Customer Reviews

Sennheiser HD201 Lightweight Over-Ear Binaural Headphones

5 star:		(348)
4 star:		(224)
3 star:		(100)
2 star:		(34)
1 star:		(33)

 

 

This product is one of the best bang for the buck items I have ever owned. They may end up costing me a bundle, however.

The HD201 came to my attention after reading a little debate on headphones on a bulletin board I frequent. Someone recommended the HD201s as being phenomenal for the money.

I'm not an audiophile, but I do enjoy music and computer games where sound is important, so I thought I'd give them a try. The only other "cans" I've used have been the cheapos that come with portable CD players and a pair of Coby CV-200s that I bought seeking something cheap that would be better than the poor quality phones I have had in the past. The Coby units were a minor improvement, but bass rumbled like crazy.

Enter the HD201s. These closed phones (they cover the ear with a foam pad instead of sitting on top of them) have a padded plastic headband, a long 10' cord that terminates in a mini jack (it comes with a 1/4" adapter). The earpieces have some swivel to them, and they fit my rather large head and ears just fine. Comfort level was as good as any headphone I was used to. I plugged them in to my computer (with a decidedly basic 5.1 soundcard) and began to listen.

The sound is jaw-dropping if you are used to the garbage that ships with portable music devices. I popped in some CDs, from classical to metal, and the lack of rumble in the bass and the clear highs were a treat. Remember, I'm no audiophile (yet) but even to my tin and uneducated ear, the difference was easy to hear. Violins in "Adagio for Strings" were strong and clear, gone was the low rumble in the deep bass of Zep, and I even began to truly note the shortcomings of the audio in some MP3 and "oldies" recordings. Sound in games was great, and I caught some nuances in first person shooters that improved my play.

I was now aware of the shortcomings of all the other cheapo headphones I had used, including the Coby unit, that until now I had considered "good enough". They just flat out sound better across the full range of sound, from low to high.

I was a bit surprised that I could max out the volume on my computer without making the HD201s too painful...perhaps they are designed with more power in mind than my system delivers. My portable CD player drives them to about the same volume levels, loud, but not ear shattering. They might not satisfy those looking for super booming bass or earsplitting volume, but perhaps an amplifier might change this.

I can't give your an expert review of the HD201s, nor translate what the tech specs on the box mean. I can tell you that for the price, I am deeply impressed with the quality of sound. I would be impressed if they cost a few times as much.

A true bargain, but I worry that this might be the launching point in to a world of audio gear that I can scarce afford. If these things sound this good, perhaps I really need headphones made by Grado or the high end Sennhieser stuff, a new soundcard, probably an amp, and about the system in the living room.....

In summary this headphone has one general strength:
1) Decent sounding depending on your tastes and needs, given the price, and given the kind of sound you get from most other closed headphones of similar price.

However, the Sennheiser HD201 has 4 important weaknesses:
1) Has very low sensitivity: it takes a lot of volume/power to bring them to satisfactory or normal loudness levels.
2) It's a bit bright, bass is slightly lacking, making them sound slightly thin or "weak".
3) Has a tendency to be SSSSSSSibilant with some female vocals.
4) For a closed headphone, doesn't isolate that much.

Weakness #1 is critical if you are considering these headphones for listening to music from your laptop or portable players. If that's the case, it's very likely you won't be happy with the sound even at max volume. These headphones are REALLY hard to bring up to normal loudness levels. If you will use them with the headphone out of a receiver, or maybe with an electric piano (as I am), then you are probably ok.

Weakness #2 is very important if you are what's called a "bass-head". These headphones won't give you slamming rich bass. Bass is (slightly) on the weak side.

Weakness #3 is critical if you listen to a lot of female vocals, and you find it particularly annoying when your playback system enhances the letter "S" as in SSSSSSSay, SSSSSSilver, SSSSSSpoon, preCCCCCiSSSSSe, etc.

Weakness #4 is important if you are expecting these headphones to block all noises around you, you might be slightly dissapointed, it does block a bit but not too much.


If you don't care about isolation I would highly recommend the Koss KSC-75 instead of these Sennheisers. If you do want a closed headphone (either you want some isolation from outside noise, or you don't want to bother anyone around you with your music), and are willing to spend a little more, you should consider the Sennheiser HD280 or maybe the Audio Technica AT500.

The above sounds like a massive critique, and I'm giving it 3 stars because really for music these are not that great sounding headphones to me. However, these headphones sound relatively OK compared to how boomy or treble-happy are most other cheap headphones, whether open or closed. Compared to that trend, these are relatively decent. Yet, compared to other very inexpensive headphones known for surprisingly good sound (e.g. Koss KSC-75) these are not that great really.

PS. Another suggestion in general, if you are looking for any headphone related information you must check www.Head-fi.org, it's really the place online for anything headphone-related.

Basically, I needed a new pair of headphones after I got tired of the Sony MDR-V150s that my roommate lent me. I did not like the idea of having the "cups" right ON my ear, and honestly, they did not sound all that great so I decided to do some searching. I looked at Koss(I did not like any of their models) AKG( I love them, but, for $100, I did not get involved with them.) So, I decided to search some more..

I totally forgot about Sennheiser headphones. I heard them once at an ultra high end home stereo shop in Tampa, Florida and they sounded damn good. So when I saw these for less than $20, I decided to buy them..

First of all, they arrived sooner than usual. I put them on and I noticed something...I could not hear any outside noise. These "cans" really kept outside sound out. They sat comfortably on my head and the "cups" covered my ears. Score!! Now, for the sound..

I listen to a lot of music that I have on my pc. I have a Dell Dimension E310 with the ORIGINAL sound card and I have the Mp3s on Musicmatch WITHOUT any equalization. First of all, I chose tracks at random, all kinds and I heard things that I never heard before. I noticed tiny "cracks" on Avenged Sevenfold's "Seciond Heartbeat." Something I did not notice with the Sony's. I listened to all types of music and found the sound TOTALLY clean. No hissing, no muddy or "sour" midrange. Female vocals sounded great. Even the low end sounded great, specially with house and trance music that have a lot of heavy bottom end to them.

BUT, I decided to try them on my Panasonic SA-XR55, which is a digital receiver, and I decided to "crank" it up. As I reached the higher volumes, the bass was lost, it sounded weak and muddy, but that WAS when I was pushing the receiver to its limits.

These "cans" are great for listening to music at REGULAR volumes. If you want a pair of headphones that you can crank them up loud so they can sound like a car audio bass challenge, go for something like the AKGs.

Great "cans" for the money, I TOTALLY recommend them.

So here we go:

Pros:

They fit great, with even a leatherret piece on the top band of the headphones to keep things cushy.

Great sound isolation. I can't hear squat once I put them on WITHOUT music.

Gorgeous sound at "normal" levels. I do not care if you listen to Rap, Christian, House or Trance, you will get a great sound out of these.

Built very well. They look like they do not move or swivel in the picture, but they do, and are very comfortable.

Cons:

NOT made for LOUD listening.

Not really digging the double cord that comes out of the headphones. Single sided would be better, but that is just me.

And to be honest, I cannot find anything else wrong with them.

So, if you just want to get some "cans" that are great sounding, without breaking your wallet, get these.

Trust me.

You will thank me later.

I almost never ever review items unless I am really surprised with their quality. And that can go both ways. Unfortunately it is not in a good way this time around.

I bought these when I needed a second pair of headphones because I took my first pair (Philips SBC HP170) to use at work and wanted to leave a pair at home. Well, I ended up rarely using them at home until recently I decided to give them a shot.

I took them to work and have been listening to them every day for the last 3 days, about 6 hours on average (I'm a software developer).

At first I thought that something was wrong with my sound output because I had to crank up the volume to FULL on the system and take it down a notch from there. They have very poor sensitivity it seems. Now I understand why I could never get strong enough sound from my laptop either a while back. I just ignored it that time.

Secondly, I turned up the bass in WinAmp's equalizer because these headphones barely have any bass response. However, all that did was muddy up the sound, didn't really do much with the bass. No matter how I played with the equalizer I couldn't get these to work right. Now it got to the point where I'm listening to music that I used to listen to on my old headphones and I HAD to stop what I was doing because the poor quality of these headphones made me so frustrated that I couldn't focus on work!

I unplugged the HD201s and plugged back in my old cheap, (I think they cost me 17 bucks at RiteAid a few years ago), Philips HP170s. Wow, I'm back to normal now!

Overall I would definitely agree with the review named "Not loud enough, sibilant, slightly bright." It's rare that I get frustrated (or happy) enough with a product to take the time to review it but this is one of those times.

Good luck!

I'm listening to music on my newly purchased HR201s right now and I'm pretty happy with them.

I wanted a cheap pair of headphones to keep around my office and the standard iPod ear buds weren't cutting it -- after an hour or so in my ears, they really started to hurt.

I would describe the sound on the 201s as gentle and smooth. The bass seems to be rolled off quite a bit (though this could be an impedance mismatch with my iPod, I don't know) but the mids and highs are, while not even, very pleasant. I think I'll be able to listen to music for hours at a time without getting fatigued -- they may also come with me to the local internet coffee shop on weekends.

I tend to dislike cheap, closed cans because the bass is usually boosted beyond all reason. These are much more reasonable. I tend to listen to modern jazz and classical but have been known to throw in Autechre, Squarepusher, Underworld, Nine Inch Nails, and others and feel that this is a reasonable choice for $20 even if your music is mostly electronic or bass-heavy.

hd 201 fit over the ear. hd 202 are smaller and cushion sits on the ear; my personal comfort would be slightly in favor of hd 201. hd 201 filters out a little less exterior noise but people watching the TV will not be able to hear your music on either in same room.hd 201 has volume, bass, & treble set much lower than hd 202, this can be almost equalized by changing your volume, bass, and treble settings with your soundcard in computer. When listening to computer for over an hour I prefer hd201 due to comfort and less moisture in ear retention. I do not know if the hd 201 would be appropriate for someone not using a sound card to adjust treble/bass. Cord is long on both which is good for computer listening.Both are fairly sturdy & will probably last, each is plugged into its computer in den to avoid TV problems for the family. A very good family purchase decision. probably really 4+ on sound quality but I don't have $100 sets to compare it too.

I've 3 headphones that cost $ 175, $250 and $ 325.
I bought this less than $ 20 Sennheiser HD201 for a gift and i'm trying just to know If i was doing a good gift, the result: I need to buy other pair for me. Since then I am not use anymore those expensive headphones. Iam thinking to sell it
The Sennheiser HD201 it a fantastic pair of headphones, the sound and isolation is perfect and very light too
Buy it, you're not going to dissapoint
It's the best pair of headphones I ever use incluiding those that cost $ 300 or more

Carlos GJ
Miami FL.

I just bought these headphones after looking at some noise canceling ones as well as a few others that were similar to this. I bought this pair because of good reviews from amazon as well as from a headphones site.

These headphones sounds great! There is rich bass and the sound is full. It sounds just as good as a my speakers I have hooked up to my computer with a subwoofer. I plugged in these headphones and then put in the ipod speakers and these are a million times better. The only thing that I like about the ipod speakers is how small and convenient they are. Thus for short trips, working out at the gym or walking around campus, I probably will continue to use the white ipod earbuds. But when I go on longer trips, on flights, and even in my room when I can't have sound because of my roommate, I will use these headphones.

They are comfortable as well. I have a pretty normal sized-big head and they fit well. As far as the guy who says they didn't fit his head, I don't see how that is possible. This is because you can adjust the headphones by pulling them out. So unless he has a really small head, one on which the headphones wouldn't reach his ears, then I don't know how they couldn't fit him.

Oh and if you are looking for a pair of headphones that blocks out background noise, these will do the trick. I asked my roommate to talk and make noises and I could barely here him if at all! So on an airplane, I would imagine these would be perfect.

All in all, these are a great pair of headphones and at a price of less than 20 dollars, they are a great deal!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

I listen to music frequently, and though I could not honestly consider myself a TRUE audiophile (an audiophile being a person willing to spend $100 on a certain type of speaker cable for "maximum audio quality), I am definetly familiar with audio equipment that sounds good. I spent $100+ on an Audigy 2 soundcard, a card that has made a significant impact on the enjoyability of my listening experiences on my comp, and $200 on a decent set of speakers, and those are the two largest audio purchases I've made in a long time.

I've used several different "studio-style" headphones over the past few years, and while the HD201s are not at the top of my list, they make a close second. The bass isn't quite as powerful as I'd hope it'd be, but it was actually more powerful than I expected (high hopes, low expectations, that's me). Treble's fine, though it can be a bit ringy at times.

I mainly got these to:

1) Listen to music sometimes at night when everyone is asleep.
2) Listen to music at work during break.
3) Listen to myself practicing guitar, so I don't drive everyone in my household nuts.

If you need headphones for any of the above reasons, or similar ones, I'd suggest giving these a shot. They're durable, comfortable, and have better sound than most anything else you'd get for ~$20.

I have now been the owner of both the HD201s and HD202s.

I tried to research as much as I could but I would never get a straight answer anywhere.

Well I am going to change that.

Plain and simple: the HD201s are greater than the HD202s.

The level of comfort and sound quality in the 201s outdo the sound quality and lack of comfort in the 202s.

Not to mention the 201's are cheaper.

The 201s are easily built tougher.

It is official the 201s are better. Message me if you have any questions.