Proving Hi-Fi is indeed portable

Author's Rating:

Pros: Excellent sound, relatively compact form.

Cons: Background noise leak-in, iffy comfort, dated look.

The Bottom Line: 
The Senn PX-100 is a design any serious personal audio fan should intently consider, even if it's a bit short on the looks.

Author's Review
The Sennheiser PX-100 has been in my stable of portable headphones for about a year now, and have proven to me on many occasions that they were indeed a worthy addition. They offer much more than acceptable sound quality for their size and their collapsible design makes toting them around when not in use a breeze.

Their most important quality is their sonic reproduction, of course, and in this regard the PX-100s would be hard pressed in disappointing anyone. As with many of Sennheiser's open-air designs, the PX-100s have a very balanced, vibrant and detailed sound, sacrificing very little in the any part of the audio spectrum, nor overindulging in specific parts--like mid-bass or frequencies lower--as I've found in other headsets. Their sound is quite open and relatively unencumbered by its driver size, providing a wide soundstage and fairly good imaging, at least as far as headphones go, small or large. Sonically, they are more than befitting of the Sennheiser name.

I've found that they work quite well with any number of portables. I've regularly used them with my old Nomad Zen, a number of iRiver products, my 3G iPod, and even my HP2155 PDA, and they have never ceased to satisfy. Even my ancient Sony D10 portable CD player has seen time with this headset. Always with these portables have the PX-100s never disappointed. At times, I've even used them on my computer and on my home audio and video gear; it's only here in this environment where the PX-100s are definitely finding themselves out of their element, mainly because there are far better headphones more suited for use in such a setting.

As with any open-design headphone, ambient background noise will be an issue since there's no real measure of sealing out noise as one would find with a closed-cup headphone design. About the only way to cut out background noise is to increase the volume level. Even then, it's not an entirely successful strategy, and will only ultimately lead to the potential damaging of your hearing. And with any open-design, there's also the problem with leakage of sound from the headset as well, though with the relative size of this portable set most volume levels should not present much of a nuisance to others except in the quietest of settings.

From a comfort standpoint, the PX-100's over-the-head, on-ear design is only somewhat comfortable to me; I've found that their small driver cups--roughly 1 1/2" in diameter--centralizes the the headphone's natural compression pressure (the force that keeps them on one's head) on my ears rather than evenly distributing it across my entire ear like a larger cup would. I admit I have rather largish ears so that may be my undoing. But similar sized sets I've used in the past from Sony have not had the same effect. However, my wife also uses a set of the PX-100s with her iPod and with her small ears has never had any comfort problems.

A couple of areas I've noted that might also be a cause for my discomfort is the thickness of the foam pads on the ear cups, and the fact that the cups hinge for storage. The pads on the PX-100s feel to me to be a bit thin; I can easily feel the driver structure underneath them on my ears if I don't exactly position the cups centered on the opening to the ear canal. The ear cups rotate forward in order to hinge them to fit into the supplied storage case when the headphones are collapsed; this same feature sometimes makes it more cumbersome to get the PX-100 ear cups to comfortable sit on my ears, at least without of bit of fidgeting for the best position. On the other hand, the use of addition foamed padding on the headband is a nice and comfortable touch, far better than the effort of my only previous collapsible headphone set, a now ancient Koss design, from many years before.

Since headphones like the PX-100 are meant be worn outdoors in full public view, I suppose some mention must be made about their look. Aesthetically and stylistically the PX-100s are a bit of an acquired taste; not exactly garish, their black and blueish-silver color scheme has more than a hint of 1980s tech to their look. The headband itself is a composite of brushed stainless steel and black plastic, with the Sennheiser name and logo stenciled across the very top (must be for the benefit of super hi-res satellites, I guess).

For collapsing, the band hinges at points on each side that would be about at the top of one's ears or just slightly above; the hinges themselves are reminiscent of those found on eyewear, and also appear to be stainless steel. The outer surface of the ear cups are a spoked wheel design, similar to something you'd find on a car, or at least a toy one. One other small touch is a little rubber slider band integrated into the connection cable; with it you can cinch up the separate wires leading to the left and right ear cups. WHY you want to is still beyond me, but it's there to use if one wanted to. In my eyes, the overall styling of the PX-100 is definitely dated should a person be concerned about such things, but then how often does one look at themselves when they're actually using their headphones? I don't recall if Sennheiser supplied a 1/4" headphone adaptor plug with the unit, mostly because I've got so many of those converter plugs already so if another one found their way into the drawer where I keep most of them I wouldn't know one way or the other.

All in all, the Sennheiser PX-100s offer excellent performance for the price, and allow the user to experience sonic fidelity at a very high level virtually anywhere. While for me they aren't the most comfortable design around, others may just as easily find that they are perfectly fine to use and live with, just as my wife has discovered. Recommended.