Sennheiser HD700 Review

If you like listening to high-quality music or if you like to be called an audiophile, you’d probably have heard about Sennheiser. If you’re even more enthusiastic, you’d also have read about the HD650 and the HD800. The HD650 has been a legendary pair of headphones. After a long time, Sennheiser upped its game and showed the world that it could do better. It released the HD800, but then it was expensive and priced at something on the lines of Rs. 80,000 or more. Now, that’s a lot of money, but then, you get what you pay for. And now, we have with us the HD700, a model that’s priced a bit under the HD800 but supposed to be a lot better than the HD650. Let’s take a look at what you get with these still rather expensive headphones.

Design and build quality

The packaging of the HD700 is modest. You don’t get fancy leather accessories and pouches or any kind of superficial goodies that make you feel special. There’s a plain looking box with the rather futuristic looking HD700 headphones sitting all pretty. Get them out of the box and you realise that the headphones themselves aren’t made of any exotic materials. Unlike some Grados, you don’t get wooden cans. There’s no leather or exotic materials used in the construction of the headphones.

Branding and models along the headband

The Sennheiser HD700 is predominantly made of plastic, but of good quality. You don’t notice any flexing or squeaking sounds when you put pressure on them. The cable on the headphones is sheathed with a fine fabric, which ensures you won’t snap them if you run your chair on them or step on them by mistake. The cable then splits into a Y-connector which then goes into each can. There’s a 3.5m detachable jack too, so you can disconnect the cable from the headphones if you want to; it helps reduce the cable mess when you’re not using them, and also when you want to pack them up and carry them in your bag. It also gives you a certain peace of mind, knowing that you could make your own cables and replace these in case something goes wrong.

The large 6.3mm connector

The design is pretty impressive too. The headphones have a slightly futuristic look to them. They look like something straight out of a Star Wars movie. The sides, as you can see from the images, have a sequence of bands running to the sides and the frame of the headphones. The centre has a circular netting, under which lie the drivers for these headphones. These are open headphones, so you can actually see through these headphones through this netting.

The hinges are strong and so is the band. There’s not much play but just enough so they sit comfortably around your head, putting as little pressure as possible. The padding that goes around your ears and the top of your headphones is similar. It’s a soft foam padding minus the felt or synthetic film over it, which can be found on some of the cheaper headphones. The film and felt usually wear out and make the headphones look ugly, but you don’t have any of those issues here. The upper band feels rubberised so you won’t have scratches on them nor will the headphones scratch anything you place them on.

Simple design but they make the headphones comfortable to wear

When it comes to weight, the HD700 headphones might sound heavy in the spec sheet as they weigh close to 1.6 kg. However, wear them and you’ll realise that they really aren’t that heavy at all. The insides of the cans are extremely spacious so there’s never any pressure on your years. The foam we just spoke of, is very comfortable and doesn't make your ears sweat. There’s a decent amount of sealing but you can’t help notice the external noise leaking into the headphones.