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List Price: $29.95
Sale Price: $24.42
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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.....
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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 it's really the place online for anything headphone-related.
Buy Sennheiser HD201 Lightweight Over-Ear Binaural Headphones Now
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.
Read Best Reviews of Sennheiser HD201 Lightweight Over-Ear Binaural Headphones Here
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.
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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!
