[selfdude]

I have owned the PXC for about 2 months. I love them so much I sometimes cry just thinking about them. I too have noticed the level being a little low when connected via bluetooth straight to my iphone.
 
I have put together a bit of a Franken-dap to take advantage of a DAC and the apt-x. With this setup it gets plenty loud over bluetooth. Attached is a picture. 
 

 
This is designed for an iphone 6s. I took a cheap gummy case, covered it in velcro, added velcro to an amazon basics 10,000 MaH power bank (I cant call it a DAP if using it runs my battery down to zero on my phone). I used an apple Ipad pro Usb adapter because it has a lightning port in addition to the usb so I can still charge the phone while using a DAC. The DAC is a dragon Fly red. The output of the DAC then goes to a Trond bluetooth transmitter. It supports Apt-x. Since plugging in the DAC kills the bluetooth controls for Track/Pause from the PXC's I use the little Saitech media button to control the whole thing.
 
I mostly use this setup at my desk at work, while flying, or while listening in a chair at home. When I want to go portable I just unplug the rig and remove the iphone and listen that way. 
 
When I dont need the battery, I can still velcro the DAC and trasmitter to the case. The phone remains unaltered. 
 
For media, I have a large number of losseless (ALAC) files loaded on the phone. I also have itunes match so I can have access to the files I didn't have space to load.
 
This setup is so modular it is easy to plug up wired headphones or a smaller Battery. Plus it is somewhat future proofed since I could easily switch out components. 

 

[Audionautics]

That's an impressive rig! I have a laptop full of ALAC as well, but my phone is mostly Match. I've got a couple choice albums uploaded to ALAC, but my library way outweighs my iPhone's built in memory. I'm glad you've found a solution and I might have done some frankenrig if I kept them longer.
 
I need a listening room. Momemtum, 4.50's, B&O... Looks like I've got some research to do.

 

[selfdude]

  That's an impressive rig! I have a laptop full of ALAC as well, but my phone is mostly Match. I've got a couple choice albums uploaded to ALAC, but my library way outweighs my iPhone's built in memory. I'm glad you've found a solution and I might have done some frankenrig if I kept them longer.
 
I need a listening room. Momemtum, 4.50's, B&O... Looks like I've got some research to do.

You do know that you can turn off the itunes match on the phone (icloud music library switch), load a bunch of ALAC's on the phone via the lightning cable and itunes, and then turn icloud music library back on.
 
It says it is going to delete any music previously loaded from the phone but it doesn't. That way you can make a playlist of what is important to have lossless but still access to everything else. 

 

[Audionautics]

Yeah, I do that when I remember to. But most of the albums I have downloaded to my phone are the result of me chasing the clock downloading a new album to my iPhone before the airplane pulls away from the gate.
 
It happens every time. You'd think I'd learn.

 

[Dadracer]

Got my pair of PXC550s a couple of weeks ago and have been trying them out in various locations from different sources. I am very pleased so far and I feel they are a better round headphone than the QC25s and AKGs I have had before. The QC25s and the PXC550s are very close on comfort and noise cancellation but the PXC550s are a significant step up on sound quality grounds. I was not so bothered about the bluetooth functionality but actually it's good and doesn't seem to reduce the quality of the sound as much as I had thought.
 
Using them in BT mode and streaming Tidal Hifi from my phone in blissful solitude is pretty damn good.
 
Meantime I will be using them out on a flight on Friday for the first time and that will be interesting to see how they perform and how easy they are to use on a lovely Ryanair flight.  

 

[powerdog]

I've been reading about the 550 vs the MB 660. I often use headphones outdoors, and it tends to be windy here, so I wondered if the Windsafe feature of the 660 would be an advantage for listening to music. But the way Senn's marketing describes it, WS may only affect what the listener on the other end of a call hears.
 
I'm not getting a quick answer from Senn about it, so I thought I'd ask here.

 

[Dadracer]

Sorry dont know anything about the MB660 except it looks like a call centre version of the PXC550. Oh and the carrying case is much better!

 

[powerdog]

I just heard from Senn. For listening to music, both are the same. 660 only benefits other caller when there's wind.

 

[LordEntropy]

Hi, Not sure if someone can help me. 
 
I am looking to buy the PXC 550 and have a couple of questions.  I tried a pair in store,  and through the captune app I enabled the smart pause feature.  However, when I took the 550 off my head the music was still playing.  I then changed to playing music through the captune app rather than the default Music app and it paused when I removed the 550 from my head.  So my question is this,  should smart pause work with an iPhone using Apple's default music app on music downloaded to your phone, if not does smart pause work at all on the iPhone even for phone calls. I understand Smart Pause on phone calls is meant to mute the call?
 
If it can't then I find it odd as my cheaper Plantronics Backbeat Pro, which are several years old can do this on all music , regardless of the app it is being played through.  

 

[dweaver]

Not sure about an iphone but I turned on the smart pause feature in captunes. But use my LG G4 default music player and it works.

 

[LordEntropy]

Thanks, it's the iPhone I am specifically concerned with. I have already noticed that some downloaded music is not playable through Captunes for whatever reason. I have emailed Sennheiser support from within the CapTunes all to ask the same question but I suspect I may be looking elsewhere for new headphones.

 

[dweaver]

Captunes definitely has some format limitations. My wife has an iphone. i have enabled smart pause on my LG G4 through captunes. Let me see if the function works on her iphone. I will post back in about a 1/2 hour with the results.

 

[dweaver]

Ok paired the 550 to my wife 5S and the smart pause works like a charm.

 

[LordEntropy]

Ok paired the 550 to my wife 5S and the smart pause works like a charm.

Does smart pause work if you are only playing music through Apples Music app and not directly through Captunes? Thanks for testing this

 

[dweaver]

I did not even have captunes installed on the iphone. I just used the music app.