ITEM: Sennheiser PX100
SELLER: 54xujiao (eBay)
PRICE: 13.99GBP
These are the "fake" PX100's I mentioned in my review for the OVC T20's. I decided I might as well offer a quick review of them as well, because even though there are many reviews of the well-loved PX100 on the net (ie. head-fi.org), I don't know of any serious reviews of the fake PX100's!.
Having obtained a real pair of PX100's from the store, I have added a section below that compares the REAL Senn's to the FAKE Senn's! (and also my Koss Sportapro's to both). Check the Gallery, I uploaded a photo of both to show one major difference.
PACKAGING:
Packaging was humble. A plastic bag. And not those good silvery anti-static plastic bags the fake Creative EP630's come in. Just a regular polywhatever fully transparent plastic bag. Without even taking them out of the sealed bag, they felt "cheapish". The plastic on the earcups seemed a bit crude on the machining, and they had a bit of a "smell". I don't know if this is my prejudices or not. I had real PX100's once, for a few days, but that was many months ago, and they were white ones. All I recall of the real ones was that I was mighty impressed with their sound. (No, I can't recall how they sounded as compared with these).
When folded and lying on a table with the earpads pointing up, the Sennheiser logo can be read right-side up. The jack is straight and silver, there is a grey ring where the two wires join (to form a Y fork after that) that slides along the Y, and the wire length from where the wires separate to the tip of the plug is about 41".
SELLER:
The seller's feedback shows one buyer complaining about fake PX200's. There were also complaints about fake Sony DJ headphones, Pioneers maybe, and a couple of other earphones, I believe. There may have been a complaint about the PX100's being fake also, but I don't recall 100%. Anyway, I fully expected these to be fakes before I bought them. I tried looking today into his record, and found ALL of his auctions wiped from eBay! Recent ones, and even the one I had on my watching page. Its as if he never existed....
I know the seller went NLARU a few days ago, so you wont be buying these from him. There was an issue immediately after winning my auction about his "insurance". (When I asked him what the shipping would be, he said 10GBP, and then charged me 14GBP after the auction, citing the extra 4GBP as "obligatory insurance". When I tried to query him about this, the email attempts to sort it out lasted for weeks, and it included him opening a dispute with ebay to say I had agreed to cancel the transaction. Of course, I agreed to no such thing, and his responses to me even in the dispute console, were totally irrelevant gibberish. No communication. So I just paid him his ripoff price since it was still the best price I could find on eBay for any PX100's, fake or not. I paid him on the 12th.
I kept asking when he would send it, and even though he responded once or twice in the weeks that followed, nothing he said confirmed that he had even sent the item. I would send him dozens of copies of the same email just to make sure he read it (in total, I sent over 65 emails to this ****er!). I kept a close watch on his auctions, saw the negs mounting up (he went down to 95.9% at the time of NLARU), and knew that he hadn't died or anything, because on Feb 28 he engaged in a mutual agreement with another buyer over negative feedback. That means he was ignoring my emails.
About one month after I had won the auction, with no shipping confirmation yet, I opened a claim with Paypal. Strangely enough, I was not able to open a simple dispute. It gave me an error saying that the Seller was not able to respond to my dispute, which gave me no choice but to open a full claim. (I did not want to do that because I had already made a claim a few weeks ago against another deadbeat seller, and I only have 3 chances to file a claim with Paypal within a year). Right after that, he finally sends me an email telling me to wait, and they were already sent. I did not believe him one iota, and did not withdraw my claim. Well, colour me surprised when they actually came in a few days later. This seller had absolutely the worst communication of any I've dealt with.
SOUND:
These are again, immediate first impressions. I played the Teddy Thompson track mentioned in my last review (Leonard Cohen's "The Future"), in order to have a reference to compare with the OVC's I'd heard a half hour earlier. And that's all I heard of these phones so far (apart from a bit of Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box"). Being headphones, of course, they sound nothing like the OVC T20's. Where the OVC's have the players in your head, these PX100's have the players at the top of your head, around the forehead area. Separation (left to right soundstage) is decent. Bass is now deeper and its fairly quick in its ability to follow the musicican, so bass melodies do come out more on this phone, plus bass has more weight and body. You don't have to play around with them to fit them in your ear for proper sound, they don't care how much earwax you may have, and they are very light and stay on your head well enough. Of course, they will transfer a lot more sound to the outside world than the OVC's.
I found the headphones slightly muffled at low volumes, which decreased with higher volumes, but compared to the OVC's, they definitely have something of a haze across the entire band. Not a thick wooly blanket perhaps, more of a veil, that still covers mids as well as highs. Apart from issues of accuracy, this also means no harshness or brightness with these phones, at any time. They do not have the crisp and crystal clear qualities of the OVC earbuds. Yet on the above mentioned track, vocals are presented well enough that you can still hear what's happening. I'd be hesitant to burn-in these phones, because burn-in usually makes brightness diminish, and it doesn't sound like these need to have their brightness diminished.
I complained about a slight analytical feel to the OVC T20's in my last review (I'd say this is entirely a question of personal taste in hi-fi reproduction). Well there's no such quality here. On the frozen Glacier*, they are musical. How musical? I started dancing. And... I couldn't stop! If a piano fell on me, I would probably still be dancing under the weight of the piano (so long as the phones were still on my head). I quickly stopped listening to technicalities and was just grooving to the music. I was exhausted nearing the end of the song, but a good exhausted. I could never do my taxes with these things and playing this kind of boppity music, I know that. I wondered how they would compare to my Koss Sporta-pros. I never found them the most musical of headphones, and I don't know that they would be as fun to listen to as the fake? PX100's. Again, I don't have them on hand to compare, but when I get them, I will try to edit this review.
(n.b. The reason I keep mentioning the "frozen" Glacier, is because I am aware of the fact that I am testing these units on a modified MP4 player (see my sig below for details of the mod). I am aware of what influence the freeze effect has on the overall sound (particularly musicality) of my player, so I need to mention that it was modded, in order to make it clear that you may not get the same results as I did with these cans if your player isn't so modded, even though you may posess the very same headphones and very same player).
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FAKE SENNHEISER PX100 AND REAL:
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LOOKS:
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REAL:
* headband is a duller, matte black
* logo is stamped on a glossy black inset plastic
* earcups click into place when folded out
* "CE" logo on inside of headband (on one side)
* screws are black
* Sennheiser logo on headband is grey, & larger
* Braille markings on outside of headband (indicating channel)
* Length from separator on wire where it forks into a Y to the earcup is 12"
* total cord length is .5" longer
* cord a bit more flexible
* foam pads are more cushiony, better material
FAKE:
* PX100 logo stamped in white direclty on band and upside down!
* Closed, headband is larger and wider
* Cushioning under headband is harder and thinner
* Earcups have a smell of moulded plastic
* R/L etching on headband is larger, deeper etching
* Hinge is larger
* logo is brown, and smaller
* Length from separator on wire where it forks into a Y to the earcup is 15"
* total cord length is 40.5"
SOUND:
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The moment I heard the PX100's from the store it was clear that they were different. What was less clear, was whether they were better! It was evident that the sonic picture was smaller with the real Senn's, things were less separated, and more further away (on the fake senn's, bass, mids and highs were more "in view").
REAL Sennheiser PX100 (as compared with FAKE)
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* Better, tighter, slightly more comfy fit (probably helps sound quality)
* More refined sound
* More icy white
* "Whiter" tonal quality (even icy white)
* Faster, "zippier" transients (leading edge of notes)
* EVERYTHING is less prominent; vocals, bass, jazz horns...
* Less separation (between instruments, etc)
* Sound is more "in your head"
* Musicality more mentally engaging
* More neutral
FAKE Sennheiser PX100 (as compared with REAL)
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* Slightly looser fit
* Reversed left / right channel!
* Bass less well defined but more prominent, as with everything
* Singer sounds more "in the room" than in your head
* Gives less music in some ways, but more music in others (ie. has larger soundstage)
* More tonal coloration across the band
* Musicality more phyically engaging
* Lyrics clearer, probably easier to sing to music (because of more up-front & clearer vocals)
I also compared with my Koss Sporta-Pro's, and give my final conclusions.
Koss as compared with FAKE Sennheiser PX100's:
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* Too much bass
* more muffled overall (due to bass)
* more neutral like PX100's, but the fake Senn's sound more like real the real Senn's overall
* more closed in, than either Sennheiser
* timbre less defined but pleasant sound
* more upfront
* smoother sound
* fake senn's more open
Conclusion: I prefer koss to fake senn's!
Koss as compared with REAL Sennheiser PX100's:
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* more open than koss
* definitely less loud (at same volume)
* bass less prominent (duh)
* less in your face, less interesting
Conclusion: I think I prefer the Koss Sport-a-pro's to the REAL Sennheiser PX100's!
(This was not my original conclusion when I first heard the PX100's in white, but I don't recall if I ever did a head to head with the Koss).
Despite the fact that they have too much bass (sounds like there's an EQ built into the headphones and its on boom boom mode), are more muffled and less open than the (real) PX100's, have less highs, they still have good definition, and a more upfront sound that's livelier, has more presence and is more fun to listen to than the Sennheiser PX100's.
I'll say that both are very good headphones, no doubt the best in their price ranges. I'll also add that I had a hard time deciding which Sennheiser I preferred, and chose the real one for its lack of coloration. But I give good marks to the fake, because I think for most average listeners, they would be cool with it (after all, I had my friend listen to them, whom I bought them for, and she thought they sounded great, and that they were the real Senn's!). Some might well prefer the fakes to the real Senn's for the reasons I mentioned. Whether the fakes are worth the price, that's for the individual to decide!
Fake Sennheiser PX100's
