Sennheiser HD 212 Pro

In years past, finding a halfway decent-sounding, sealed-back, portable/mobile-use headphone was rather difficult. We now find ourselves in the midst of almost an over-abundance of them, including the Sennheiser HD 212 Pro. These headphones seem to strike an acceptable compromise between fair price, good sound, quality build, wearing comfort, and ambient noise isolation factor. Though they have a LOT of bass, their overall musical presentation is warm and tonally smooth with a well-balanced, present midrange. The upper highs do tend to be a bit recessed, however, which is quite typical for sealed headphones at the lower pricepoints. Still, a pretty good, ergonomically lightweight, portable closed-back headphone at a nice & reasonable price.

The HD 212 Pro use a sealed [closed-back], almost-circumaural mid-sized earcup design. They have circular pleather-padded earcups that nearly surround the ears, but are not quite large enough to prevent the flat part of the earpads from resting gently against the ouside edge of the earlobes. The result is a set of headphones that have the lightweight and small ergonomics of a supra-aural design, but retain the secure fit and comfort of a larger circumaural headphone model.

The HD 212 Pro are a sort of star-trek silver in color and use a VERY lightweight, simple three-piece design consisting of the two earpieces and the headband. The earpieces attach via small, ball-like protrusions that ride in a groove in the headband; the detents in this groove allow you to adjust the fit. This arrangement also allows you to un-snap the earpieces from the headband for ease of storage -- although too much disassembly could cause premature wear on the ball joint, permanently ruining the attachment point. The headphone cable is a three meter long Y-type, which attaches to both earpieces via 1/8" mono plugs whose bodies fit tightly into a hole in each earpiece — a very nice bit of engineering for a fairly difficult problem. At the other end, the cable is terminated with a 1/8" mini-plug. A 1/8” to ¼” adapter is included in the package.