Sennheiser PMX80 : Are they complete carp?

[LeifG]

I've just received a Sennheiser PMX80 from an Amazon seller, and I am astonished at the poor sound quality. The sound is muddy, as if I am in a room with lots of echos causing the sound to turn to mush, and the trebles distort. For example, notes on a saxophone will distort (break down) as will the sound of a singer's voice. It's awful. Is this to be expected? The headphone looks identical to the pictures on the Sennheiser site, down to the not quite perfect moulding, and the packaging looks perfect, apart from a typo in French instructions on the back i.e. "3. Bande reflechissante pour une bonne visibilite visibilite et une meilleur securite" (accents omitted). By comparison I have a PX100 and CX500 and both are far superior. Both also have superior moulding of the plastics. The PMX80 is not bad, but its not of the same quality.

Could these be fakes?

When I get home this evening I will compare them to my unused iPod earphones which I expect to be completely carp.

Thanks.

[LFC_SL]

Sennheiser PMX 80 Sport II Review

I picked up mine from Amazon themselves if you want to look at my Flickr snaps

On the question of sound quality, they are not at the forefront at the price range. The same thoughts have been expressed about the predecessor PMX70. I attribute lack of bass primarily to the way the earpieces are angled to the ear, if not other contributory factors

[MikeyD]

I've heard some pretty good things about them. I haven't heard what the sound quality is like, but they seem perfect and got all the proper specs for working out and everything sport.

[LeifG]

Curious. I've now tested them at home alongside the PX100, CX500 and some very cheap Sony earphones. At home they sound quite decent, more bass than the CX500, but less than the PX100, and okay treble. No obvious distortion. The bass could be clearer. They walk over the cheap Sony. So, in a quite environment they sound quite good. Alongside a Sennheiser HD600 ... well, you can guess which wins. I'm not sure what is going on. Background office noise interfering? Bad office day? Who knows. But I think they will do as headphones for running.

I have to say that I find them verging on painful to wear, and far from comfortable. I suspect they are made for smaller heads. Oh well.

[MikeyD]

Check out this link. There are dates for the Sennheiser tour thats going on right now, and you can try all of their headphones and see whats the best value. Also I know there giving lots of pairs away on the tour as well as just signing up to the face book group.

[LeifG]

Just in case anyone is considering these headphones, it seems that the band is designed for one size of head. If like me it does not fit, then it can be extremely painful, and I have a swelling on my right ear caused by the pressure of the speaker housing. I have bent the band, and it fits much better, but it has strain marks, indicating damage. A bad design IMO since it only fits some people. Not bad sound though.

[Spiderkid]

I've got these headphones and found that I had the same trouble with the fit when I first started wearing them (and I don't consider myself to have an abnormally large head!). However I did find that over time the fit improved considerably as the elasticity of the wrap around band changes to adjust to the size of your head. In the first few weeks I did get sore ears, but now when I wear them I hardly know that they're on. Not the best design, but stick with it and they do improve.

[LeifG]

Originally Posted by Spiderkid

Not the best design, but stick with it and they do improve.

When the pain is severe, there is no option to stick with it. Semi-breaking them helped. Anyway, I caught the cable when getting our of my car, and the speaker was pulled out, and then the wires snapped. Not exactly robust!