Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
Beware, this review is long as I try to cover everything. My search for the perfect reference has come to an end and the Edition XX isn't it, I have concluded that nothing will match my flagship reference loudspeakers. Instead, my attention is now turned to finding a bit of variety and color, which is why I purchased the Edition XX, as by some accounts it is warmer than neutral and will satisfy my Hifiman cravings before I start my search for the perfect colored headphone. About Me These days I rarely look at sub-$1000 anything, I don’t go out of my way to audition headphones that aren’t a flagship, or sub-flagship. I have listened to a lot of headphones over the years and the only type of sound I gravitate towards is the Hifiman house sound, as they go really well with the genres of music I listen to, which is a bit of everything, but mainly in the order of:
- Jazz
- Rock
- Folk
- Classical
- Electronic
- Alternative
I have a large head like Tom Welling but without the chiselled jawline. And my preferred listening volume ranges between 80dB and 85dB. Product Overview First of all, these headphones are only marketed as “easy-to-drive” so they can sell more units. The Edition XX have a low impedance of 20 ohms which makes them seem easy to drive, but impedance is only half the story. Their sensitivity is 93dB on the voltage scale (as opposed to efficiency), which is how Hifiman rates all their headphones. Doing the math, you would end up with approx. 8W required to drive these headphones to 115dB peak, as opposed to say the Hifiman Edition X V2 which only needs 634mW to reach the same volume at 1khz. Sure, you can get away with powering these out of your mobile due to their low impedance and get good levels of volume, but you won’t be able to drive them with good control.For this review, I will focus on SE 3.5W output since it’s likely more realistic to the target Massdrop audience, however, I will summarize differences at full power 15W balanced. (Technically it’s 4.5W in class A + 10.5W in class AB, the AB uses a diamond cross output design that removes distortion to sound like class A, I haven’t been able to tell the difference in listening tests). A lot of people have reported this headphone as warm and grainy, I can confirm this however it is not overly done and still much more neutral than the Audeze LCD-2C. The midrange sounds natural with a heavy bass that bleeds into the midrange making it sound warmer than it is. This is quite obvious on the track "You and Your Friend" - Dire Straits where the bass is a jumbled mess.
Treble Treble is light and expressive, with plenty of air. No complaints here, it's a fine presentation. Doesn’t seem to change much between 3.5W and 15W. Midrange The midrange of this headphone sounds slightly suffocating, it’s the reason why I absolutely hate the Hifiman He400i, although it’s certainly not as bad. This type of midrange suffocation does not exist on the Edition X, He1000 V2 nor my trusty HD6XX. With proper amplification, the suffocation is lifted completely and I’m able to thoroughly enjoy the midrange presentation. I can’t call the midrange completely accurate, on track "The Raven" - Rebecca Pidgeon, Pidgeon’s voice comes through quite clearly with all the necessary nuances however the headphone’s ability accentuate low-level noise makes the grains in her voice uneven and huskier than it should sound. With instrumentals, it is an absolute joy, such as in "Sokkaki" - Stavros Lantsias the piano grain is accurate with flawless decay of each instrument in the piece. Bass This headphone is bass-heavy, no question about it, even after an initial burn-in period the bass eased off only so slightly. While brilliantly extended, with a great slam for a headphone, the bass is hard and lingers around for longer than it should. On the track "Pacific Rim" - Ramin Djawadi, all the excitement is lost starting around 45s due to the slow and gooey bass. With 15W of power, sudden complete control is gained on the bass lines, with a brilliant portrayal of deep drum and bass guitar textures. It is fast and articulate; the excitement is back with Pacific Rim! Although some impact is lost, it is now tonally accurate across the frequency spectrum. Dynamics Macrodynamics is there but lacks control in the bass (see the Bass section for further details on this). Microdynamics isn’t up to scratch compared to dynamic headphones like the Sennheiser HD6XX, as it lacks the speed and sharpness on the leading edge of acoustic guitars. Listening to the album "Gravity" - Jesse Cook, there is a certain flare missing and makes me wanting more. However, some people may prefer this, as it makes the headphone sound more laidback. Soundstage and Imaging If I could describe the Sennheiser HD6XX like a globe inside your head, the soundstage on the Edition XX is like a figure 8 outside your head. The soundstage is expansive to the left and right side of your head, however as the sound moves towards the centre, the soundstage flattens. On the track "Show Biz Kids" - Rickie Lee Jones, it was difficult to separate the male and female voices during passages when they were stacked on top of each other in the centre image. In addition, akin to my past experiences with planars in general, headphones or speakers, the centre voice is never as pinpoint as dynamic headphones. It’s a wishy-washy centerstage overall. With 15W of power, the depth of the centre image is much improved, and with it the ability to hear the different depth of instruments and voices in the centerstage. Voices are still blurry which is not a fault of the headphone, just the inherent weakness of traditional planar diaphragms. Conclusion Initially, I thought this headphone was difficult to recommend at the $600 price point, as there are quite a few headphones I would consider better more coherent sounding at lower price points, such as the Sennheiser HD6XX, Beyerdynamic DT1770 (perhaps the rebranded DT177x), and the Focal Elex isn’t so far away. However powering these on 15W changed my opinion of them completely, they are categorically better with more power and well worth the $600 asking price. I would place them just shy of the HEX V2 $1,299 MSRP, the reason being the HEX V2 is much easier to drive and is just a tad more open.