Siu Lun

I bought the Sennheiser PXC300 headphones today for just under £100. Upon opening the package I was quite surprised at the size of the noise cancellation device. It is half as big as the headphones, but mind you the headphones aren’t big. They’re small but they’re still a good size, and also they’re very flexible yet strong, it also comes with a 5″ hard travel case which is pretty good since I don’t want to be putting these away in my bag and accidentally squish them or bump them into other objects in my bag.

More on the NC(noise cancellation), it takes 2 AAA batteries and the battery life has been reported to be over 25 hours, which is great since my new iPod nano’s battery is only 24 hours. I can’t confirm this though as I’ve only just got them and this is a first impression review .

The sound quality that has been reported is what made me bought these though. I was going to buy the PXC250 but heard reports that it isn’t that decent, and I’m glad I’ve bought the PXC300 instead. In my opinion when the NC is turned off, the sound quality is still better than most other headphones including my old Sony ones which got stolen by my partner since she was so impressed with them . (I’ll never let her try these on!) Ack hem! anyway, with the noise cancelling turned on, the sound quality seems to receive an extra boost! I’m unsure whether the frequency response and SPL specified in the specification is when the NC is turned off or on but in any case, if you turn the NC on (even in a silent room, which I’m in currently) you’ll instantly hear the difference.

The sound is richer and you can try and make some noise yourself and it actually filters that out quiet well! Mind you it doesn’t filter high frequency as well imo, but that is why I bought the headphones. To be able to filter background noise and general noise yet isolate those important moments so you can still hear someone speaking to you etc…

All in all it was a good buy! THE only drawback that I see with this pair of headphones is that after you hear the sound quality with the NC on, you just can’t listen with it off! It is quiet literally the difference between a pair of Hi-Fi headphones and a pair of portable headphones! I’ve read some reviews complaining that the volume of this headphones isn’t very loud, but I tell you, it’s enough to sound great and yet won’t damage your hearing so much. Some reports also said there is a hissing noise when NC is on, that is true to a point, the hissing is really hardly noticeable and you can only really notice it when you’re not actually playing any music, if you take them off and put them back on to notice the difference, you’ll find it hard to distinguish.

I also bough a Pakuma K2 bag, I got to say, they’re _really nice_, I was going to get the K1 but they’re just too big for me, the K2 is large enough for me to put all my University work in plus a laptop with chargers plus a digi-cam plus my headphones and a wireless mouse . The K1 adds a dedicated camera bag for SLRs and lenses and can hold a 17″ laptop as oppose to the 15.4″ with the K2, the padding in the bag is very good too and there are numerous closed pouches for miscellaneous items.