At a look
Professional’s Ranking
Professionals
- Extremely immersive sound
- Comfy for long-term put on
- Fabulous passive noise discount
- Fantastically constructed
Cons
- No in-line controls
- No microphone for telephone calls
- Very costly
Our Verdict
The Sennheiser IE 900 is an in-ear headphone designed for customers who care about superb sound copy above all else. It’s two in-ear screens hook up with an audio-only cable, ignoring the additional options that different headphone producers have a good time. An excellent seal in your ear canal eliminates the necessity for probably music-altering energetic noise cancellation.
Sennheiser has engineered its flagship IE 900 in-ear screens for comfy long-term put on and to sound incredible. That’s it. They’re wired, and there aren’t any in-line controls. There’s no energetic noise cancellation. There’s no microphone for telephone calls. The IE 900 is a headphone designed for optimum audio high quality, interval. And Sennheiser delivers in that division.
At this value, why select an in-ear monitor as an alternative of on-ear or over-ear headphone? In the event you’re on the transfer, the IE 900 are sufficiently well-built to make use of as a commuter headphone and the case will slot in your pocket. In the event you’re within the workplace, your co-workers received’t be commenting in your large pair of cans.
Finally, nevertheless, the IE 900 provide an immersive and intimate listening expertise that’s totally different than something you’ll get with an over-ear headphone. That’s to not say that one expertise is superior to the opposite, however Sennheiser gives a beautiful distinction to an over-ear listening expertise.
This assessment is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the perfect headphones.
What’s the know-how behind the IE 900?
Every of the Sennheiser IE 900’s drive items are milled from stable blocks of aluminum, a course of that yields each acoustic and aesthetic advantages.
James Barber/Foundry
Every earbud is milled from a single block of aluminum. Earlier than we get to the audio benefits of this design, it’s value mentioning how nice they give the impression of being and the way incredible their ridged design feels in your hand. There are a whole lot of glorious in-ear screens made out of plastic, however the metallic building of the IE 900 offers this headphone the texture of a real luxurious product.
Past that, Sennheiser says aluminum is a key element in its triple-chamber absorber (T3CA) system. T3CA makes use of three chambers and an acoustic vortex milled into the nozzle to counter the masking resonances that diminish high-frequency sounds at decrease volumes. The IE 900 additionally use Sennheiser’s proprietary X3R transducer, an upgraded model of the corporate’s 7mm Further Large Band transducer.
Sennheiser additionally touts a brand new membrane foil designed to supply a excessive diploma of internal dampening, making certain minimized pure resonances and distortion (THD: 0.05% at 94 dB, 1 kHz). The IE 900 have a frequency response of 5Hz – 48kHz.
The vital takeaway from all these technical particulars is that Sennheiser makes use of a single driver in every earphone, as an alternative of twin or triple drivers. A single driver eliminates the necessity for a crossover, which reduces distortion. Ideally, a well-designed single driver will ship a tighter and extra cohesive listening expertise, and that’s definitely what the IE 900 delivers.
What’s included with the IE 900 in-ear screens?
The Sennheiser IE 900 case consists of room for an alternate cable. The headphone additionally comes with a microfiber cleansing material.
James Barber/Foundry
Whenever you’re on this value vary for a headphone, you anticipate a premium expertise that begins on the unboxing stage. Contained in the retail packaging, there’s a matte black field with a shiny Sennheiser emblem printed onto it. Slide the internal field out and every earphone is nested in foam.
Beneath the froth, you’ll discover a signed certificates of authenticity with a producing date and a thick consumer guide in 19 languages. This would possibly look like overkill, however it’s precisely the type of presentation that’s anticipated within the luxurious items market, and Sennheiser must promote just a few of those to the price-is-the-object crowd to justify their existence and thereby subsidize the IE 900 for the pure audiophile crowd.
The premium presentation continues with a sturdy nylon carrying case that comes with a metallic Sennheiser emblem on the highest and a metallic plate glued to the underside. That plate options your IE 900 serial quantity.
Sennheiser gives a certificates of authenticity and a serial quantity plate with the IE 900.
James Barber/Foundry
On a extra sensible degree, the field consists of three pairs of silicone ear adapters (S, M, L) and three pairs of reminiscence foam ear adapters (S, M, L). I bought an ideal match from the silicone adapters. Sennheiser warns that the froth adapters have a restricted lifespan and must be changed after just a few months.
There’s a cleansing material to maintain your aluminum earphones shiny, and a cable clip if you wish to connect your cables to your shirt. There’s additionally a cleansing instrument to get the inevitable buildup of gunk out of your adapters and the earphones themselves. That instrument is only a plastic deal with with a skinny loop of wire on the tip to do the soiled work. Can you purchase a cleansing package on Amazon for just some bucks? Certain, however the truth that Sennheiser selected to incorporate one reinforces the general premium expertise.
Sennheiser consists of three 49-inch para-aramid-reinforced cables for the IE 90: unbalanced with a 3.5mm connector, balanced with a 2.5mm connector, and balanced with a 4.4mm connector. Every cable is thicker on the finish that connects to every earphone, and the cables loop over every of your ears, to scale back pressure.
Sennheiser consists of six pairs of ear ideas, a cleansing instrument, three cables, and a nylon carry case with the IE 900 headphone.
James Barber/Foundry
Sennheiser’s Constancy Plus MMCX connector has a satisfying click on when attaching to every earphone. The appropriate earphone is labeled with a crimson band on the connection level, whereas the cables are embossed with a tiny L and R to point which earphone they pair with. This can be a tiny grievance, however an analogous crimson band on the cable to match the one on the earphone could be an enormous assist for anybody with less-than-perfect eyesight.
What does the Sennheiser IE 900 sound like?
I examined the Sennheiser IE 900 3 ways: I used an Naim Uniti Atom HE amplifier, DAC and streamer; a Questyle M15 DAC linked to an iPhone 13 Professional Max; and a Lightning adapter linked to that very same iPhone.
As a result of the IE 900 affords extraordinarily efficient passive noise cancellation with a correct match, the expertise of utilizing them is decidedly totally different than the one you’ll get with an excellent pair of open-back or closed-back over-ear audiophile headphones. Irrespective of how immersive the expertise from a headphone just like the Focal Celestee, the sense of isolation can’t evaluate to what you’re getting with the IE 900 in your ears. There’s genuinely a way of being lower off from the world round you.
As phrase of jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders’ loss of life hit the information, I made a decision to revisit his 2021 late-career masterpiece Guaranteesa collaboration with British artist Floating Factors (a/okay/a producer Sam Shepherd) and the London Symphony Orchestra. I listened to a Qobuz 24-bit/44.1kHz stream from my iPhone utilizing the Questyle M15 DAC.
The Sennheiser IE 900 cables join with a satisfying click on.
James Barber/Foundry
It’s a captivating combine, one which places Sanders’ saxophone entrance and middle at the start and slowly brings Shepherd’s components and the string preparations to extra outstanding placements within the combine over the course of the LP.
The album’s 9 tracks are variations on a single musical theme, constructed round Sanders’ taking part in and a quick interlude of his wordless singing in “Motion 4.” That is an album that rewards shut listening and far of its influence comes from the shifts in quantity and instrument placement within the combine. The IE 900 headphone creates the phantasm that the music exists inside your head as an alternative of coming from an excellent pair of audio system or headphones.
Guarantees additionally sounds unbelievable by my Focal Celestee closed-back headphone, however the IE 900 ship a way of immersion that the Celestee can’t fairly match.
Turning to the 1979 album London Callingby The Conflict, I listened to a Qobuz stream of the 24-bit/96kHz remastered model by way of the Naim Uniti Atom HE. London Calling is the album the place drummer Topper Headon and bassist Paul Simonon really clicked into the rhythm part that elevated the band far past its punk roots.
On an album celebrated for its songwriting and Mick Jones’ guitar components, the IE 900 reveals simply how a lot the bass and drum components contribute to the success of the album. That impressed me to maneuver on to 1980’s Sandinista (additionally a Qobuz 24-bit/96kHz remaster) to take a look at songs like “The Magnificent Seven,” “Junco Associate,” “The Crooked Beat,” and “The Name Up” that reveal the band’s rising fascination with Jamaican dub.
What you get with the IE 900 is an correct illustration of the low-end motion with none of the annoying bass-forward tuning that so many headphones make use of. The IE 900 proved to be a remarkably versatile headphone. When you have broad tastes in music, they’ll deal with most something you wish to play.
Sennheiser’s IE 900 headphone arrives in an elaborate presentation field.
James Barber/Foundry
Not everybody will benefit from the remoted expertise the IE 900 present. In the event you’re in the identical room with one other particular person, you received’t have the ability to maintain a dialog or click on a management button to pause them. Even when the music is paused, you received’t hear a lot of what’s occurring round you.
There’s one different caveat. When utilizing the IE 900 with the Naim Uniti Atom, there was a little bit of cable noise if I moved away from a stationary place. I didn’t have any points with noise when utilizing them with my telephone, so it could have been extra of a operate of how the Sennheiser cable match with the Naim headphone jack. The cable-noise state of affairs shouldn’t be an unusual difficulty with high-end headphones, so I didn’t take into account it to be a giant destructive, however first-time consumers on this value vary must be conscious that this sort of factor occurs.
Is the Sennheiser IE 900 value $1,500?
In the event you’re an off-the-cuff music listener who’s not notably targeted on what you’re taking part in, there are dozens of wired and wi-fi in-ear choices that can get the job performed at a far decrease value. That’s not the market that Sennheiser is pursuing with the IE 900.
In the event you’re within the immersive expertise provided by the perfect high-res audio and may pair the IE 900 with a DAC that may decode that higher-quality stream, Sennheiser has delivered an in-ear headphone that produces audio high quality that may compete with high-end over-ear headphones on this value vary. Even in case you skip the DAC, the IE 900 affords a big improve to plain in-ears with solely a Lightning or USB-C adapter. With the Sennheiser IE 900, vacationers can go away their cumbersome cans at dwelling and luxuriate in an audiophile-quality listening expertise in an easy-to-carry bundle.
