Sennheiser’s new earbuds cost as much as a MacBook Pro

Sennheiser's new earbuds cost as much equally a MacBook Pro — seriously?

(Image credit: Sennheiser)

The Sennheiser IE 900 is a pair of loftier-cease wired earbuds built for one thing: the finest, more than detailed sound quality possible. The best wireless earbuds will often promise much of the same. But the IE 900 is expressionless serious about being an audiophile'south best friend, integrating a "unique triple-chamber absorber system" and the best 7mm transducer Sennheiser tin come up with.

That'southward all great, but the IE 900 costs $one,300. That's more than than a MacBook Pro for just a pair of wired earbuds! Here's why you should think twice before dropping that much greenbacks on the IE 900, fifty-fifty if take the analogousness for High-Res Sound that Sennheiser is banking on.

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I should first say that I haven't used the IE 900 myself; having reviewed the Sennheiser IE 300 earlier this year, it wouldn't surprise me if this new large brother really does audio exceptionally skilful. I also believe it's perfectly adequate to spend large on superlative-tier headphones when yous have the hardware to back up them, like a habitation hello-fi system.

However, existence a pair of dinky, mobile-focused earbuds imposes limits on the IE 900 that make it hard to encounter how even best-in-form operation would brand it worth more $1,300. And in Sennheiser's defense, these concerns aren't specific to the IE 900 itself.

Phones are not real hi-fi devices

The biggest problem is that smartphones and tablets just aren't platonic devices for the studio-quality playback that the IE 900 is aiming for.

For starters, it'south get normalized for smartphones to omit a three.5mm headphone jack, as manufacturers assume — with understandable, if not especially atomic number 26-clad logic — that the owner is much more likely to employ wireless headphones or earbuds instead. To use the IE 900 with, say, a Samsung Galaxy S21, y'all'd need either a 3.5mm to USB-C adapter or a much more than expensive portable DAC.

In other words, you either need to spend fifty-fifty more than money or use a cheap adapter that could introduce distortion and unwanted dissonance. Audio Scientific discipline Review staffer "amirm" tested various iii.5mm to USB-C adapters for the Google Pixel series, and found unlike models could produce inconsistent results. Perhaps non to the extent that an average user would notice, or care. But for whose with a more discerning ear information technology would be unfortunate if audiophile-class buds like the IE 900 were at the mercy of a dodgy dongle.

The built-in DACs of many phones also lack the ability output to fully enable loftier-impedance headphones. Luckily the IE 900 is a low-impedance pair, rated at 16 ohms, but that doesn't alter how y'all tin't rely on mobile devices for the kind of sound that four figures would get you when buying in-home hardware.

In that location are already loftier-spec earbuds for less

Once again, I'm not going to sit here and say the IE 900 will sound better, worse or the same as any other set of headphones until I've tried it. But it does take an awful lot in common with the IE 300, which at $299 might be the far more attainable selection.

Besides the obvious, outwards pattern similarities, the IE 300 also has an in-house 7mm XWB transducer, golden-plated MMCX connectors and a special membrane foil to reduce unwanted resonance: all headline features of the IE 900. The IE 300 even has its ain resonator chamber, if not the three that the IE 900 has. Are two extra chambers and an upgraded transducer really worth an extra grand?

And, while I don't buy into sometimes-made assertions that you can't actually hear a departure between CD-quality music and Hullo-Res, the IE 900 does appear to promise a level of sonic fineness that the human ear just won't perceive. Its stated frequency response is 5Hz to 48kHz: an impressive spec on paper, simply generally the human hearing range is only between 20Hz and 20kHz.

Sennheiser is correct in thinking that some smartphone owners will want the very best sound quality on the go. And even with high-functioning Bluetooth codecs like aptX, the best way of getting that quality is with a pair of well-crafted wired headphones. But knowing the limitations of mobile playback, and that you can already get a not bad-sounding pair of Sennheiser buds for a fraction of the cost, information technology's non clear why paying $1,300 for the IE 900 makes sense; maybe get the MacBook Pro afterward all or one of the other best laptops picks.

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James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Newspaper Shotgun, but before that was Audio Editor at Tom's Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he as well wrote computing and gaming news for TG, normally relating to how hard it is to find graphics carte du jour stock.