Sennheiser PXC 550-II Review - Review 2022

While Bose remains the top name when it comes to dissonance-cancelling headphones, it'due south been seeing some awfully strong competition from the likes of AKG, Apple, Bower & Wilkins, Sony, and others. You lot can add Sennheiser and its $349.95 PXC-550-Ii headphones to the mix, which deliver an elegant design with built-in Amazon Alexa support, strong sound performance, and some of the best ANC (active noise cancellation) available. The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are still an overall amend pair, and so Bose doesn't need to worry likewise much, but its once-dramatic pb over other competitors is narrowing, and there are reasons you might adopt the Sennheiser PXC 550-II.

Pattern

Available in black, the PXC 550-II headphones have a matte cease with leatherette accents on the headband and the circumaural (over-the-ear) earcups. There are impact-sensitive controls on the outer panels of the earcups, merely you lot wouldn't know it from looking, as the panels are blank. The earcups themselves are ear-shaped, which allows for a tight, secure fit that blocks out a decent corporeality of ambience room noise passively.

The earcups are quite comfortable, though at times they felt a bit tight around the ear, and despite adjustments, I could feel boosted force per unit area from the headband. This isn't to say the fit is uncomfortable—the padding is generous—just it's possible to article of clothing the headphones in a manner that exerts more than force per unit area than is ideal, and getting the right fit took a little more than effort than I typically need.

The right earcup houses a three-way switch (On, User Mode, and Off) for ANC—more on that in the side by side department. Located side by side to this switch on the side panel is a Bluetoth pairing push button that doubles as the voice assistant button. And near these are status LEDs, as well as a micro USB port for the included charging cable, and a mini jack for the included sound cable.

The on-ear controls are intuitive and responsive. A single tap in the middle of the right ear'southward outer panel plays or pauses music, forward or backward swipes skip tracks, and up and downwardly swipes arrange book. It's also the gestulre you'll use to answer incoming calls, while holding your press for a 2nd rejects them, and tapping twice puts them on concord. When on a telephone call, a frontward/backward swipe mutes or unmutes the mic. A quick double tap disables ANC and mutes music, and puts the headphones in Transparent hearing fashion, in which the ambience mics subtly pick up your voice and your surround for easier conversation.

The headphones practise a number of things automatically. Opening them from the folded position automatically turns them on and puts them in pairing mode. Once paired, removing them from your head immediately powers them down. If that sounds annoying, keep in mind that the delay isn't lengthy. That said, we did take some mysterious occurrences every now and then—in one instance, the headphones were off my caput sitting next to me, and randomly began to play music. Not only did I recollect they'd been powered downwardly, but I as well didn't touch them (or my phone) when this happened.

Sennheiser's Smart App is useful, if not enthralling. Here, you can switch between Adaptive or Anti-Current of air ANCs; these are the two choices for ANC mode, though in that location are no further adjustments other than switching between the two. In that location's EQ, which has presets similar Movie, Club, or Speech, and a customizable setting chosen Manager. But instead of allowing you to adjust five bands of EQ like nosotros typically see, Sennheiser has you choose from preselected micro settings, and then you lot tin can mix and match them. So, you can select the settings like Thump, Rumble, or Vocalization and combine them, if y'all want, with various spatial effects that mostly sound terrible, and added reverb that as well sounds weak. We propose leaving all EQ off (in Neutral mode), except maybe adding in either the Thump or Rumble option if yous desire extra bass depth.

Amazon's Alexa voice assitant is built in, but it isn't hands-gratis. A button-printing is required, as well as setup in the Alexa app, but this is a quick affair of signing in and adding the PXC 550-II as a device. The mics picked upwards all of our commands easily and the response time for various actions was quick. The inclusion of Alexa doesn't feel like an afterthought, merely it's nowhere nigh as seamlessly integrated as information technology is on the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700.

The headphones apply Bluetooth five.0, and support AptX, AptX Low Latency, and AAC Bluetooth codecs. In addition to the aforementioned cables, they ship with an airplane jack adapter and a zip-up protective instance that they fold downwardly apartment into.

Sennheiser estimates battery life to be roughly 20 hours with ANC and wireless on, or thirty hours with ANC on while using the sound cable, but your results will vary with your volume levels and your mix of features.

Performance

The ANC switch provides you with three modes—maximum, user setting, or off. The user setting is really just a choice between either the standard ANC or an anti-wind ANC setting. In maximum mode, the headphones are quite effective—there's no noticeable added hiss, fifty-fifty when using the ANC in a quiet room. Across that, the circuitry tamps down a wide range of frequencies fairly dramatically. In terms of pure effectiveness, nosotros'd accept to put these about the meridian of the category, subsequently the Bose Dissonance Cancelling Headphones 700, but alee of almost others we test. The circuitry does very well with low-frequency rumble, like y'all hear on trains and planes, but fifty-fifty does a solid task with the homo vocalization, or general office noises like keyboard taps. The ANC as well seems to accept little or no consequence on the sound signature, which isn't always the case.

The anti-current of air setting is useful if you happen to be wearing the headphones outside on a windy day, but we found the main maximum ANC setting to exist past far the well-nigh constructive. Adaptive mode uses less ANC in quiet environments and more when in a noisy setting, while Maximum just goes total-level ANC all the time. The difference in a relatively placidity room is notable—Max ANC tamps things down more than Adaptive mode does.

The MEMS mic assortment offers solid intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every give-and-take we recorded. There was still the typical Bluetooth fuzz around the edges, but the signal was strong and well-baked, and definitely better than average for the Bluetooth headphone mics nosotros've tested.

Internally, each earcup houses dynamic 32mm drivers delivering a frequency range of 17Hz to 23kHz. One notable aspect of the PXC 550-Two's audio performance is that the headphones don't get very loud. This isn't a problem—the drivers certainly deliver sufficent power, merely at maximum book on an iPhone 8, the audio wasn't nearly as powerful equally it oft is on other headphones nosotros exam. But the fact is well-nigh other headphones get also loud.

In Neutral manner on tracks with intense sub-bass content, similar The Knife's "Silent Shout," the headphones evangelize powerful depression-frequency response. At meridian volume levels, in that location's no distortion, and at more than moderate volumes, the bass still feels robust while the highs are crisp and brilliant.

Bill Callahan's "Drover," a rail with far less deep bass in the mix, gives u.s.a. a improve sense of the PXC 550-Two'south general sound signature. The drums on this track get some extra bass depth, but nothing over the top—they take a pleasant roundness to them. There's some notable boosting in the high-mids and highs that non everyone will beloved—it lends Callahan'southward vocals some extra crispness and some added brightness to the guitar strums, but information technology tin also, at times, make things sound a scrap overly sculpted. There's an fantabulous balance here betwixt the lows and highs, but the sound signature is definitely more sculpted than flat.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the boot drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its assail to retain its punchiness, but the vinyl crackle and hiss also catch your attention—the highs are significantly boosted. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with gusto, but not the type of crazy depth that true bass fiends volition be searching for. There's sculpting beyond the frequency range here, but the lows never threaten to overtake the balance of the mix. The vocals on this track are delivered with excellent clarity, though there is perhaps a touch of added sibilance hither and there.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams' The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound excellent through the PXC 550-2. The lower-register instrumentation has a robust, rich presence in the mix, but doesn't sound unnaturally boosted, while the higher-register brass, strings, and vocals have a well-baked, bright edge to them. Again, this is not necessarily the well-nigh flat, accurate audio signature, just the boosting and sculpting is tastefully washed and so as non to upset the overall balance.

Conclusions

Sennheiser'southward PXC 550-II headphones face good for you competition from the aforementioned frontrunner, the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, also as from pairs like the $300 AKG N700NC M2 Wireless and the $400 Bowers & Wilkins PX7. For less money, the new true wireless $250 Apple AirPods Pro besides deliver a solid ANC experience, for those who want noise cancellation from an in-ear design.

Sonically, we honey the PXC 550-Ii's audio signature. If there's a flaw in the sound, it is perhaps a chip too sculpted in the highs, but there are worse sins, and generally speaking, these headphones sound excellent. In fact, plenty of users will prefer this audio signature to that of the Bose model. The Alexa compatibility may be less compelling here than it is with Bose, which has easily-free access, but if yous value audio functioning above all else (and still want tiptop-notch ANC), the Sennheiser PXC 550-II might be simply the pair for you.

Sennheiser PXC 550-II Specs

Blazon	Circumaural (over-ear)
Wireless	Yes
Wire-Free	No
Telephone Controls	Yes
Connection Type	Bluetooth, Stereo 3.5mm
Water/Sweat-Resistant	No
Removable Cablevision	Aye
Active Noise Counterfoil	Yes
Smash Mic	No

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Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/security-devices-products/35869/sennheiser-pxc-550-ii

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