Sennheiser - PXC 550-II Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-the-Ear Headphones - Black

The Good Build Quality - These feel like a nice pair of headphones. They're hefty in weight and seem like a premium product. Sound Quality - These sound really nice out of the box with no EQ. Flat and neutral with an excellent level of clarity at all frequencies. I was hearing details I wasn't noticing in my music before and the sound stage is nice and airy. Noise Cancellation - The noise cancellation works well. I like the dedicated ANC switch. It makes it easy to turn the feature on and off. The Not so Good Volume Level - These are a very quiet set of headphones. I noticed I had to turn up my system volume and the headphone volume to get it to where I feel like it sounded good. On other headphones I turn my volume to around 50%. On these I needed to turn the volume up past 75% to get the same level. Touch Control - The touch panel is quite sensitive. I would sometimes accidentally pause my music or trigger a command when I was just trying to adjust the headphones on my head. Laggy Controls - There is a noticeable delay in triggering functions like pausing music, changing volume or answering a call. The Carrying Case - It's a case with rigid top and bottom and soft zippered sides. Good but maybe not the most protective. The Bad The App - If you are planning on using these headphones with an iOS device I would advise caution. The app does not work well and you cannot use it to upgrade the headphone firmware if you are running iOS 13.4 or later. The current iOS version is 14.3 (1/24/21). The app allows you to turn on/off smart pause and a few other functions. It also has a really basic EQ that is really buggy. It may be a little too simplistic for some who want to really dial in a specific sound profile. Comfort - This may be a personal problem but these headphones were extremely uncomfortable on my head. I have to extend most headphones almost to their limit to reach my ears. Fully extended these barely fit. There was only one position on my head that kind of worked. Though the padding feels nice I think the clamp pressure might be too high. After just 15-20 minutes of wearing them there was pain on my neck below my earlobe and near my temples. I wear glasses but I have not experienced this pain with other over ear headphones. Overall I wanted to like these headphones. They are a great value. If they weren't so uncomfortable I probably could have just suffered through the app since it's not something that you have to use regularly. Comfort may only be an issue for some. I returned these and bought the Sony WH1000-XM4 and don't regret it.

First I prefer Sennheiser sound better than Bose, but my priory was a headset for working from home conference calls. In this respect this model is the best I have found. They pump the sound of your own voice thru the speakers so you can hear yourself speak. This can be adjusted with your computer's control panel. Oddly the manual did not explain this and I wish the app allowed me to control it. I increased the level from the default setting. Connectivity is pretty good but not as refined as Bose. Likewise comfort is very good, solid like serious audiophiles, but light enough. Mute on the earcup is very useful since Bluetooth allows you to stray from connected devices. Bose did not have this.

Great product and sound quality. Definitely recommend

Bought these to wear while at work (pet groomer so it gets noisy at times!) They work great!! Would recommend!

2 1/2 months and stoped working, Just in time for the return period to run out and they completely stop connecting by Bluetooth. 20 years i have been a sennheiser customer and these are the worst products i have ever purchased from sennheiser, i will look elsewhere for my next pair of wireless headphones, and i would recommend you look elsewhere too.

If you have an iPhone or Apple product, you should definitely get the second gen headphones. The difference in sound quality vs the first gen is like hearing a song, vs having someone singing to you. This is mostly due to the fact that the second gen supports the Bluetooth codec used by Apple products natively. In terms of sound stage, they’re definitely well balanced. You won’t find punchy bass here, but in terms of detail I would say it performs well for its price range. The active noise cancelling works well enough. It doesn’t block “random” noises like someone talking as much, as it does passive noises (air conditioning, fan, etc.). I have a fairly large head (XL hats) and the clamping force is comfortable. I imagine if you’re on the smaller side, they may feel a bit loose. Lastly call quality, at least while indoors, most people I talked to seemed fine with hearing me. But hearing them was a little hollow sounding. It could have been due to the noise cancelling, but phone calls were never why I bought this so I won’t be taking away points here. All in all a pretty decent pair of headphones. It doesn’t beat a great wired pair, but it offers a pleasantly surprising performance for its price (bought mine on sale).

I have the Sennheiser Momentum 3, 2 and 1. I’ve also got the Truly Wireless Earbuds. All sound great and the Momentum 3 is a definite improvement on the M2 - richer sound, larger sound stage, louder volume, more bass - just bigger better richer sound. Not so with the PXC II! They do NOT sound any better and what’s even worse is they removed the button on the headset which you use to change the effects from club to movies or voice for audiobooks etc. The PXC was low volume and the sound is very flat and thin without the effects so the effects button was key to having the headphones sound decent. They removed the effects button so now you have to use the app to change the effects because they took away the effects button! The volume is still lacking and so is the bass. I can see no improvements and if I had to be brutally honest I’d say the original PXC sounded better. They didn’t even upgrade to USB C. I’m really puzzled how this is any different than the old PXC. I’ll buy another M3. I took this back.

Pros. -comfordable -amazing noise cancellation -great sound quality Cons. -less then impressive carry case -micro usb b (but people still buy beats headphones and they swear by them so the standards are low)