Sennheiser IE 200 Headphones Review

The Sennheiser IE 200 are fairly nondescript for in-ear monitors (IEMs). They have a black plastic housing with a red accent to indicate the right driver. The silver cable is braided to add more texture to the look.

These buds have a comfortable fit. They come with several pairs of ear tips, in silicone as well as foam, to help you get the best fit possible. They don't put much pressure inside your ears; once you put them on, you won't feel them. The ear hooks are malleable, too, which makes it easy to fit them to your ears, and it feels good on the skin. You can even lay on your side with the buds in your ear without experiencing significant discomfort. On the cable is a clear plastic adjustable slide, so you can adjust the amount of cable between both earbuds. On the downside, the buds' housing can rub up against your concha when you're inserting the buds.

These buds are pretty portable. They can easily be wound up and placed in most pockets or bags without an issue.

These buds come with a leatherette pouch to store the headphones when not in use. The inside of the case is soft, and there's a magnet to keep the top closed. While it'll keep the buds safe from dust, it doesn't protect them from drop damage or water.

The build quality of these buds is good. The buds are plastic, so they're lightweight yet solid; you can accidentally drop them without breaking them. Like most IEMs, you can detach their braided cable, making it easy to swap it out for something with a different connector, although it's worth mentioning that MMCX cables aren't cheap. The default cable is also made of kevlar, which is a synthetic, incredibly sturdy material.

The Sennheiser IE 200 have great stability. Since they have a deep in-ear fit and their cable loops around your ear, they won't move around or fall out if you want to headbang to a track. The cable doesn't disconnect as easily as the Sennheiser IE 40 PRO, either. They aren't designed for sports, though, and the cable can easily snag on something, yanking the buds from your ear.

• Sennheiser IE 200 headphones
• Detachable audio cable
• 3x pairs of silicone ear tips
• 3x pairs of foam ear tips
• Carrying pouch
• Manuals

These buds allow you to adjust the ear tip positions between standard and outer/open for slightly different frequency responses. In standard positioning, their sound is very neutral. While they lack some thump and rumble, they deliver more warmth to compensate. Vocals and instruments sound natural but are a bit recessed in the mix and lacking in detail. However, while it's possible to switch the buds into an outer/open position, once you insert the tips into your ear (or into a testing rig), this outer position can shift into the standard position. Subjectively, it took some time to achieve a good fit with this setting. While we noticed there was less bass and a little more treble, the seating was awkward, causing us to adjust the fit back to the standard position.

Related to this design is a user method of using tape to change the frequency response. On each nozzle is a bass vent. The theory goes like this: if you tape over the vent, you'll get a higher bass response. We tried this method, and you can see a comparison between our results here. There's a small amount of deviation in the bass range when using the tape, but the bass does increase slightly.

If you're looking to connect these buds to devices like an amp, you'll want to know that they have an impedance of 18 ohms and a sensitivity of 101 dB/mW. That means you can plug them into most devices like your smartphone or laptop up to a dedicated audio interface without needing an amp.

These buds have outstanding frequency response consistency. Once you get a good fit using the assorted tips included in the box, you'll achieve consistent bass and treble delivery.

We had trouble getting the bud to fit into our test rig's right ear, affecting their consistency. However, this issue is limited to our setup, and as long as you have human ears, you won't experience an issue.

The Sennheiser IE 200 have excellent bass accuracy. The response is tilted with an underemphasized low-end, so mixes lack deep thump and rumble, while instruments like kick drums lack body and punch. That said, there's a bit more high bass to help round off the bass and add warmth to mixes.

The mid accuracy of these IEMs is excellent. Overall, the response in this range follows our target curve well, although there's a dip in the mid-mid, which nudges vocals and instruments to the back of the mix. That said, both the low and high-mid are more flat, resulting in present and clear-sounding instruments and voices like the piano in Claude Debussy's Arabesque No. 1.

These buds have very good treble accuracy. The low treble is a bit carved out here, which veils the details of vocals and instruments. Sibilants like hi-hats are still present but are slightly subdued. The recessed treble can help lessen ear fatigue if you're listening to tracks for long periods.

These buds' peaks and dips performance is great, which means that the headphones can control their sound profile quite well. The most significant deviation is in the mid-to-treble range, with a dip in the mid-mid nudging vocals and instruments to the back of the mix. A peak in the high-mid harshens vocals and instruments, while a dip in the treble hurts their clarity. The mid-treble has a peak, too, causing sibilants like cymbals to be piercing.

The imaging performance of these buds is outstanding and is to be expected from an audiophile brand like Sennheiser, indicative of their quality control and ergonomics. Group delay falls within good limits, resulting in tight bass and transparent imaging. Our unit's left and right drivers are also well-matched when it comes to amplitude, frequency, and phase response, ensuring that sound objects like voices are accurately placed in the stereo image. It's worth mentioning that imaging varies between units, though.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is great. Distortion falls within good levels at both regular and high volumes, ensuring clean audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these headphones, and our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

These buds have a decent noise isolation performance when it comes to full-range noise, even though they don't have an active noise cancelling (ANC) system. While they make a minor dent in bass-range noise like the low rumbles of bus engines. They do a better job of cutting down mid- and treble-range noise, like people talking and the high-pitched hum of computer fans.

Regarding common scenarios, these headphones have much more trouble with irregular sounds. While you'll have some degree of noise isolation, whether you're on a plane, in an office, or walking down a street, it's not enough to fully block out all sound.

These buds' leakage performance is fantastic. Leakage is fairly spread out but quite minor. Even if you crank up your tunes in a moderately noisy environment like an office, others around you won't hear it.

These buds come with a detachable audio cable with MMCX connectors going into the buds and a 1/8" TRS connector for your device. Latency is negligible when using it, which ensures that your audio and visuals are in sync if working on delay-sensitive content like editing video.

These buds can only connect to PCs via analog. They don't have a mic, so you can only receive audio.

You'll only get audio when connecting these buds to your PlayStation controller's AUX port.

You can connect these headphones to your Xbox console for audio-only support by plugging the cable into your controller's AUX port.