So some time ago my sweet sweet smartphone headset died on me. Actually the right speaker died on me. But whatever. So I decided to take a look at the local market and found the 12 Euro nice cheap Sennheiser MX357. There were even cheaper models, but what the hell, I could afford it and I didn’t really want to get the cheapest crap, so here I am, ordering the MX357.
Got the blue model, there are multiple colors, because why not…
It comes in a cheap ass plastic box.
In it, there are the headphones and a foam pads for them.
The design is meh… The blue plastic have a nice paint effect, that my camera can’t quite pick up.
The MX357 have a standard 3,5mm jack and is labeled as having 1,2m cable length.
So far so meh. I didn’t expect to blow me away for 12 Euro and it didn’t, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Yet.
Then I plugged them in out of the box (without the foam pads).
2 things jumped on my mind immediately. First - those headphones really don’t want to stay in my ears, and second - my old Sony headset, that came stock with the cheap Xperia phone had a bit better sound…
I played a bit with the equalizers on my phone, the headphones was a bit to base heavy, so I changed a couple settings, and it was about the same sound as the Sony’s.
I put the phone in my trouser pocket, the headphones pop out my ears. So after a few days I decided to put the foam pads on, with the idea, that they will help with the slipping out headphones. And they did, the speakers no longer popped out anymore. It’s just that the sound is crap now. I don’t know how Sennheiser have done it, but the pads are killing the sound and all equalizers and everything. The base is amplified, the rest is dampened and even the equalizers can’t help me. It’s so base heavy I can’t believe it.
Here’s the issue. It’s not bad. It’s working. The sound is fairly clean, I can still make out all the details I expected to. But damn, I could do the same with the old ones. I decided not to spend too much on something and now I wish I have spent more. I mean the old AudioTechnika ATH-T300 have better sound in every way, but they are full large over ear closed headphones. But the cheap ass stock Sony Xperia headset outperforming the branded third party headphones, that also have quite a lot of 5* reviews.
So there. Some stuff just can’t be bought cheaply.