[Mongo149]

Hey everybody, this is my first post on Head-Fi =). As the title suggests, I've got a question about the HD 380 Pros. When I was researching headphones and came across these Sennheisers, nearly every single review praised the passive noise attenuation, saying that you can't hear anything else while the headphones are on your head. About two weeks ago I bought these because I wanted good over-ear headphones for quietly listening to my own music. I've been listening a lot, and I'm happy with every aspect of them except for the noise; At a moderate listening volume my family can hear the music/movie I'm watching, and I can hear the conversations going on around me as well. All I notice is that the outside sounds are slightly muffled, but it isn't as much of a difference as the many reviews suggested. So my question is, why is my pair seemingly different from everyone else's? I do wear glasses but I've even tried taking them off and pushing the headphones against my head to make sure the seal is tight. There isn't any difference. Of course an easy solution would be to just buy a pair of active noise-cancelling headphones, but I think that any cheap pair of those would focus on the noise-cancellation rather than the actual sound quality, and I don't have the money for a good pair of high-end noise-cancelling headphones. So I went with the HD 380 Pros because they seemed like they were exactly what I wanted, and they almost are, they just aren't as quiet as I was expecting. This is a little frustrating, please help!

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,
 
The people who said that were Amazon reviewers, am I right?
 
Closed headphones, unless they clamp tight on your ears, leak. Most go about -18dB in terms of isolation. A seriously clamped one will cut out most noise. But you'll always still leak. The sennies tend to run loose because Sennheiser focuses a lot on comfort and long-listening ability. So a loose closed headphone will leak like that. You don't have a defective model. You probably just looked at the wrong reviews.
 
Check out the PXC 450. You can get it 15% off at Headphones.com with the headfi discount.
 
Very best,

 

[Mongo149]

Well that answers it, thanks!

 

[Shannon Adkins]

Quote:

Heya,
 
The people who said that were Amazon reviewers, am I right?
 
Closed headphones, unless they clamp tight on your ears, leak. Most go about -18dB in terms of isolation. A seriously clamped one will cut out most noise. But you'll always still leak. The sennies tend to run loose because Sennheiser focuses a lot on comfort and long-listening ability. So a loose closed headphone will leak like that. You don't have a defective model. You probably just looked at the wrong reviews.
 
Check out the PXC 450. You can get it 15% off at Headphones.com with the headfi discount.
 
Very best,

I would never describe either the hd280 or hd380 as loose clamping.  Those are some pretty tight clamping headphones and they isolate very well, actually.  I've had my 280's for 4 years and they still hurt my head from the pressure after 30-40 minutes.  That's why I only use them for tracking vocals and acoustic guitar parts in the studio.   
Your not going to find cans that isolate better than those anywhere in that price range - other that the Extreme Isolation brand.