symbiosis's Full Review: Sennheiser Hd201 Headphones
I have been searching for a decent pair of cheap headphones for a while now. What I am searching for is a pair of headphones with decent sound, comfort, durability, and appearance, for less than $30. So far, the best I have tried are the street-style cans that came with my $40 Panasonic MP3 CD player. These headphones would probably sell for around $10-$15, if sold separately. Since I am budgeting twice that much for cheap headphones, I feel like I should be able to find a pair that sounds better.
So far, I have tried the Koss Spark Plugs, which sounded horrible, and the Sony clip-on style MDR-Q22LP, which were alright, but still not better than the phones that were included with my CD player.
I searched both far and wide, and ran into some favorable reviews of the Sennheiser HD201 headphones. Could these be the best cheap headphones? Since I could not find any reviews of this model on Epinions, I decided to order a pair and give them a shot. Here is what I found:
Construction
The HD201s seem to be well built for the price. The main parts of the headphones are plastic, but it feels like a very durable plastic. These phones appear to be nicely designed, with no obvious weak points. I think these should hold up quite respectably under normal use. The cord is 10 feet long, and is of a reasonable thickness. The cord splits into a Y, with one wire going to each earpiece. The termination is a gold-plated mini-plug, which is the size that is found on most portable devices. A mini-plug (1/8 inch) to full size (1/4 inch) adapter is included.
Appearance
The HD201 is one of the better looking headphones that I have seen, with a modern style and black and silver coloration. They are a circumaural (around the ear) design, so the earpieces are a bit large. I tested these with my highly scientific and amazingly accurate Dorkiness meter (sometimes referred to as a Dorkometer), and found that these had a reading of Mildly Dorky, meaning that those of us who are exceptionally attractive or brave could wear these out in public.
Noise Blocking
These cans do offer some noise blocking ability, since they are a closed design. I do not think they block out much noise, probably a few decibels at most. So while these would be an acceptable choice for an annual airplane ride, they would probably not be a good choice for people who fly a lot, or have other reasons to need to block out ambient noise.
Comfort
These headphones get high marks in the comfort department. The ear cushions are constructed of soft foam with a pleather covering. If you are not familiar with pleather, it is a cheap synthetic material that somewhat resembles leather, although it is softer. The plastic headband has soft foam padding attached to the bottom side. The headband also has a good range of adjustment, and the earpieces can move a little bit from side to side. The HD201s are pretty light, weighing in at 165g, or about 6 ounces. The overall effect is really quite comfortable. I could easily wear these headphones for several hours without feeling any major discomfort.
Sound
After seeing how well designed these headphones look, and experiencing how comfortable they are, I really wanted to like the sound. This time I did not cheat, and actually waited until they had burned in for about 20 hours.
I used these headphones mainly with my CD and MP3 players, since I think many people will be using these with portable devices. I also did some listening through the headphone jacks of my receivers.
What I found was slightly disappointing. The sound was lacking in accuracy, for a number of reasons.
First, the lowest frequencies were muted. Yeah, I could tell that there were drums, but there was no impact. Similarly, bass guitar was present, but not as powerful as it should be, and somewhat higher pitched than normal.
The mid-range sounds were acceptable, although somewhat weird. Guitars sounded pretty good, although somewhat uneven. If you think of the overall guitar sound as a rainbow, a few of the colors were too bright, and a few were kind of hard to see. This was also true of vocals, especially male vocalists. Voices just did not seem to have the proper range, and seemed to be slightly over-emphasized during some notes, and slightly lacking in others.
Higher frequency sounds were fairly accurate, with a good amount of detail. For example, cymbals sounded good, with admirable definition and clarity.
Sadly, I think the sound of these headphones is still outshined by the headphones that came with my CD player. While they are the best cheap, included caliber headphones that I have experienced, I still think that aftermarket headphones costing 2-3 times as much should sound better.
Other Considerations
These phones have an impedance of 24 Ohms and a sensitivity of 108 dB. What this means in practice is that they are fairly easy to power with any portable device. They were more than loud enough using either my portable CD player or MP3 player.
The frequency response is rated from 21-18,000Hz. So no, they are not going to reproduce all of the audible range. There is not really that much in most music that is lower than 21Hz or higher than 18,000Hz, and many of us cannot hear much higher than that anyway. I suspect that many cheap headphones would also not reproduce the whole range if they were tested using a +/- 3dB tolerance. (Translation: while many cheap headphones claim 20-20,000 Hz, the actual amount of sound they are producing in the extreme high and low frequencies is probably not loud enough to hear anyway.)
Total distortion is less than 0.7%. Most other similar priced headphones do not list this specification anywhere; so many of them are probably worse than this. As a totally unfair comparison, my Sennheiser HD580s are rated at less than 0.1% distortion.
Overall
The Sennheiser HD201s are not the Holy Grail of cheap headphones. They get excellent marks in appearance, comfort, and construction. Their biggest weakness is an uneven overall sound, most notably lacking in low bass. The closed design will block out some outside noise, and will prevent music from leaking out to annoy other people.
I would recommend that if you do decide to try the HD201s, purchase them from a store with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. Many people are not going to be as picky about the sound as I am. If you try these and like the sound, you are probably going to love these headphones. If you have a little bit more money to spend, consider the AKG K 26 P instead.
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