[earmonger]

Yep replaceable, I think he meant the ie800 microphonic not replaceable one.

The cable on the IE300 and apparently IE900 is nominally an MMCX cable. But as Jermo from Sennheiser responded way back in the thread:

"Regarding the connector, MMCX has established itself as a standard and a lot of users asked us to use it. Unfortunately it's mechanically very fragile, so we recessed the connector into the housing so that force from the sides is relieved by the housing. "

Which is to say, your current replacement MMCX cables simply will not fit.

Jermo from Sennheiser added:

"Additionally, we're actively working with a number of 3rd party cable manufacturers to develop replacement cables to provide you with a choice. I'm currently using a cable by ONSO, which is awesome (and I hope it launches soon)."

I looked up ONSO cables on Amazon: the cheapest one is over $100. That's 1/3 MSRP on the IE300--a smaller percentage on the IE900 but still...

I appreciate Sennheiser responding directly to questions like these but I wish the answer had been different. I'm really enjoying my IE300 when not in motion, but the cable makes a lot of noise if you move around at all. A sturdy cable is great; a noisy one is not.

 

[Jermo K]

The cable on the IE300 and apparently IE900 is nominally an MMCX cable. But as Jermo from Sennheiser responded way back in the thread:

"Regarding the connector, MMCX has established itself as a standard and a lot of users asked us to use it. Unfortunately it's mechanically very fragile, so we recessed the connector into the housing so that force from the sides is relieved by the housing. "

Which is to say, your current replacement MMCX cables simply will not fit.

Jermo from Sennheiser added:

"Additionally, we're actively working with a number of 3rd party cable manufacturers to develop replacement cables to provide you with a choice. I'm currently using a cable by ONSO, which is awesome (and I hope it launches soon)."

I looked up ONSO cables on Amazon: the cheapest one is over $100. That's 1/3 MSRP on the IE300--a smaller percentage on the IE900 but still...

I appreciate Sennheiser responding directly to questions like these but I wish the answer had been different. I'm really enjoying my IE300 when not in motion, but the cable makes a lot of noise if you move around at all. A sturdy cable is great; a noisy one is not.

Hi earmonger,
I anticipated comments exactly like yours when I made the decision, which made it really painful to do. Especially because you're completely right and I'd feel the same in your situation.
As a little anecdote, I was in a similar situation previously when we developed the semi-wireless successor to the CX 6.00BT. Our semi-wireless products always had separate remotes and battery boxes. On the CX 6.00BT, both boxes were symmetrically dangling below the ears. A lot of users complained that the bigger and heavier battery box was annoying and that it should rather be in the middle of the cord in the neck. I directly implemented that suggestion in the successor, the CX 150BT and we did our first user tests. The most common feedback? The battery box was annoying in the neck because it would fall down the entire back unless you wore a suit. The requested change was to go back to the original, symmetric design.
In some situations, you can't make everyone happy. I rather have 3rd party cable manufacturers build new cables for our products than see photos of broken plugs on the internet. I want a smooth and silent cable, but there shouldn't be a possibility that an audiophile cable breaks after 3 months of use.

Directly to your concern: ONSO makes really high-quality cables, but you can be sure that every price level will be covered soon enough. And I think paying something like $50 for a very nice cable is reasonable. Until then I hope you can enjoy your IE 300 at least while not moving too much.

 

[earmonger]

Thanks for responding. For what it's worth, in later production runs you might also consider putting a thicker lip on the outside of the nozzle. Tips have started to come off in my ears.

 

[AlwaysForward]

Ok so on April 23 on "Most Overrated Headphones thread I wrote the following: "Sennheiser Hd600 & HD800. While they were technical marvels upon release, their inability to produce sub-bass and subsequent lack of updates to correct this is a major miss imho."

I tried out an HD560S for a few hours today.

Jermo, I may have to eat my words a bit because this headphone was already released at the time of that writing and I was wrong about the subsequent lack of updates. These 560S are INCREDIBLE. Wow, I am very very excited about the direction you're taking the product development at Sennheiser. I'll probably be getting the IE900 and am now pretty excited with imagination on what you might do in an open-back flagship with exemplary bass tuning.

I think one of the really exciting things is that I do absolutely love it without EQ of any fashion. It sounds perfect. AND It's probably my favorite "bass boost" experience ever. Usually the bass boost smears the vocals etc. Somehow, these are tuned so well that a bass boost from a headphone amp is sublime for EDM. And yet, the natural tuning is so good that I generally prefer it to be non-boosted.

The ability to go jeckyl/hyde like that is something else entirely. I'm a fan. Keep it up.

I'm sure I'll love the 900 and will write about it whenever I get to experience it.

 

[nicnac2212]

Hi there Jermo I would first like to say what a pleasure it is to talk to you and how much I respect sennheiser has a brand not just in terms of creating great products but just seeing the engineering that goes into the products. I just had a few questions in regards to the dynamic driver used in the ie900 and in general. In a earlier post in this forum you stated that you tried different materials for the driver. With the new trend of beryllium, aluminium and other composite materials being used as driver material do you see sennheiser ever using these materials for future products in regards to iems and if not why would that be due cost, tooling etc. Would balanced armature ever be used in sennheiser products in regards to iems in the future, why only 7mm and not something like 10mm driver which are a standard in many iems across iem brands. Lastly my final question how does magnetic flux impact the driver. Many new dynamic driver iems showcase having a high magnetic flux ranging from 1.6T to as high as 1.8T what would be the rough flux in the ie900 and do you consider the flux as an important element in creating a fast driver. Sorry for so many questions but I really love good dynamic drivers and always wanted to learn more about why certain things are done.

 

[Jermo K]

Ok so on April 23 on "Most Overrated Headphones thread I wrote the following: "Sennheiser Hd600 & HD800. While they were technical marvels upon release, their inability to produce sub-bass and subsequent lack of updates to correct this is a major miss imho."

I tried out an HD560S for a few hours today.

Jermo, I may have to eat my words a bit because this headphone was already released at the time of that writing and I was wrong about the subsequent lack of updates. These 560S are INCREDIBLE. Wow, I am very very excited about the direction you're taking the product development at Sennheiser. I'll probably be getting the IE900 and am now pretty excited with imagination on what you might do in an open-back flagship with exemplary bass tuning.

I think one of the really exciting things is that I do absolutely love it without EQ of any fashion. It sounds perfect. AND It's probably my favorite "bass boost" experience ever. Usually the bass boost smears the vocals etc. Somehow, these are tuned so well that a bass boost from a headphone amp is sublime for EDM. And yet, the natural tuning is so good that I generally prefer it to be non-boosted.

The ability to go jeckyl/hyde like that is something else entirely. I'm a fan. Keep it up.

I'm sure I'll love the 900 and will write about it whenever I get to experience it.

Thanks so much for the glowing praise! It's comments like yours that motivate us to outdo ourselves and set our standards higher and higher. I absolutely understand your previous sentiment. I felt it as well. But rest assured that I spend a lot of time reading feedback and suggestions here to create products you'll love.

On the HD 560S: I started the development with an accessible price point in mind, and when the acoustic concept was final, we had brief discussions about raising the price to be more in line with the performance. I'm very happy that we stuck with the current price because the trend of rising prices with intangible benefits to the customer is in my eyes not healthy for the hobby. I believe that "summit price points" that provide 2% more performance than something like the HD 560S alienate outsiders and take away from participation within the community. I'm convinced that raising the bar at lower price points will invite far more people to the community and show every music lover that you can have your cake and eat it too, without spending a month's wage.

That being said, have fun with your headphones and enjoy the music.

 

[IgeNeLL]

Thanks so much for the glowing praise! It's comments like yours that motivate us to outdo ourselves and set our standards higher and higher. I absolutely understand your previous sentiment. I felt it as well. But rest assured that I spend a lot of time reading feedback and suggestions here to create products you'll love.

On the HD 560S: I started the development with an accessible price point in mind, and when the acoustic concept was final, we had brief discussions about raising the price to be more in line with the performance. I'm very happy that we stuck with the current price because the trend of rising prices with intangible benefits to the customer is in my eyes not healthy for the hobby. I believe that "summit price points" that provide 2% more performance than something like the HD 560S alienate outsiders and take away from participation within the community. I'm convinced that raising the bar at lower price points will invite far more people to the community and show every music lover that you can have your cake and eat it too, without spending a month's wage.

That being said, have fun with your headphones and enjoy the music.

I'm very curious about graphene diaphragm, have you tried this material?

 

[AlwaysForward]

I'm very curious about graphene diaphragm, have you tried this material?

Material science in speaker design is a very interesting topic but only part of what goes into designing a great speaker or headphone as a whole system. The end result of the system's performance is ultimately what matters. Sennheiser has shown time and again that they are acoustics wizards down to the fundamental level. I think Graphene, specifically GrapheneQ holds a lot of promise in creating very mobile friendly headphone designs for acoustics performance because of how efficient it is with convenient mobile power.

It's easy to look at spec sheets like driver counts or speaker materials as key differentiators in this hobby, and they are in many products. As I mentioned earlier, not all headphone products get the kind of deep engineering work that Sennheiser does when they do design and development. If you consider Apple as a model product developer on one end of the hard-nosed engineering spectrum and something like DanClark Audio on the other, one is doing rigorous material design and selection with advanced computer modeling and simulation software tools & dozens of highly educated engineers with academic specialties in acoustics/mechanical, materials, reliability, rigid G&DT for parts etc and the other could be a bit more like a "painter" who started off modding headphones and then developing a small scale craft.

Certainly DCA has produced many wonderful products but the way that Sennheiser innovates at the driver level allows them to achieve not only the performance many others can only approach with expensive/exotic materials. They can deliver it in a robustly design acoustic housing that propagates sound in designed and controlled ways, like the magic they performed on the HD820s, for example. I get fired up about cool hardware design and engineering.

 

[Nostoi]

Hi earmonger,
I anticipated comments exactly like yours when I made the decision, which made it really painful to do. Especially because you're completely right and I'd feel the same in your situation.
As a little anecdote, I was in a similar situation previously when we developed the semi-wireless successor to the CX 6.00BT. Our semi-wireless products always had separate remotes and battery boxes. On the CX 6.00BT, both boxes were symmetrically dangling below the ears. A lot of users complained that the bigger and heavier battery box was annoying and that it should rather be in the middle of the cord in the neck. I directly implemented that suggestion in the successor, the CX 150BT and we did our first user tests. The most common feedback? The battery box was annoying in the neck because it would fall down the entire back unless you wore a suit. The requested change was to go back to the original, symmetric design.
In some situations, you can't make everyone happy. I rather have 3rd party cable manufacturers build new cables for our products than see photos of broken plugs on the internet. I want a smooth and silent cable, but there shouldn't be a possibility that an audiophile cable breaks after 3 months of use.

Directly to your concern: ONSO makes really high-quality cables, but you can be sure that every price level will be covered soon enough. And I think paying something like $50 for a very nice cable is reasonable. Until then I hope you can enjoy your IE 300 at least while not moving too much.

ONSO look interesting, and they're prices seem very fair to me.

Their website, however, is cumbersome. I assume the cable you're using is this one - https://onsoproject.blogspot.com/2021/05/iect04-mmcx-2021-model.html & http://onsoproject.com/iect_04_mr.html

 

[Jermo K]

Hi there Jermo I would first like to say what a pleasure it is to talk to you and how much I respect sennheiser has a brand not just in terms of creating great products but just seeing the engineering that goes into the products. I just had a few questions in regards to the dynamic driver used in the ie900 and in general. In a earlier post in this forum you stated that you tried different materials for the driver. With the new trend of beryllium, aluminium and other composite materials being used as driver material do you see sennheiser ever using these materials for future products in regards to iems and if not why would that be due cost, tooling etc. Would balanced armature ever be used in sennheiser products in regards to iems in the future, why only 7mm and not something like 10mm driver which are a standard in many iems across iem brands. Lastly my final question how does magnetic flux impact the driver. Many new dynamic driver iems showcase having a high magnetic flux ranging from 1.6T to as high as 1.8T what would be the rough flux in the ie900 and do you consider the flux as an important element in creating a fast driver. Sorry for so many questions but I really love good dynamic drivers and always wanted to learn more about why certain things are done.

Hi nicnac!
Lot's of questions, this is going to be long:
1. Materials: Harder materials have been used in speakers for decades, and we've evaluated the concept thoroughly with the hardest materials available. The takeaway is that no material is "perfect", ie. everything develops undesirable partial vibrations in larger diaphragms. For IEMs in particular the problem of partial vibrations is much less of a concern since the diaphragm is so small. The main appeal I'd see is for marketing purposes, but we build products for better performance, not for a more appealing story. So in short no, you won't see exotic materials from us in headphones or IEMs.
2. BAs: For audiophile earphones, we'll never use them. We evaluated the technology in-depth and we follow every new development in that field. BAs are simply not as good as our dynamic transducers in terms of measurable performance.
3. Transducer size: Many dynamic driver IEMs use standard parts and don't have much choice We develop and manufacture our own transducers and create the optimal solution for our purposes. We also have a 10 mm transducer for example in the IE 100 PRO, but it's just not as good as our 7 mm platform. Smaller diaphragms have advantages for high-frequency response (Tweeters are typically smaller than woofers). They are also more ergonomic and fit in smaller housings so that more people can wear the earphone comfortably. The question is then how small you can make it and still have lots of tuning freedom, low distortion, great manufacturability as well as acoustic headroom for great bass response. Our transducer experts labored over that challenge over 10 years ago and found 7 mm to be the optimal size. A similar story drove the 38 mm transducer in the HD 580 nearly 30 years ago, and that exact diameter is still the basis for all of our high-performance drivers outside of the HD 800 S. Physics tends to stay the same for longer periods of time.
4. Magnetic Flux is not denoted with Tesla, but the magnetic flux density is: Higher "magnetic force" means higher sensitivity across the frequency spectrum, which includes the high frequencies. So in a vacuum, higher magnetic flux density aids in a "faster" transducer. So is higher always better? Imagine for example an air gap with a very concentrated magnetic field and a high flux density (lots of Teslas) versus an air gap with a much more widely distributed magnetic field, so that we have less flux density, but a more evenly distributed field over the excursion of the voice coil. While the concentrated magnetic field may offer a better high-frequency response, it would have considerably increased distortion during high amplitudes, when the voice coil leaves the concentrated field. Conversely, the system with the more evenly distributed magnetic field will have slightly less high-frequency response but provide a much cleaner bass response since the magnetic force will vary less over the excursion of the transducer.
Most of our transducers have around 1 Tesla flux density, the 7 mm system in particular is a bit lower since a smaller system needs to excurse more to create equal sound pressure. The magnetic flux density is commonly used as a marketing vehicle because it's simple (higher number=better). Reality isn't simple, so for us at Sennheiser it's always a deliberate compromise between many factors to create the audibly best system, not to have the coolest marketing story (which is really tough for our marketing team ).

 

[nicnac2212]

Jermo thank-you very much for that answer I greatly appreciate it. Just let you know I just picked up a HD600 and will be picking a HD560S as well this year to add to my small growing headphones. The one thing I need to congratulate the sennheiser team is on getting such a realistic and natural timbre in the HD600 it sounds so correct. I had a few other smaller questions in general and in relation back to the dynamic driver principle. My question is will sennheiser release any small dac/amps in the future I am not expecting a answer for this question knowing information for this may be hush hush but if a future release is predicted I will be first in line for a destop dac/amp made by the brand. When you state balancing act for the driver what does it mean speed of sound in relation to the material, rigidity, thickness etc or is it more in relation to tuning of the driver which I am guessing is also done at sennheiser in that case what would be at the top of the list timbre, details, stage, bass extension, imaging etc. Also how important is the thd( total harmonic distortion)in the driver and do you see sennheiser trying to reduce the thd of the 7mm driver even more for future products or is having a very low thd a bad thing I never understood that very clearly in terms of sonic benefits. As I have heard a few dynamic driver iem and their thd and they don't really talk much about it much. Thank-you once again for sharing your knowledge with me on headfi as a engineering student year I have always been fascinated with the dynamic driver principle and its importance and getting a chance to learn more about the topic as been a honour. Lastly are there any sources you would advice people on headfi to read such as articles or books that really showcase about creating a good dynamic driver or just information in general that are scientific in nature.

 

[Spektrograf]

I've been enjoying following the three active threads on the IE 900, and haven't had much to add to the discourse. Thought I'd just drop a note of appreciation for the engagement across the product and engineering teams with the community. I'm a long-time Sennheiser fan that started in 1996 with my first hi-fi purchase—the HD580's (which I still have). Between that and the HD600's, they've been my dailies for the decades past. I've tried so many Summit-Fi products, but keep coming back to the HD600's as my go-to.

I'm very much looking forward to the delivery of the IE 900!

Thanks for the brilliance over the years! Looking forward to the Sennheiser team's work for the years to come!

 

[Q Mass]

Although it's surely the least important metric to Head-Fidom, and entirely subjective, I must admit that the ie900 is possibly the best looking iem ever made.
It's a shame (for me at least) that they're so expensive.
I do wish the 300 had been aluminium, and the flagship something more exotic like titanium or even just stainless steel (I mean the main body of the iem, not the hard to machine nozzle piece, which would likely have to remain al).
But perhaps Al has acoustic properties which make it ideal in this application?
Either way, I'll have to be content with admiring them from a distance! [Weeps in basshead]
I look forward to the impressions of those wealthy (or dedicated) enough to invest in these.

(The design conjures Fritz Lang, or a pinstripe T1000 for me)

 

[Evshrug]

Either way, I'll have to be content with admiring them from a distance! [Weeps in basshead]

I have to ask, we’re you able to secure the first run of IE 300 before they sold out? Another run will come soon, but (subjective opinion, I know) I feel the subtle speckles on the IE 300 are also really cool due to their uniqueness. And if you’re crying in basshead, the IE 300 does have a lot of fun to offer you

I understand that the shiny aluminum is still very cool though I thought the “layers” reminded me of terraced fields or South West USA plateaus and other land features. I can see why you said pinstripes though, or even classic high end cars! Titanium is neat, but it would have been more expensive to do the fine tooling required to tune the sound (and possibly the harder titanium would wear out the tooling faster). Plus, titanium would not look as shiny, and I don’t know about you but my titanium pocket knife scales tend to get “snail trail” scratches and look a bit beat up (which is cool for a knife, but not the look that “I” want in a high end in-ear). YMMV, but there were practical reasons for deciding against titanium

 

[Levanter]

The thing with shiny aluminium is that they are very scratch prone. How easy is it for the ie900 to get scratches? I’m not talking about deliberately using keys or coins to scratch it, but everyday use like accidentally dragging the shell across a table, or even a slight knock when taking it out, etc.