Customer Reviews

Sennheiser CX300-B In-Ear Stereo Headphone

5 star:		(437)
4 star:		(377)
3 star:		(184)
2 star:		(147)
1 star:		(141)

 

 

I got these for xmas about a month ago. I've since used them about 5 times. This is my third pair of sennheisers, I also own the mx500 earbuds and the px100 headphones. Sennheiser has always had a great sound, and this set is no exception, wonderful for the price range, and the isolation of outside noise is great too.

Thats where the good ends however. These things have the thinnest wires imaginable. Thats no exaggeration. Im amazed you get decent sound quality through them. Must be 40 guage wire. With that said I treated them with the utmost care. Never pulling on the wires, always using a firm but careful grip on the connector piece when removing them from my mp3 player, yet somehow after 5 uses they are already ruined. The sound crackles and fades in and out any time you touch the connector or the wire moves. Are you kidding me? I read other reviews complaining about this and thought "these guys just don't treat their equipment well." Well i'm here to say i won't ever purchase any more sennheiser without seeing the stuff in person. My Earbuds and headphones have a cheap build quality as well, but after a year of daily use they still work. These push the limit and unless you plan on plugging them in 1 time and never moving, i can't reccomend them. If you go to the gym, walk to class, jog, etc, you will set yourself up for frustration of a broken set in no time.

I bought these in ear headphones for my sons birthday, for he informed me that they were supposed to be rated # 1 in the world, or something to that effect. They not only come with several ear cushions so you can custom fit them to your own ear, but if my sons opinion is worth anything, according to him they are absolutely super. On a monetary level, I remain confused as to what the difference is between the CX-300B, and this model CX-300, both currently available on Amazon. Money wise they were just a dollar apart at the time of the writing, (the 300B being the cheaper). With the exception of the price, they appear to be the same model in the picture. I decided to spring for the extra buck and get this model, simply because he had told me to make sure to get the CX-300. I really don't know if there is any difference in them or not, beyond the extra $1.00. Since the 300B currently has over a 1000 reviews, mostly overwhelmingly positive, as oppose to my single one for this model as of this writing, I would swing my vote to the 300B no matter what your own son, or daughter tells you. Just my opinion mind you, but I don't see any difference between them. In any event, they are excellent, comfortable headphones and worth the money for either model...

Update: As is mentioned in the comments section of this review, I do believe that the B in the description stands for simply "black", which means I essentially paid a little more for headphones that appear to be black in any event. Despite that, I still recommend these headphones. I have listened with them myself and they are very loud and clear, and have excellent fidelity...

The Sennheiser CX300-B Earbuds are far from perfect but given the low cost might offer one of the better values in earbuds out there. I needed an extra for myself, and I have been testing a bunch of buds recently. In the end, I decided on these despite their weaknesses because given the low selling cost of less than 50% of list price I thought they were good enough to have as my extra pair.

Now the first thing that people do need to be aware of is that these are asymmetrical, which means one side is longer than the other. This is designed so that the cord can go behind your head. That leads to less pulling on the buds, which leads to less cord noise. All budget earbuds have some level of cord noise, but by wrapping the cord around your ear and behind your head you can minimize it pretty well with these.

The second factor is that the fit of the tips will be very important for comfort. These tips are not the highest quality out there, but they will do. Those with smaller ear canals should be able to get by with the smallest included size. But if those are still not small enough for you you probably will have to step up to the Etymotic Research ER6i Isolator In-Ear Earphones which also have even smaller ear plugs sold seperately. In that case you are talking about 5 times the price, so that's only for those who really have a hard time getting a good fit or are looking for much higher quality.

I burned these in over a few days and overall I am happy with the sound. It's not fantastic, but relative to the price I think the performance is adequate.

The main gripe I have is around the durability of the wires which definitely feel very suspect. Unlike most other sennheisers I have purchased these had no case included, so I used the case from my Sennheiser MX55 Twist-To-Fit In-Ear Stereo Headphones which actually is much better designed for these.

Some people don't like the 90 degree plug, but I prefer it. I could tell already though that the plug will not hold up to a lot of use so handle gently.

These are a good compromise for the price but should not be your primary set of earbuds unless you are not picky at all. If you need something good to commute with and block out the bus or train noise, this is it. If you need something for very small ear canals or want premium quality sound, you will probably do good to consider some other options.

Enjoy.

My wife got me a pair of these earbuds for Christmas last year and I have to say that I loved them. The sound quality is amazing, they're very comfortable, and they block a lot of noise. The noise blocking, like I said, was very impressive. With my stock earbuds, I was often running my mp3 player at 18-25 volume, depending upon outside noise. With these, I was generally running at 5-8. I'm sure that was better for my ears.

So what's with the two star rating? Well, In about 6 months, I went through 4 pairs of these earbuds. They'd work great for about a month and then one of the earbuds would stop producing much sound. I'd have to turn the volume up from 5 to 25 to get anything out of that one earbud and, if I did that, the other one would be so loud that I couldn't use them. They were under manufacturer warranty, so I'd send them back and get a new pair and they'd work great, for about a month. I did this a few times and, like I said, I went through 4 pairs in a span of 6 months. Even though they were still under warranty, I finally got fed up with the process and just tossed 'em out.

So, like I said, they were great for a little while. Unfortunately, I didn't have much luck in terms of reliability.

Sennheiser sets a high bar for earbuds. They are incredibly light, the foam noise blocking pads do an amazing job of reducing exterior noise while not removing you from your surroundings. My wife wears these on the bus and is able to balance not hearing engine noise and TV ads with knowing when her stop comes. The sound quality is excellent, Higher tonal ranges (such as trumpets) are remarkably clear, mid tones (voices)are nicely reinforced and bass response is very good considering the size of the diaphragm. If you looking for boom-y bass look elsewhere but my guess is that if you're looking at Sennheiser you know that diaphragms of this size simply aren't going to make hip hop mixes shine. All in all great earphones at a great price

The sound quality is good, the external noise blocking is good, fit is decent, but durability is non-existent.

After using these all of about 15 times or so, I noticed the sound had become muffled and weak in one of the earbuds. I sent them back to Sennheiser and they sent me a brand new pair under warranty no questions asked (thumbs up on their customer service).

I took extra care with the replacement and handled them as delicately as possible, taking care to never pull on the wires, or bang them around or subject them to any other abuse. However, after a month of so of use, same problem as the first pair. Sound is dead in one earbud and muffled in the other.

Stay away from these headphones. They sound good at first, but fall apart fairly quickly even when treated gingerly. This is a disposable product.

I collect headphones, and am finally getting around to writing a review for some of them on Amazon. I devised a way to test them, using six songs from a range of genres, and a 1 - 10 rating scale for each element I reviewed.

The songs I chose were "The Chain" by Fleetwood Mac, "Every Planet We Reach Is Dead" by Gorillaz, "Concerto No. 26 in D Major" by Handel, "I Know You Are, But What Am I?" by Mogwai, "Afro Blue" by Triplexity, and "The Patient" by Tool. Each song was encoded in 192 kbps or higher Ogg Vorbis and played from an iAudio 7 with all sound effects switched off and the equalizer set to flat. Now to my review...

Sound Quality(7.2/10)

The Chain(7.5/10) - moderately exaggerated bass, but pleasant treble and mid tones. Fairly crisp and smooth. Good instrument separation. Relatively shallow sound stage.

Every Planet(8/10) - nice, clean, punchy bass, with smooth mid tones. Highs are a little bright. Lacking in sound stage.

Concerto(7.5/10) - crisp and smooth mid tones and treble. Instrument separation is decent, but sound stage is very small.

I Know You Are(7/10) - clean, deep bass, pleasant highs, good instrument separation, but narrow sound stage and mediocre mid tones. Slight distortion at times.

The Patient(6/10) - clean but exaggerated bass. Instrument separation decent, but not overly great. Treble is also a bit bright, and sound stage is lacking. Mid tones, however, were smooth and pleasing.

Afro Blue(7/10) - tiny sound stage. But deep, clean bass, smooth highs, and vibrant mid tones. Instrument separation is not excellent, but fair.

Overall Sound(7.2/10) - sound quality on these is solid and above average. The bass is moderately exaggerated, but actually quite clean, despite the exaggeration. Distortion is fairly minimal. The treble is also slightly bright, but not so much that it causes listening fatigue. Mid tones are smooth and vibrant, but bass is where these shine- it is somewhat exaggerated, but otherwise clean and pleasant to listen to.

Their largest weaknesses was sound stage, which was very two-dimensional. Instrument separation is decent, especially for this price range, but don't expect wonders. Good for listening to most musical genres except heavier variations of rock, like progressive metal.

Design(8/10)
These are a cross between earbuds and canalphones, and thus are ultra small and mobile. You can easily stuff them in your pocket along with your PMP and carry them wherever you go. The cord is designed to hang around the back of your neck so that it stays out of the way. The styling is simple, with sort of an understated elegance to it. They are very comfortable, and can easily be warn for hours on end. They also seem fairly durable - as previously indicated, I stuff them in my pocket on the go, and they still function perfectly after having them for almost six months.

Noise Isolation(7/10)
While these don't cancel noise actively, they have a fairly large amount of noise isolation due to the in-ear design. Excellent for blocking ambient, background noise, but I doubt they would be particularly effective at alleviating noise from a jet engine. The noise they leak is minimal, so you won't have to worry about annoying the people around you when using these.

Bottom Line(7.3/10)
I feel these are a good value for the price. Maybe not the best sounding earbuds in this price range, but they still sound good; the best I've personally heard for the money. They're comfortable, durable, and highly mobile. However, opinions on headphones vary wildly according to personal taste, and I always recommend listening to many different pairs before buying(although this isn't always possible with earbuds).

As a commuter I needed a set of good noise canceling earbuds (cover subway sounds). The CX300-B are above average at canceling noise, but unfortunately they create noise whenever the cord touches anything. I'm not sure how anyone could rate them high, as the cord noise is ridiculous and irritating. I found the Klipsch Image S4 to be a superb set, with great noise canceling, and high audio quality. Spend the extra money to get a quality product the first time around, so you don't end up wasting money on the CX300-B.

After much anticipation, due to all the positive reviews, I finally got my pair of cx-300.

The equipment I used with was an iPod nano 3rd gen, which is what I suspect the typical use most people would have for these buds. I did try it against various other equipments that people would probably use with this pair of buds, such as portable cd player (sony antique!), laptops, desktop computer, and for reference with a decent hifi hooked up to headphone amp (meridian 508.24 to an old amp). I have heard professional studio monitors such as Sennheiser HD650 and Grado RS-1, but I am not going to use those for comparison. They just let me know what is possible.

As soon as I put these on, there's an overwhelming amount of bass. Granted, the bass isn't smudged, but it sounds like the frequency response was all bass and not much else. Starting from the mid bass range there's an explosive increase in the response, no matter what I listened to (not track related). I had to go straight into equalizer to tune it down as it got to be rather intolerable.

I did try to listen with equalizer turned off, and the following holds true even after the bass got reduced: the mid range is fairly lacking. It sounds like one of those cheap speakers built to impress: juice up the bass and kick up the treble, and people will be impressed (and people do). The difference is that there's not as much glaring distortion in the high, it's not as ear piercingly forward (only the extreme high is pronounced, the rest of the treble band is actually a bit laid back. in other words, you get a lot of those hissing frequencies but subdued vocal ranges), and the bass is tighter. In these the CX is remarkable. However, to me it's equally unpleasant and listening fatigue will inevitably result in a short amount of time.

In short: the bass is overwhelming, there's a dip in the mid to high range, and the high treble is pronounced. Hmm.. That sounds rather generic and unsatisfying. Where's the amazing audiophile clarity that I keep on reading about? In the midst of the elevated treble and pounding bass, the details are sorely lacking.

Yes, it is better than the iPod headphones, which are truly aweful, and frankly not that hard to surpass. Yet to me this headphone is really only marginally better than some of the other cheaper/free buds, including its Creative twin and a free bud that came with my sansa player. I read plenty reviews/articles about how CX300 compares well with those much more expensive In-Ear-Monitors (from Shure, Etymotic, and Ultimate Ears, etc.) and even beating them. If true, those IEMs must really suck (which I doubt), or this CX's price became the reason for the hype.

Other notes: The stock buds fit me fine and resulted in good seal/noise isolation and strong bass. It's not uncomfortable to wear. The build quality seemed average, thin and slightly rigid cables (can tangle and won't stretch or hang as well as the softer higher quality cables) that's just long enough. No gold plating on the contacts but that's probably not going to matter. The connector is L shaped, for those who care. Cables are asymmetric, which is useful for hanging the buds around your neck when you take them out (you wear it differently than conventional symmetrical wires, with one wire behind your neck rather than hanging in front of it).

The headphone is decent, but you kinda get what you paid for, or I rather think you should expect more for your money. Those other dedicated IEM models may very well be worth the extra money (whose prices came down A LOT, while CX300's went up, making CX300 far less of a value that generated the initial buzz). If tons of bass is your cup of tea, then this does deliver! However, it would be a stretch to rate these as in-ear-monitors. There's hardly anything hi-fidelity or accurate about it, and one must be careful not to start hearing emperor's new clothes.

A little information that will help understand the review. I have a coworker who is the most loud and annoying person that anyone in our office has ever known. That may seem like a stretch, but I can assure you that there is no exaggeration. He laughs a little like Santa Claus, except instead of a jolly Ho Ho Ho we get a mind numbingly dumb Ho Ho Ho from the annoying coworker (from here on known as AC). The Hos from AC each get progressively louder.

On to the headphones. These headphones block everything except the loudest of the Hos from AC's laugh when the volume is turned to a normal level. I'm sure they would block out everything if I turned the volume up, but I like my hearing. After one of AC's tirades of idoicy a normal coworker called. I didn't even hear the phone ring, but could see the flashing of the message button. When I answered the phone he asked if I had just heard AC's rant. After my response of "What rant" he asked for the link to these headphones.

The headphones fit comfortably in the ear and sound good. Bass may seem low if the ear bud isn't inserted far enough into the ear. The cord is long enough that you should be able to have your mp3 player at your waist, but not any further than that.