Sennheiser is an amazing company

red dragon

Justiceforall
Skilled
I sent an email to Sennheiser few days back regarding some issues with PXC 550 II and the IE80 ( mine is way beyond their 2 years warranty)
Yesterday evening, someone called back from their head office and eventually the call was transferred to a senior engineer.
He was extremely polite, patient and knowledgeable.
He clearly told me that they are having issues with the smart pause sensor and the companion app. But most importantly he explained how exactly do they implement DSP in ANC cans and why their cans do not sound loud compared to Sony ( my guess on the compressor was right)
They don't use any compression in the neutral mode ( 2:1 and very short release time in Club mode etc) Due to this low compression they are not too interested in giving the user manual eqs ( he had a very detailed explanation for this and it was logical)
Another very interesting thing possibly nobody outside Sennheiser knows. They intentionally slow the charging speed drastically from 95-100 percent ( more that 3 hours!!) so that most user charge till 90-95 percent ( the app will show 100 percent, but the last charging light will keep on blinking indicating it's not 100)
This way the battery degrades slowly with time and retains significant capacity after 3 years.
Now the most interesting part, the connector of my left ie80 got damaged during a cable swap. I gave up on it and was expecting some discount on the ie80s. To my surprise, the guy told me that they will ship a new one for free!! ( after I told him I bought ie800 also few years back)
The German manufacturers ( Sennheiser/ Beyerdynamic) are furious with Sony's business strategy with their BTNC cans.
These companies had some agreements couple of years back regarding sending their wireless cans to YouTube reviewers ( all of them were supposed to be returned back) But Sony kind of broke the agreement without informing them ( which ended in April 2020) and gave away hundreds of free samples of XM4s to even small YouTubers ( less than 100k subscribers) for favourable reviews.
I didn't fully understand this part as he was talking in French mostly.
 
gave away hundreds of free samples of XM4s to even small YouTubers ( less than 100k subscribers) for favourable reviews.
I didn't fully understand this part as he was talking in French mostly.
This is how biased youtubers are fueled or born fooling even an actual fail product as a success confusing masses further..
 
These headphones are certainly not cheap. 350 USD is a lot for headphones. I have very limited experience with XM4 but wasted a lot of time with XM3s and they sound exactly the same ( except the trebles are slightly boosted in the default EQ)

Bose got hammered by the same YouTubers for NC700 ( compared to QC35, it sounds slightly worse/ different but they have improved the microphones significantly with fantastic ANC, and overall at least they tried to make a completely different headphones)

Beats gets the same treatment even after improving their sound quality significantly over the years and now both Solo and Studio sounds decent.
If this sound signature is to be criticized, Sony's TOTL, multiple award winning BTNC headphones sound pretty similar.
Accentuated and very slow bass,boosted treble without any clarity or air, completely unnatural sounding mid, the (in)famous punch ( that crazy compression), it can not get worse across all frequencies. The ANC is absolutely top notch though, but this speak to chat is a complete nuisance ( if you hum along with the music, it will pause)
Finding YouTubers with some integrity is getting very difficult these days. Even Zeos finally gave up and told me his XM3 review was not exactly his honest opinion.
It doesn't mean much to others, but a lot to me. As after 10-15 years of experience with headphones/ earphones I thought those are garbage in SQ.
 
Sennheiser actually have great sounding cans but for some reason I always had issues with their earpads. They just never were big or comfy enough on the popular mid range cans unlike the Sony. Later on I realised quite a few people raised the same online. That's what kept me away from making a start with Sennheiser mid range stuff before considering the more expensive ones.

This was before the lockdown. Was about to get a BTNC headset when covid put all my travel on hold so dropped plans altogether.

But a lot of the German brands have good customer service and a lot of it has to do with good ethics
 
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I use Sennheiser PC 8 for VOIP calling and for some reason they have stopped selling it , I needed 2 headphones and dammit can't find it anywhere, not even on official website. Any help?
 
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