Sennheiser PXC 450 NoiseGard 2.0

One of the most useful feature is the talkthrough mode. This is aided by a button on the right earcup that simply mutes the headphones so that you can talk through. It's something you will be thanking Sennheiser for putting it there when you realize you don't have to remove the bulky headphones off your ears every time you need to talk to someone. Of course, all this can be used only with the help of one AAA size battery. However, Sennheiser has been thoughtful enough to ensure that if ever you run out of power, you can still use the PXC-450 as a normal pair of headphones. You just need to switch the headphones to bypass mode.

Talking about performance of the headphones itself, I have to say it didn't live up to the price (I have a fair bit to share on this). To begin with, the headphones sounded pretty flat and lacked dynamics when used with my iPod or Creative Zen. You will need a headphones amplifier to drive this baby. So we tested the PXC450 with the Yamaha stereo AX-397 amplifier with some of our own ripped FLAC files. The bass was as effective as I thought it would be, but the clarity of sound was good. I liked the way it dished out the mid-level frequencies, something which your usual budget headphones usually manage to muddle up. On loud volumes, the headphones didn't jar at all, something that I respect it for.

Conclusion
I have had a lot of people come to me relating after sales service stories of products like these, and I can only sympathize since it's a lot of money you will be shelling out for this. So I got a company spokesperson to say this, "The original Sennheiser product is covered by a warranty of 24 months. The warranty period begins on the date of purchase of brand new, unused products by the first end user. Please retain your sales receipt (or your warranty certificate) as proof of purchase. Unless you submit proof of purchase, which will be verified by your local Sennheiser service partner, you will be obliged to pay for any repairs that are carried out. Proof of purchase must state the date of purchase and name of the product."

The PXC-450 is exorbitantly priced at Rs. 29,900. Personally, I think it's way overpriced. Although the product is good, and does what it does brilliantly, I don't see why I should I literally drill a hole through my pocket for it. It's feature rich, that's for sure. But if you compare the price with performance, no sir! It's just not worth it. However, if are rich and don't mind shelling out so much 30K for it, I would say why not?