A jewel amongst a lot of junk out there

The Sennheiser PX-100 is an inexpensive open-air headphone designed for portable use.

This is a folding headphone, which comes with a nifty hard plastic case. To use the case, the headphone earpads fold flat. And you bend the headband at two joints. The headband also has some notches which hold the headband itself into a locked position when folded properly. You can then wind the cord around circumference of the case in the provided grooves. It’s a bit fiddly to do so, but if you know you will be traveling far, it will provide lots of protection against crushing the headphones. Even the cord has a little rubber ring that slides up and down so that you can bind the two earpiece wires together so that they stay together as you wind up the cord. Nice touch.

The headphone itself is a pretty simple looking set, nothing fancy here. The look is simple and modern. Silver and black plastic. The earpads and headband padding are dealer replaceable according to the manual. The earpads are thin, but the whole thing is ultra comfortable, lightweight. Even though the earpads rest on your ears, I have worn these headphones for a whole day straight without discomfort. I wear a 7.5 size hat, so my head is pretty big and most other headphones feel like a clamp around my head after a few hours.

Now, the best part……..the sound. Wow. These sound way better than almost everything in this price range ($50 USD). They are just a tad elevated in the bass, but the sound is punchy, extended sound even out of most portables with its easy to drive 32 ohm rating. This is a headphone that is accurate, but provides just a little bit of excitement for rock and pop music. The midrange is smooth, and the highs are nicely detailed, enough so that you are going to the imperfections in your 128kbps MP3’s. Sometimes I think the sound is a bit grainy sounding, but it’s definitely nothing objectionable. Even compared to pricier full size headphones like the Grado SR60, this headphone can hold its own.

The only downside is that these headphones leak a lot of sound, so everybody around you are going to be able to hear your music too. So they are not suitable if you are in a noisy place or don’t want to annoy your co-workers in an office setting. Other than that, I have never been so pleased with a set of headphones for the price I paid. I may someday buy that set of Grado SR225’s as an upgrade, but I think these provide an amazing amount of accuracy, sound quality, in a comfortable, stylish package.