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

I choose these over the aforementioned Sony and Bose BT wireless and Noise Canceling models for several reasons: Bose: NC is always on Sound qaulity is better than previous models but overall is lacking for a $350 pair of headphones Sony: Felt flimsy Holding the right ear cup seems cool to have a conversation, but you have to HOLD your hand their the entire time You can only connect to one device at any time Noise Cancellation gave me a headache after a while Sennheiser Noise Cancellation is slightly below the others, but still good Sound is excellent, especially when combined with a DAC if you want to do wired or Hi-Fi sound A double tap allows for audio/sound passthrough, which the bose lacks and the sony you have to hold your hand over the right ear cup Can connect to 2 devices at once - at absolute must for my laptop Call quality is superb! comfort is excellent i recommend spending time with this one. Its not "out of the box" like the Bose, but not feature overload like the Sony. Did I mention they have a 2 year warranty, compared to that of Sony and Bose? Only 3 issues I have with this: Turing it off requires a twist of the earcups rather than a button. However thanks to muscle memory its no longer a real problem. Sometimes it would autopause a song randomly, but I did find it to be with a only my iPhone, and simply turning it back on and off fixed the issue (not an issue with my Samsung) Placing these on your neck isn't as comfortable due to the egg shape of the earcups, so I would recommend keeping your case or a decent bag nearby.

Review of Sennheiser PXC 550, with comparisons to Bose QC35 and Sony WH-1000XM2 (and MDR-1000X) I have owned all of these headphones and compared them at the same time. The Bose QC35-2 have not been reviewed, but should be virtually the same as the original QC35s in those factors I’m reviewing. Pros Comfortable and light Great battery life Best sound Movie mode Other modes to customize sound Ability to connect to two devices at once Cons Cuts out more than others Connectivity not as refined as with Bose and its app. Weaker noise cancelling Noise Cancelling Not as good as Bose, but lets in different sound. The Bose have a higher pitched sound on a plane that was less pleasant even though the 550s let in more sound overall. Turn the volume up a little and it’s a wash as far as noise cancelling. The Sonys are far superior in NC to both, though they have a slight, not unpleasant white-noise hiss. They were also clearly better than the MDR-1000X they replaced. I never understood reviews saying either Sony had worse NC the Bose. The 1000X were far better than the Bose. The 550s at 100% are similar to the Sonys when they aren’t even on! I’ve never had the pressure issue some complain about with the Bose. The Sonys have to be connected to a device or have the cord plugged in to use just for noise cancelling. It’s not been an issue to have it connected to an iPhone for hours without it disconnecting, though it makes far more sense for a NC headphone to be able to work without being connected to anything. All 3 tried next to an A/C unit, a dryer running, and on flights. I haven’t noticed any decrease in sound quality on any of the three regardless of NC setting, so I always use them with NC on the strongest setting. For Noise Cancelling:1-Sony, 2-Bose, 3-550s. However, don’t let the 3rd place of the 550s impact your buying decision too much, as all are fine, especially if being actively used with sound. Comfort They do get hot quickly, especially in warm environments. I live in Hawaii so that’s 24/7/365. 550s about as hot as the Sonys. The Bose are probably the best if you plan to sleep in them, due to comfort, weight, and ability to have NC on without being connected to a device, with the 550s a close second. However the 550s are very comfortable for me, incredibly light, and much better than the Sonys in that regard. I have average sized men’s ears, small head, and all fit me quite well. All 3 are comfortable, even for long flights. The weight of the Sonys puts them behind the others. I had recently used the Bose briefly when the battery on my 550s died when left on overnight and was surprised to find that they overall were not as comfortable as I remembered when they were the only NC cans I owned. Still very comfortable, but I’ve gotten used to the lightness of the 550s. The 550s are the only ones that “disappear” for me when watching movies, in that I can forget they’re on my head. 1-550, 2-Bose, 3 Sony. Connectivity & Bluetooth I have far more Bluetooth problems with the 550s than either the Sony or Bose, despite them being 4.2. They cut out more and do so frequently when a second device is connected. You can have 2 non-phone devices connected and it will call them phone 1 and 2 and there is no way to tell which is which. Bose has this down. Easy to control by the app, including disconnecting specific devices. Bose announces each device by name. Sony is the worst at this. Only 1 device at a time. Let’s say they were last connected to the laptop that’s now in the overhead bin. You might be on the tarmac for hours without being able to use them with the phone in your hand. Amazing they didn’t improve this with the newest model. While the Bose can connect to 2 devices at once, it handles this better than the 550s. On the 550s, when an alert or other noise comes from one of the two devices, it will pause the other source and actually break up the noise. After that it seems to have interference and sound breaks up. Sometimes I have to disconnect one of the two devices to solve it. On the Bose the same thing is seamless. The 550s & Sonys have aptX (which I use both when connecting to my iMac and Bluetooth transmitter for my AVR). All 3 have some latency issues when doing this to watch TV, but all are acceptable and AVR can be adjusted to improve audio syncing. Only the Bose can get a firmware update. The other two would benefit from having this. All 3 can use a wired connection. This is something I’ve not had a reason to do, but didn’t notice improved sound when I tried briefly. They all have microUSB which I still prefer personally over USB-C. 1-Bose, 2-550, 3-Sony. Sound. This is where the 550s excel and the main reason they’re my favorite. They sound so much more alive than either the Sony or Bose. I found the sound on the others to be overall dull and muddy, and didn’t realize how mediocre they are until I got the 550s. You also can configure them much more. They really come alive on Club or Director settings, and Movie does seem better for watching TV with them. The Captune app has an equalizer, but that only works when playing music through that app, which I never do. I too thought they weren’t very loud at first, but when I turn up sound on both the device and the headphones themselves, they seem nearly as loud to me at the Sony and Bose. Sonys sound a bit better than the older, highly-rated 1000s, which sounded very muddy and too bassy to me. Sonys overall seem to get the loudest of the three. The Bose are by far the worst in sound quality. Lifeless, muddy, and boring. I was disappointed in the 550s at first, and then loved them once I tinkered with the app. I miss the sound of the 550s when I’m only traveling with the Sonys. 1-550, 2-Sony, 3-Bose. Other For turning on and off, the Bose are the clear winner, with an obvious, easy to adjust switch. 550s are next, with no on/off switch. They come on when you put them on, and off when you take them off and turn the cans flat. Forgot to do this once, so was annoyed when I went to use them the next night and they were dead. Sonys are fine, but have a little button. Annoyingly, the Sonys always have at least one light on, which is especially annoying at night on flights. The 550s I put on the wrong way occasionally, which is easy to do, especially when dark. There is no obvious L or R as with the other two. As far as looks, I think they all look good, and it comes down to personal preference. The 550s stand out as obviously not the Bose or Sony. I prefer the gun metal two-tone look of the newer Sony over the older. I’m not really a fan of touch controls on the others, and am fine with the Bose controls. Of the two touch ones, I prefer the 550s. They seem much less likely to be accidentally activated. I’ve NEVER accidentally forwarded or reversed a playing song on the Bose. Something to be said for physical buttons over touch controls. They all last a long time on a full charge. Anything over 15 hours is enough for me. I turned the auto-pause feature off on the 550s. Even if it worked perfectly, I am usually fine if they keep playing if I’m just moving one can to itch or put on glasses. They all seem to fit fine for me when wearing glasses. All 3 are fine for making calls. For all of these other issues combined, it’s kind of a 3-way tossup, with perhaps a slight edge to the 550s. Overall The 550s have become my main headphone for home and short trip travels, and movie watching. The Sonys are my long trip choice, because they are just so much better at noise cancelling. The Bose I gave to my husband. I can’t recommend buying the Bose at this point. It’s a tossup overall between the 550s and the Sonys, and comes down to preference of function. Best NC is by far the Sonys, while the 550s are better in nearly every other regard. If I had to pick just one, I’d pick the 550s. For this price, ultimately I want the headphones to sounds amazing, and the 550s are the only ones that do to me. If noise cancellation is your biggest priority, then get the Sonys. Ideal Headphones None of the three are perfect. For me the perfect headphones would be as follows--temperature, obvious on/off switch, firmware upgradability, ease of connecting devices via app and naming of devices of Bose, sound, comfort & lightness, sound modes, and 4.2 Bluetooth of 550s, Bluetooth stability and range, noise cancelling and max volume of Sony. Bluetooth 5 has been around for a while, and there’s really no excuse for the newer of these models, which came out a year after the 550s, to not have it. Apt Low Latency should be standard on all 3 and is available on none. All 3 could make it easier to tell which codec is being used.

*!Wall of Text Alert!* This is a great pair of headphones for their purpose. Just realize what their purpose is. I'll break this down into a few categories: Sound: You will like these if you need to drown out loud, monotonous noises like train tracks, airplane engines, car noise or noisy neighbors. They don't filter out all sound. You can still definitely hear nearby conversations and music. So a coffee shop type setting is still going to provide some background noise if you're not playing music. These most likely aren't going to blow any audiophile away. The sound quality is okay. If you want superb sound quality, avoid wireless and avoid noise cancelling. That aside, they sound very good and are customizable. You can use their CapTune app to adjust the EQ. They even have a little..."minigame"? called Sound Check. You listen to a song of your choosing and choose what sounds best for you. This will finetune the EQ for your personal taste. I personally through it was too much to deal with and just set my EQ to "Rock". You can pair multiple devices. I found this to be annoying for casual listening but it definitely has it's uses. The reason it is annoying is that If you're listening to music on your laptop and you get a message on your phone the music paused for a second, then your notification sound plays, then after another second your music resumes (at least for me listening to Google Music). I would much rather have the notification play over my music. Controls: The right earcup is touch sensitive and the control are easy to use. Slide up and volume goes up, down it goes down. Left and right skip or go back a track. It just works and is pretty intuitive. It could be bad. But it's not. Smart Pause is a feature that I didn't know the device had. I had to enable it within CapTune. Take the headphones off, the music stops. Put them back on and it resumes. Simple, but just like the controls, it works and does it's job well. Connectivity: As previously touched on, I've connected this to 2 different devices. I do not know what the maximum is. With NFC connectivity is a very simple process for connecting your phone. Fit: These earcups are not as comfortable as the QC35. They're a little small. They happen to fit me perfectly but definitely won't fit everyone. For me the comfort hits right in the middle of the MDR 1000x and the QC35. The QC35 is far and away the winner in comfort though. I could wear these for hours so they're no slouch though. These did not give me the same amount of ear pressure feeling that the QC35s did though. So if that is something that bothers you, it may be worth trying these. Overall: Overall these are a great pair of headphones. Just know you are sacrificing sound quality when you get wireless and sacrificing sound quality again when you get noise cancellation. You could get better quality sound out of $200 headphones probably. If you need the wireless noise cancellation though these are a serious contender. They aren't perfect by any means but they are ones you should definitely check out if you're in the market. With CapTune you'll be able to play with the sound until it sounds how you like.

The review is made in the perspective of a guy who (i) isn't an audiophile but enjoys live music, (ii) is a classical music lover, meaning that I'm not looking for the overblowing, electronically-boosted bass but clean sound from piccolo to low organ or double bass sound, and (iii) is a "rookie" in the higher-end headphones (I have several budget Sennheisers and Oontz's but also a Sennheiser HD 598SE and an Audio-Technica ATH-A700 which I enjoy immensely). I bought this PXC 550 because I wanted a set of wireless, good quality, noise cancelling headphones without breaking my bank. I ain't an impulsive buyer so I spent a few months researching for quality and features and a price that I am willing to spend. While I was ready to settle on the $40-$50 budget, mass-market headphones with reasonable quality (some people might know which brands and models I am referring to), Best Buy came up with this Sennheiser end-of-life model (replacing by 550 II) with a super attractive price. I grabbed a pair quickly after some doing some research and reading/watching some reviews. Build and design: I love this Sennheiser. Nice build. Comfortable. Fit my head and ears (I wear glasses). Some people complain about the on/off design but I am perfectly fine with it. However, I do agree with other reviewers that the touchpad on the right is a bit too sensitive. It took me a while to get use to the touch that controls the volume and the ANC bypass. Sometimes when I sit in my bed and lean back my head, the headphones stop playing thinking I am laying them down. This is annoying indeed. While some reviewers say that their ears don't get too warm after wearing the 550 for a while, my experience is different. I feel I get quite warm after listening to an hour long symphony or mass. Overall, I still like the design, build, quality, and features nonetheless. Sound: I listen to Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical music, world music (African, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc.), folk songs, contemporary music (CCM, pop, movie soundtracks), etc. I watch movies on my tablet. PXC 550 performs well. I like the clear and undistorted sound from these genres. (Not being an audiophile, I lack the vocabulary to describe the "tightness," "openness," etc.) I equate my listening experience with being in an orchestral hall for a live musical performance--balance from the performance itself without much post-production manipulation. The 550 produces crisp, clean, natural sound. Once I listened to a recording of Bach's Passicaglia in c minor on an historical organ in the Netherlands, I could faintly hear the mechanical sounds of the piston and levers in the background. What a joy! Noise cancelling: The 550 is my first pair of active noise-cancelling headphones so I cannot compare my experience with other ANC headphones. To be honest, based on my pre-purchase research and the reviews I read/watched, I had high expectations on the 550. That proved to be disappointing. Even if I turned the ANC setting to "high," I can still hear lots of conversation, TV noise, ambient sound, and my wife's snooring. Yes, the headphones reduce those noise but the noise is still too much if I want a quiet working environment (without turning of any music). If I play something over the headphones, they greatly reduce the ambient sound. My problem is, like many other musicians, that we don't (or can't) listen to music as we work--music attracts our subconscious intellectual and emotional engagement so that it takes away our focus in reading, writing, grading, sleeping, conversation, whatever (especially when the music is badly performed :)). I had hoped to use the 550 (without playing anything) to cut out the world's noise so that I could work quietly. That didn't work well. That being said, however, I tried out the headphones one time when I took the New York subway. It was amazing how the 550 cut out the low frequency huming sound from the subway, just like many reviews had said. I am eager to try the 550 on the airplane once COVID-19 is over. Overall, as my first set of Bluetooch, ANC, higher range headphones, I love the 550. Good battery life. Crisp and natural (real) sound.

To say it simply, these things are amazing. Sound quality is second to NONE and the ANC is second only to Bose. I’m not the biggest fan of the range of these things, but for my purposes they work. They also disconnect on FaceTime calls, but no other time. I’ve only ever had these things die on me once PROS- Sound quality Active Noise Cancelling Battery CONS- Disconnects on FaceTime Range is subpar Charges on Micro B not type C

Not an audio expert, but do like the sound clarity. However, the noise cancelling is far from perfect. Other reviewers have mentioned the issues more clearly than I could. The Android app is very simple, has few features at all. The battery life is good, advertised at 30 hours, and that seems pretty close. Takes a bit to figure out the touch-motions of adjusting the phones, but they're pretty intuitive once you've used the phones a bit. If you can get it on sale, it's a decent set of phones. At full price, there are others that you might consider.

Review of Sennheiser PXC 550, with comparisons to Bose QC35 and Sony WH-1000XM2 (and MDR-1000X) I have owned all of these headphones and compared them at the same time. The Bose QC35-2 have not been reviewed, but should be virtually the same as the original QC35s in the factors I’m reviewing. Pros Comfortable and light Great battery life Best sound Movie mode Other modes to customize sound Ability to connect to two devices at once Cons Cuts out more than others Connectivity not as refined as with Bose and its app. Weaker noise cancelling Noise Cancelling Not as good as Bose, but lets in different sound. The Bose have a higher pitched sound on a plane that was less pleasant even though the 550s let in more sound overall. Turn the volume up a little and it’s a wash as far as noise cancelling. The Sonys are far superior in NC to both, though they have a slight, not unpleasant white-noise hiss. They were also clearly better than the MDR-1000X they replaced. I never understood reviews saying either Sony had worse NC the Bose. The 1000X were far better than the Bose. The 550s at 100% are similar to the Sonys when they aren’t even on! I’ve never had the pressure issue some complain about with the Bose. The Sonys have to be connected to a device or have the cord plugged in to use just for noise cancelling. It’s not been an issue to have it connected to an iPhone for hours without it disconnecting, though it makes far more sense for a NC headphone to be able to work without being connected to anything. All 3 tried next to an A/C unit, a dryer running, and on flights. I haven’t noticed any decrease in sound quality on any of the three regardless of NC setting, so I always use them with NC on the strongest setting. For Noise Cancelling:1-Sony, 2-Bose, 3-550s. However, don’t let the 3rd place of the 550s impact your buying decision too much, as all are fine, especially if being actively used with sound. Comfort They do get hot quickly, especially in warm environments. I live in Hawaii so that’s 24/7/365. 550s about as hot as the Sonys. The Bose are probably the best if you plan to sleep in them, due to comfort, weight, and ability to have NC on without being connected to a device, with the 550s a close second. However the 550s are very comfortable for me, incredibly light, and much better than the Sonys in that regard. I have average sized men’s ears, small head, and all fit me quite well. All 3 are comfortable, even for long flights. The weight of the Sonys puts them behind the others. I had recently used the Bose briefly when the battery on my 550s died when left on overnight and was surprised to find that they overall were not as comfortable as I remembered when they were the only NC cans I owned. Still very comfortable, but I’ve gotten used to the lightness of the 550s. The 550s are the only ones that “disappear” for me when watching movies, in that I can forget they’re on my head. 1-550, 2-Bose, 3 Sony. Connectivity & Bluetooth I have far more Bluetooth problems with the 550s than either the Sony or Bose, despite them being 4.2. They cut out more and do so frequently when a second device is connected. You can have 2 non-phone devices connected and it will call them phone 1 and 2 and there is no way to tell which is which. Bose has this down. Easy to control by the app, including disconnecting specific devices. Bose announces each device by name. Sony is the worst at this. Only 1 device at a time. Let’s say they were last connected to the laptop that’s now in the overhead bin. You might be on the tarmac for hours without being able to use them with the phone in your hand. Amazing they didn’t improve this with the newest model. While the Bose can connect to 2 devices at once, it handles this better than the 550s. On the 550s, when an alert or other noise comes from one of the two devices, it will pause the other source and actually break up the noise. After that it seems to have interference and sound breaks up. Sometimes I have to disconnect one of the two devices to solve it. On the Bose the same thing is seamless. The 550s & Sonys have aptX (which I use both when connecting to my iMac and Bluetooth transmitter for my AVR). All 3 have some latency issues when doing this to watch TV, but all are acceptable and AVR can be adjusted to improve audio syncing. Only the Bose can get a firmware update. The other two would benefit from having this. All 3 can use a wired connection. This is something I’ve not had a reason to do, but didn’t notice improved sound when I tried briefly. They all have microUSB which I still prefer personally over USB-C. 1-Bose, 2-550, 3-Sony. Sound. This is where the 550s excel and the main reason they’re my favorite. They sound so much more alive than either the Sony or Bose. I found the sound on the others to be overall dull and muddy, and didn’t realize how mediocre they are until I got the 550s. You also can configure them much more. They really come alive on Club or Director settings, and Movie does seem better for watching TV with them. The Captune app has an equalizer, but that only works when playing music through that app, which I never do. I too thought they weren’t very loud at first, but when I turn up sound on both the device and the headphones themselves, they seem nearly as loud to me at the Sony and Bose. Sonys sound a bit better than the older, highly-rated 1000s, which sounded very muddy and too bassy to me. Sonys overall seem to get the loudest of the three. The Bose are by far the worst in sound quality. Lifeless, muddy, and boring. I was disappointed in the 550s at first, and then loved them once I tinkered with the app. I miss the sound of the 550s when I’m only traveling with the Sonys. 1-550, 2-Sony, 3-Bose. Other For turning on and off, the Bose are the clear winner, with an obvious, easy to adjust switch. 550s are next, with no on/off switch. They come on when you put them on, and off when you take them off and turn the cans flat. Forgot to do this once, so was annoyed when I went to use them the next night and they were dead. Sonys are fine, but have a little button. Annoyingly, the Sonys always have at least one light on, which is especially annoying at night on flights. The 550s I put on the wrong way occasionally, which is easy to do, especially when dark. There is no obvious L or R as with the other two. As far as looks, I think they all look good, and it comes down to personal preference. The 550s stand out as obviously not the Bose or Sony. I prefer the gun metal two-tone look of the newer Sony over the older. I’m not really a fan of touch controls on the others, and am fine with the Bose controls. Of the two touch ones, I prefer the 550s. They seem much less likely to be accidentally activated. I’ve NEVER accidentally forwarded or reversed a playing song on the Bose. Something to be said for physical buttons over touch controls. They all last a long time on a full charge. Anything over 15 hours is enough for me. I turned the auto-pause feature off on the 550s. Even if it worked perfectly, I am usually fine if they keep playing if I’m just moving one can to itch or put on glasses. They all seem to fit fine for me when wearing glasses. All 3 are fine for making calls. For all of these other issues combined, it’s kind of a 3-way tossup, with perhaps a slight edge to the 550s. Overall The 550s have become my main headphone for home and short trip travels, and movie watching. The Sonys are my long trip choice, because they are just so much better at noise cancelling. The Bose I gave to my husband. I can’t recommend buying the Bose at this point. It’s a tossup overall between the 550s and the Sonys, and comes down to preference of function. Best NC is by far the Sonys, while the 550s are better in nearly every other regard. If I had to pick just one, I’d pick the 550s. For this price, ultimately I want the headphones to sounds amazing, and the 550s are the only ones that do to me. If noise cancellation is your biggest priority, then get the Sonys. Ideal Headphones None of the three are perfect. For me the perfect headphones would be as follows--temperature, obvious on/off switch, firmware upgradability, ease of connecting devices via app and naming of devices of Bose, sound, comfort & lightness, sound modes, and 4.2 Bluetooth of 550s, Bluetooth stability and range, noise cancelling and max volume of Sony. Bluetooth 5 has been around for a while, and there’s really no excuse for the newer of these models, which came out a year after the 550s, to not have it. Apt Low Latency should be standard on all 3 and is available on none. All 3 could make it easier to tell which codec is being used.

Bought a pair of 4.5HD for myself at Xmas time and absolutely loved them. When these went on sale I jumped on them faster than a cheetah jumps on a gazelle. I have staple music I listen to in order to test speakers. California Love by Tupac and Dr. Dre, Star Wars Throne Room Theme and Dick Donner Superman Theme by John Williams. It sounded like I was in the studio with Dre and Pac, walking down the center aisle with Luke, Han and Chewy and flying with Superman. The sound is really crisp and clean. It was like my ears were drinking the worlds best beer. The noise canceling is excellent! Definitely worth every penny I paid! And I got them on sale for 200$ so that was a win/win for me. Bluetooth operation was as easy as turning a key. Linked up to my PC in seconds.