Sennheiser MX 300 headphone review

So what can you expect from £5 these days? Well you could get a 'burger' or two at McDonalds. Or you could get a Sennheiser MX 300 from Richer Sound.

I wasn't expecting much when the Richer Sound guy chuck a pair into my palm. After all the MX 300 is Sennheiser's lowest common denominator in a range that spans from it to the £200 high-end IEM IE 8. The case housing the driver is made of plastic and felt cheap and light. The cable was thick and sturdy, an actual improvement over the cables used on some of their more expensive headphones like the CX 300. Overall the design is pretty generic. In fact the MX 300 is quite possibly the ugliest earphones I have ever seen. Still what matters is whether it sounds good...



Not expecting much I tore the poly bag, unplugged my Klipsch, plugged in the MX 300 and pressed 'Play'. Whoa. This little thing sounds amazing (for its price). Sure they sound like crap when compared to the Custom-3 (or any of the Customs actually...) and is uncomfortable like hell, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The bass was almost none-existent until I used the EQ to increase the low-end. The highs were shrilled a little bit and vocals recessed. But they do sound way better than the stock buds that came with my old Creative MuVo and Samsung DAP, though no where near the clarity of my Walkman's stock headphones. They also don't leak as much sound as the Sonys though.

I wouldn't exactly recommend the MX 300 at least unless you really really need something cheap. It is probably wise to get the best that your budget would permit and unless you are only planning on spending a mere £5 (versus the hundred or two you plonked down for your DAP), I would recommend something like the Sennheiser CX 300 or Denon AH-C351 instead for those on a tight budget.

But for people who hates canalphones and finds them uncomfortable or just do not care that much about sound quality (shame on you), and more importantly for the idiots who pay £25 to replace their bundled iPod headphones with the same, you really can't go wrong with Sennheiser's MX series.