My Sennheiser Urbanite XL Wireless Review
Recently joined this community and thought I'd contribute something. My work gets Sennheiser discounts and decided to buy a pair of the Urbanite XL Wireless to use as my daily work driver. These go for $299.95 from the Sennheiser site, but my work gets them for $88. That being said, my review will be from the perspective of having these for $88. I'm sure my thoughts would be different if I had to pay regular price.
TL;DR: Decent sound, wireless convenience is super.
Anyway, let's get started!
What's In The Box:
Besides the actual headphones, you get a 1.2 m universal cable with remote and mic that are terminated in 3.5mm low-profile angled plug, a USB Charging cable (micro-USB), carrying pouch, and the manual (which you can also get online).
The included cable is a tangle-free design with a mic/control made of hard plastic with a rubbery button. The volume slider has a nice feel to it, with enough resistance to not accidentally blow up your ears. These have a twist and lock mechanism at the headphone end, with a 90 degree 3.5mm plug at the other. It's nice that these are included with the headphones because it really feels like a high quality cable.
The carrying pouch is a little disappointing. It's made of a thin nylon with drawstrings at the top. There's a Sennheiser logo at the top left. The whole thing is stretchy and doesn't give me the feel of protection at all. It does fit the headphones and two cables though. However, for $300, I would've expected something more tough.
Now, for the headphones themselves. Man, when they meant XL, they really meant XL. They're pretty heavy which means you probably aren't going to use these to work out. The cups are pretty thick, too. I almost feel like they should have made them thinner and wider, simply because the diameter is kind of small to be considered "over ear." Magic Mouse for comparison: http://imgur.com/ZCswHnK
These are collapsible, though it is a little flimsy (probably due to the weight of the cups. You can see that these are held in place by a metal rod that have a soft click when moved to the uncollapsed position. http://imgur.com/4XdnDGv
The build quality is decent. You have a nice combination of plastic, "denim", rubber, and metal. The band looks really stylish (if you like to wear black, these are perfect for you), the threaded white is a nice touch. Underneath the band is a soft touch rubber with three dots on the left side to help indicate the orientation. There are metal parts that finish each end of the band, with the cups themselves being made of plastic. The cups also connect to each other via a rubber flat cable that don't move when adjusting. Even though the denim is a nice look, I do find it to kind of fray at the ends, along with some separation with the rubber.
Speaking of adjusting, the cups move up and down with a satisfying slide. They have just enough resistance to stay in place.
The right cup is where all the fun happens. You have the LED indicator, switch, headphone port, USB port, 2 mics, and the capacitive touch panel. http://imgur.com/WSUWrXZ
Features:
So let's get to the features. First, the touch controls. On paper, touch controls is a good idea. You basically tap to play/pause, slide up/down for volume, double/triple tap for fast forward and rewind. But the capacitive touch panel is pretty sensitive, especially in a location that is used when putting on the headphones. The first couple days of usage, I must have accidentally paused/played/called a dozen times. You do get used to them after a while, with the occasional mis-tap. There's also a bit of delay when sliding up/down for volume control, but these do prevent you from muting if you slide down too far. You will hear a soft beep if you've reached the minimum.
These also come with two mics to help with call quality. Not much to say about these, I think they work fine for phone calls.
Bluetooth is probably the best thing about these. I can't stress enough how awesome wireless is. I no longer have to worry about getting yanked by random objects (especially since I move a lot at work). I feel FREE. These headphones also have a nice lady to tell you when you're connected to your device. I use an iPhone 6s for my listening needs and there is a nice battery indicator next to the bluetooth symbol. One thing to note though, is that there is a minimum volume needed for bluetooth headphones to work. Because of this, I find that the minimum volume (on iPhones) is pretty loud for a quiet environment. Listening to classical and jazz is acceptable at this volume, but anything else has me feeling like I need to turn it down (but can't). The only way around this is to listen to these headphones with the included cable.
Sound Quality:
These support the AptX codec which iPhones don't support, so unfortunately I can't comment on the quality of them.
I'm not the best at talking about sound quality but I do think that these are pretty good for being Bluetooth. I listened to "Today's Dance Hits" on Google Play Music and I find that the bass was at a decent level. These are advertised as club sound, and I do agree. Top 40, Hip-Hop, and Dance all sound great. Classical...I could have a better experience with something else.
Conclusion: Overall, these are a steal at $88. They're on sale on Amazon for $143 as of this post, and I would say that they're still great at that price range. Most of your money definitely goes to the wireless convenience, and it's so worth it. I love these as my work driver.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for any typos. I am willing to answer any questions about these.
Here are some more pictures: http://imgur.com/a/OJbXx
Posted Apr 15, 2016, 2:09 AM UTC · edited