Sennheiser Consumer AudioIE 200 In-Ear Audiophile Headphones - TrueResponse Transducers for Neutral Sound, Impactful Bass, Detachable Braided Cable with Flexible Ear Hooks - Black

As someone who has always had a deeper appreciation for high quality audio but only just recently started getting into “audiophile” level stuff (which these aren’t, this is intro to audiophile), I can honestly say I’ve never owned a better, more comfortable set of ear buds or IEMs. I’ve had many of Apples offerings, Beats, SkullCandy, and KST to name a few. This blows all of them out of the water.First off the fit. They fit my ears so well I almost forget I’m wearing them. I’ve always found AirPods and AirPod Pros very comfortable to wear for extended periods of time, but putting either set in after these is uncomfortable. They seal well in my ears and come with enough bud bits that they should fit most people very well. I also have not noticed what I call “ear creep,” where the buds back out of your ear over time. Every set of buds I’ve ever had back out of my ears over time, especially while eating or chewing gum, but these made it through a couple meals today with no noticeable ear creep. I keep trying to push them back in out of habit but find they’re still fully seated.I was not super impressed with the audio quality at first. They were a little tinny and had little low end. It was there, but hard to hear. Then I remembered the dual position ear tips and reseated them farther down the stem. That made a huge difference. The bass is there now and the balanced audio I was promised is there. The highs sing, the bass and sub bass are present without being overwhelming, and the mids are not harsh. I know these are geared more for average consumers and do not have a truly flat EQ, but to my ears after listening to my studio monitor over ears these are close.I wanted a good set of wired headphones to use with my old iPods as I didn’t have a wired set of buds. They had to be comfortable, sound good, and do a decent job blocking out outside noise. These check all the boxes.These Sennheisers are good enough that you will notice a difference in sound quality between different playback devices playing the same music. I can tell the difference between my iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPod Classic 6th Gen, and iPod classic 5th gen. The hype about the 5th gen’s sounding the best is real. There is a noticeable difference with these headphones.Going from these back to AirPod Pros is almost painful with the drop in high end frequencies and boost in low end. I typically do not listen to music with my AirPods though, just using them primarily for audiobooks and hands free texting and phone calls when out and about, which is fine. They are more convenient than these in that aspect, being wireless and having a microphone, but for a good sit and listen these Sennheisers are amazing.I’ve had these for a day so I cannot attest to the durability or quality issues other users have had, but if I have any issues I will update the review.Overall, I am impressed with these buds and look forward to many hours of listening enjoyment with them. As a musician I appreciate that they can pull double duty on stage as they are technically IEMs, so I can also replace my uncomfortable IEMs at the same time with these.

If you don’t know what you’re getting in to, which is an investment in to your relationship with music, be ready for a bit of frustration from a product that demands more from you than a pair of AirPods.I’m gonna try to balance the technical with the practical here for people who maybe don’t know a lot about the megas and gigas but appreciate hifi sound when they hear it and are maybe feeling lost on this journey to find what they’re looking for in headphones.If you can’t tell the difference between $20 apple earbuds and $10 airport skull candies, then the value of these might be lost on you. But if you’re interested in exploring hifi sound and learning what the hype is about this is a nice forgiving entry level product. They offer a wider “soundstage” than most headphones you’re probably used to (in other words hearing the separation between instruments and feeling like they are taking up more room).There’s a couple big “BUT’s” here - those being that…1) They are IEM (In-ear monitors) which means they are going to be LIMITED in the width of soundstage they can offer because they are going right in to your ears and are bypassing parts of your ear anatomy (all those curves in your ear) that have evolved to separate and amplify the way you hear sounds. That means that you’re getting a pretty straight forward and isolated sound that may almost sound unusual. Some people like that and swear it’s a superior listening experience. Others say that over-ear headphones create a much better sound because they can create a more natural sense of space and actually interact with more of your ear anatomy. I tend to fall in the later camp but I do enjoy these more for specially one thing, which brings me to my next point….2) The quality of these headphones is directly correlated to the quality of your sound files. Spotify streaming will likely sound no better on these than any other headphones because the bottle neck for sound quality there is Spotify, not your headphones, because Spotify compresses their music a ton. Apple Lossless will provide you with a great listening experience on these, but then you’re in the Apple ecosystem with AirPods that offer AI upscaling and artificial Spatial Audio so you’re better off sticking with Apple hardware at that point. So then what are these actually good for?For me, it’s listening to my old school iPod. For you it’s probably that or another analog portable music player like an MP3, Cassette or CD player. And that’s part of this journey in to the hifi sound hobby - getting past streaming services and getting in to CD’s that give you 16bit FLAC or MP3’s at 320 kbps audio on devices that can’t stream and don’t support Bluetooth (which also causes sound compression). And that’s the sweet spot for a product like these - portable, entry level hifi, analog listening devices that don’t have enough power to drive a hifi set over ear cans. That’s really where you’ll get your moneys worth from these. On an iPod gen 7, or one running rock box, these things SHINE.Now in THAT segment there’s a few other things to consider here. The cable that comes with these is actually pretty junky, you’ll hear it in your ears when the cable scrapes against your shirt, and they can sometimes cut out or pick up interference. The good news is these have a modular design and the MMCX cable can be replaced and upgraded for not a lot of money. Still an inconvenience so I’m taking off a star for that.Sound signature is flat meaning it doesn’t inherently add treble or bass, which is by design so you have more room to customize the sound to your liking. That’s what to expect from all hifi category headphones. You are meant to adjust the EQ balance yourself through a DAC or on your device itself.If you found this useful and you’re entering the hifi category or have been in it for a while and are going from over-ear to IEM’s, these are a good entry level product to get you in to it.