not experience any dropouts, the Bluetooth signal was strong with both the Android and Apple phones. The bass is adequate without being bloated and they retain the Sennheiser house sound. The sound had depth and they did not sound thin, the instruments sounded crisp. I decided to see how these headphones sounded wired to my XDUOO X3 DAP. Once wired and listening to Graham Nash’s Five Down Below in FLAC, the music was no longer background music, but it made me take notice. The headphones reproduced the sound more naturally, and had a nice soundstage. With wired, the sound of course is going to sound fuller. On a FLAC version of Foo Fighters Wasting Light, the bass sounded nice and tight, the headphones sounded great. I also listened to Che Guevara T-Shirt's Monsters to listen to something more eclectic, and the headphones sounded great. Paired with the noise cancellation on the highest setting, I felt as if I was at a private concert, I could only hear the music, there was no other distractions to be heard.
Taking\Making Calls:
Here is what they look like when worn
These headphones also worked well when taking calls, the touch controls on the right headset allowed me to redial, mute, un-mute, voice-dial all by a series of holding the finger to the cup and swiping to the left or the right. It takes a bit to get used to, but you get used to it after using it. The ANC helped me to concentrate on the conversation because it really blocked out all outside sound. Even my typing on the keyboard was very muted.
Conclusion:
A picture of these near my Christmas tree
The only cons I found with these headphones was that they are bit expensive side of things at $449.95. Also, a couple of times when on a call, the person on the other end of the call claimed I sounded as if I was on a box. That only happened a couple of times, so it was not the norm. Overall, I thought the headphones were great, I was able to have them on for hours at a time, and I often forgot that I had them on. I think they would be great in an office environment and could also be used as a nice Bluetooth headset on the go at home or for travel.
