My Sennheiser HD201 headphones

This review is quite overdue, I think I got them on Diwali, which would be the end of October, if I remember right. My brother had come to Delhi, for Diwali, and decided that he would be buy my parents and I each one gift. Apart from the fact that Mom totally ripped him off, after he offered to buy her some jewelry

More to the point, I had decided I want earphones. Now, I had done a bit of research, I had set my sights on the Creative EP-630, a set of in-the-ear earphones. I had decided not to take standard earphones. I wanted either in-the-ear or circumaural (the ones that surround your ear completely). Anyway, they were for about Rs. 1200-1300, I think. I had read the reviews, and wanted to try them out bigtime. Unfortunately, when I called up most of the retailers, I found that it was out of stock for some reason. Personally I consider that mega-stupid, because Diwali was around the corner. So, then I had to start my search afresh.

I decided to look into Sennheiser, mainly because I have heard a lot about them. So, when I eventually stumbled across some, in some (literally) underground store, found that both circumaural and in-the-ear ones were pretty costly. I didn’t want my bro to have to shell out more than 1500 bucks. Eventually, I walked into a Mobile Store outlet, and found, wonders of wonders, a pair of Sennheisers for 1300 bucks. They were circum-aural ones, but I really didn’t care.

I’m an audiophile, I  care nought for aesthetics. It’s the sound that matters to me.

Instantly after we bought them, I tried them on, and I was in aural nirvana. So let me do the review properly.

The package includes 1 set of HD201 earphones (d’oh) and a 3.5mm to 6.3mm jack, which just goes on to show that these cans (as circumaural earphones are sometimes called), mean business. The slight problem I had, was that the length of the wire, which is 3m long. It has to be doubled up and kept like that with a twisty bit of plastic. And another thing, the wire is all oxygen-free copper, which again shows how serious Sennheiser are about sound.

The cans look pretty plain, but that’s how they’re meant to be, as inconspicous as possible. The strength of the plastic is pretty good. The headband is obviously extendable, but I have doubts about the durability of the extendable bit. Seems a bit weak. My head, being enormous (physically, not otherwise), needs that extendable thingy. The cans fit quite snugly around my ears, but then again, different people might have different results, but I guess they’ll be OK. You can also swiwel and adjust the orientation of the cans along 2 axes, so even martians should feel comfy wearing these, assuming they like music.

And have 3.5 mm jacks on their spacecraft…sorry

Anyway, my iPod nano does have a 3.5mm jack, so I can tell you that the sound is blissful. Actually, let me be straight with you. When I first fired them up, I was slightly underwhelmed by the bass response. But gradually I got used to it. Then I realised that what my stereo system at home, with its V-groove bass and treble enhancement, and its equaliser do, is that they just morph the sound into something which it isn’t. An audio identity crisis, if you will. They accentuate the bits of the spectrum, and reduce the vocals, to make the sound more powerful.

What the Sennheisers did, is turn me from a part time audiophile, to full blown out one. Now, even at home, on my double woofer stereo, the enhancements circuits are gathering dust. I’ve started to appreciate music as the artist meant it to be.

Getting back to the Sennheisers, the sound is perfect, including the bass. Because the cans have very effective passive sound proofing, a great part of ambient noise around you is eliminated, and whatever remains is quite muffled. Mum hates this, obviously, but I love it. What this effectively means, is that you begin to notice those instruments and sounds that are hidden, at a very low volume in the track. Normal stereos can’t play that variety of sounds that effectively, most of the sound gets dispersed around, but with the cans, they are delivered right into your ear, and the sound is very crisp and clear.

Honestly, each drum, snare, guitar, bass, everything, comes through clearly. Apart from the sound-proofing the excellent magnetic drivers in the cans also must be playing a really important part in this. They have an amazing THD (total harmonic distortion) level of <0.7%, which in plain English, means that the sound distortion is very low.

Apart from the sound, one more great thing about near total background noise elimination, is very accurate stereo reproduction. This means that when some sound plays in the left ear channel, you really can make out very, very distinctly, that it’s from the left. In fact, this was a cause of some worry for me. At first, I thought these cans were defective, because I was sometimes getting less sound from one ear. Eventually I learned it was just the track which played more sound in one ear…:-P