Sennheiser PXC 250

4.0 stars

"Great for planes and riding mowers!" on July 4, 2005 by alyanm--2008

Pros: great sound, great noise cancellation, compact folding design, long battery life, perfect cord length

Cons: battery pack, discomfort after 6 hours, slight background whine

Summary: I bought these after owning a pair of Sony NC10 for a couple of years. These are a big improvement in every way, much more comfortable, better noise cancellation and better sound and less expensive! This is especially noticable on airplane trips, I always feel better with the noise cancellation on. I've also used this when on my riding mower and find it cuts most of the noise allowing me to hear and enjoy the music from my little Muvo.

Down side is that I find after really long flights of 5 or more hours that my ears do start to get sore. I guess this is inevitable with an on the ear design. There is also a little bit of a whining sound in the background which I assume is an artifact of the noise cancellation, especially noticeable between songs. And of course the battery pack is a bit inconvenient, a mixed blessing as my Sony's were heavier and less comfortable on my head since the batteries were in the headset.

The cords are long enough and yet not so long that they catch on everything and can easily be tucked away into a pocket. The headset folds very nicely into a compact package as compared to the the Sony's which got pretty battered. I also find that the PCX250 has some nice padding on the headband which makes them more comfortable than other models, very important for long flights!

Overall excellent value for the money and great sound too! A must for flyers

4.0 stars

"very portable good sounding NC cans" on July 15, 2005 by jfpilon

Pros: amazing noise cancellation, good sound, very portable

Cons: complex folding operation, no batteries included

Summary: I must say that I'm a big fan on sennheiser: those are actually my 4th pair. I've got some wireless a very cheap vintage pair and a pretty good 490.

I just bought those, and it's the first time I had such a good feeling right after buying a pair of cans. No break-in needed at all. It's probably because of the very small and lightweight membrane used in them.

I bought those because I listen to more and more podcast on my daily commute (go TWiT!) and I was very tired too boost the volume to listen to some participants to have my ear-drum later on be blown away by other people who were sitting closer to the microphone or with better recording equipments. And on that front, they delivered amazingly: the noise cancelling is quite astounding! I work close to a big 2-cpu database server and even with no music; the sound of all its fans and hard-drive is substantially muffled out.

The sound quality is above anything that portable you can find, at least with the NC circuit turned on: I'm pretty sure there's a small amp built-in and without it they tend to sound dull and muddy.

The sound reproduction is quite on par with other sennheisers and is quite laid back and not bright at all. Which is good for mp3s, because the encoding tend to screw up anything high-pitched (cymbals and such). I would say they sound a bit British.

The comfort is about average, at least to me. Their closed circum-aural design means I don't sweat in them as much as with supra-aural cans. And they don't hurt like some in-ear model do after a while. I haven't tested them for more then 2 hours stretch and I don't really plan to (darn meetings).

The 2 only drawbacks would be the somewhat complex folding operation and the fact that they didn't ship with batteries: come on, my 20$ wireless mouse came with them, so why not a pair of 170$ cans?

All in all a very good purchase and I would recommend them to any iPod commuter out there. If noise cancellation is not on your list the Bose tri-port are pretty good to isolate you from your surrounding without the NC stick, but won't be as good in noisy subway stations or fast-food restaurants.

3.5 stars

"Flawed but irresistible and addictive" on September 1, 2005 by hetisjantje

Pros: Great sound, addicitive anti-noise, compact design, great battery life

Cons: Don't expect full noise cancelation, lacks detail in some songs, thin sound with noise cancelling off

Summary: I've had these now for a month, and use them on the train to work, and at the workplace. To start of with, I didn't have to change the 2 AA batteries once yet, even though I even sometimes forgot to turn it off, leaving it on for hours. As stated before, it's a bit of a hassle to have the box, but I gather unavoidable at the current state of technique. It fits nicely in my pocket along my small flash player and it's better than carring the thing on your head. Everytime I take it out of my pocket, you have a chinese wire puzzle of the box/mp3 player though, to the extend it seems to be designed by someone evil. Folding the headphones seems a puzzle at first too, but I got it after a few times.
The compact design strangely seems counterproductive to noise cancelation, there's a trade off here between portability and fully enclosed ears. I rode a bike with it and strangely this design seems to create a lot of noise from the wind around your ears from the smallest breeze at the slightest speed. However, the noise cancelling is very effective at filtering this particular sound out.
Now to what's really important, the sound. It's clearly a midrange-tone set of headphones, and great at that. The sound is very full, pumpy and alive. Weirdly, although noise cancelation is an option and can be turned on and off, when turned on, sound quality is better. It makes a huge difference is bass quality. The sound is also louder. I compared the sound when on to the sound when off, and then increase the volume, but the sound when on is still better. With some music it was very clear. With Exile, Kiss you all over, I can only distinctly hear the bass player with noise canceling turned on. The most serious flaw I found was that, even when on, it didn't do great with Beethoven (and probably classical music in general), as I found it hard to hear distinct instruments. My cheap in-ear phones did a better job.
I was disappointed by the noise cancelation at first. It's my first set of the kind, and although I knew what to expect and what not to, for the price I expected a better job. It's more like noise mellowing, not noise cancelation. The mellowing is great when music is playing, no static or distortions.
For all this, I would give it 5 or 6 out of 10, they are great for most music but too expensive.
However, these headphones grew on me like no headphones have done before. The sound mellowing, as I thus call it, is completely additive. Turning it -off- while riding the train or concentrating on a task at work reveales a world of difference. Can't do without them, despite flaws or price.

3.5 stars

"Great pair of headphones for traveling" on November 18, 2004

Pros: I've had these headphones for about 6 months. They work great for me. I typically only use them when flying (I frequently fly on international business trips) with my I-POD. The NC works well. When turned on it really cuts back on the engine drone and

Cons: Battery pack is somewhat awkward. Not a big deal if you are just sitting in place, but would be a real pain if you were moving around a lot. I usually just clip it to my seatbelt. If you wear the headphones without the NC turned on, they actually see