Sennheiser HD 4.40-BT On-Ear Bluetooth Headphones (Black)

I ordered the cans on May 31 2018 & received them in a secure packing on June 01 2018. Fantastic delivery experience as usual. Kudos to Amazon!
Now for the product itself.

IN THE BOX
The presentation inside the box is impressive. With the headphones themselves quite securely set inside a plastic moulded set of three pieces, on the bottom side pasted is a small plastic bag which housed documentation and a neatly folded carrying sack, which is rich to touch.

GENERAL FEEL
The headphones are top quality. Almost entirely made out of plastic, but don’t even come close to feeling cheap. They feel rich to handle, the clicks for adjustments are satisfying, and they fit snug on the skull (more on this later). The body feels secure and well made. The clamping force isn’t too bad, and you can easily stretch them out a little before starting to use them. They will certainly improve on fit after a few hours of use. The clamping isn’t too tight, although initially the head might feel a bit heavy, but the sensation eases out after a few times of use. The memory foam used on the cups is just so pleasant and welcoming that you never feel discomfort wearing them even for a couple of hours on the run. They feel luxurious to say the least and they do a great job at isolating background noise, though of course due to lack of ANC, you are to expect some background noise to sneak in. Grinders, mixers, heavy subwoofers thumping in the vicinity, constant humming of something like a high speed fan, all enter in, but this doesn’t cause any interference in the listening experience. Though I must say, my in ears do a better job at keeping such interferences out. But people speaking right next to you isn’t heard at all on the 4.40 BT. In fact I was forced to pause the music or uncover my ears momentarily to hear what the person was saying to me. So the passive noise isolation is fantastic. If you’re worried about it not having ANC, then 4.50 has ANC, but it isn’t at the level of say the Bose QC35 so don’t bother spending that extra amount getting the 4.50BT over the 4.40 BT.

COMFORT
Take my word on this. They’re super comfortable. The clamping force on the jawline is negligible, to the extent that it doesn’t even feel awkward or uncomfortable even after an hour or more of use. I have to admit that the opening of the cups is a tad small, but I don’t have an issue wearing them because my ear fit so snugly inside; they’re almost pampered by the memory foam. But, I have surely felt my ears warming up just a little and getting a tad sweaty after extended periods of wear. Although nothing that has pushed me over. Definitely not a point worthy of being a deal breaker. Don’t concern yourself too much over this, since I have personally used headphones that have heated up my ears beyond bearable limits. I would like to talk a bit about the headband here. It is in no way uncomfortable or hard, but it needs to be well adjusted. A tip is to securely hold the headband on top of your skull and only then stretch the ear cups down on your ears making sure the ears are well centred inside the cups and releasing the cups so the headphone rests securely and creates a good seal around the ears. I would say the performance surely takes a hit if the ears are not centred inside the cups and if the height of the headband is not perfect. Play around with it a few times and you’ll get a hang of it.

NOISE ISOLATION
The passive noise isolation is fantastic on these once you get the perfect fit. Once you play music, you’re transferred to a whole new world where only you and your music exist.

SOUND
Now to the most important part. When I ordered these, I came from bass heavy headphones and I needed a neutral sound signature that Sennheiser is famous for. I went for these after nearly a month’s research. I knew well what I was getting into, or so I thought.
When I first put on these cans, my first impression was “lively and open sound, crystal clear mid highs, vocal heavy sound, and the bass…meh!”
I’ve shared my exact first impression. I kept searching for bass. They just fell flat at the low frequencies. I was disappointed. But, the soundstage and clarity of these cans just blew me away. But it wasn’t enough for me. I love bass, (I am not a bass head by any stretch) and still these didn’t please me. I never listen to EDM, Electronic & Hip-Hop. Most of my music contains Rock, Alternative and some select Hindi tracks. Black Label Society’s Scars lacked depth right since the drums kicked in, although guitar strums were clearer than I had ever heard on anything before. Instrumentation and vocals were forward and distinct. Metallica’s Fuel sounded too shallow and lacked the bass impact Metallica is so good at putting up front. Celine Dion’s Power Of Love, Racing Glaciers’s songs multiple tracks, Def Leppard’s When Love & Hate Collide, Pete Yorn’s Lost Weekend…all had the same lack of deep bass and bass guitars had no impact. The last one is a wonderful alternative track with laid back vocals and forward instrumentation and I felt the lacking deep bass and upscaled vocals spoilt my experience. Then I turned to Lay It Down by Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band and the guitar was so soothing and the overall tone made me lie back and close my eyes and enjoy the vocals and clear as water cymbals. Percussion is where these headphones shine.

But I was too disappointed with the lack of deep bass so I even thought of returning them on the very first day. But then I thought of breaking them in and checking how well they performed. So I downloaded a burn-in app from App Store and left them to burn-in. A fifteen hour burn-in period (in breaks after every four to five hours) gave me significant improvement in the lows as well as highs. I was actually surprised at how much the sub-bass had improved. Initially I only had some response in the mid bass region, now the spectrum had opened up. The highs emerged better than before. Now, I am much happier with them and I will hang on to them to see how I come to like them for what they do best.

So to conclude my long review, I will say they’re now better in terms of sub-bass (but still lacking and wont ever please bass heads). They sound warm and pleasant. The high mids shine depending on what you’re listening to. The cymbals always sound wonderful, without being sharp and treble never gets too screamingly high to make it sound unfavourable. The overall sound signature is warm, and mid bass centric with exceptional instrumental balance. It is a very likeable and lively sound.

Update 1: After using them extensively for a month and a half, there are certain things I’d like to touch upon. One is about the sound quality. Bass is certainly not up to the point where it will please bass heads, but the depth of low frequencies definitely improved after using them for about a month. Alternative rock, grunge metal and rock ballad genre sound impressive imo. Bass guitar and drums now sound exciting. I will still say they’re warmer in the low mids, which many people might not appreciate, so keep in mind these definitely are warm sounding. But that doesn’t cap off higher frequencies, making cymbals sound lively.

Two caveats i would like to mention though are that they do get warm on the ears after extensive listening and second is my left ear cup hinge has started to creak and it is disturbing to say the least. There is a constant disturbance when you move around and the convenience of “moving around” is why you buy wireless headphones. It might only be my model and unfortunately it has started after my return period has expired, but I would like to caution you guys about this problem. If the head is still though, they don’t crackle. I have checked it physically and it’s the anterior portion of the left hinge that creaks and makes a crackling sound. Too bad this has happened and it’s not something I can overlook since it is not possible to keep listening to music with the head fixed motionless for hours.

Overall as far as the sound goes, bands like Nickelback, Staind, Alter Bridge, Imagine Dragons, and many others sound great, though not phenomenal.

A terrible and traumatic thing happened to me on Friday. While unfolding my previous pair of over-the-head Bluetooth headphones in preparation to putting them on my head, the right earcup parted ways with the headband and I was left on public transport with no choice but to listen to children screaming, people arguing on the phones and posh toffs talking to each other about how they were arranging a dinner party for twelve guests. I was not happy. The plastic pin holding the right earcup to the headband had snapped completely and there was no chance that I’d ever be able to reliably repair it. This was really quite upsetting – I’d grown fond of those headphones because they were comfortable, looked cool and sounded great and, rather typically, they were just outside of their one year warranty period. All I could do was sigh, hold a minute’s silence for them and then, as per my usual routine, set about the task of rummaging through the internet for ‘top ten’ lists, reviews and recommendations for a new set of cans.

Assuming that you’re on a similar journey yourself at the moment, you’ll have no doubt discovered that there’s a simply bamboozling amount of headphones available to buy here on Amazon – and half of them are from manufacturers you’ve probably never even heard of, right? That was the predicament I found myself in too, but fear not – I have done the research so you don’t have to.

After reading a heap of reviews on headphones, and with a maximum budget of £80, I narrowed my search down to the AKG Y50BT, Marshall Major II, Plantronics Backbeat 500, Lindy BNX-60, Skullcandy Hesh 3 and the Sennheiser HD440BT. From there, things got very tricky as they were all very well reviewed, but I managed to narrow it down further to a head-to-head between the Skullcandy and Sennheiser ones.

As you might have guessed, I ended up plumping for the Sennheiser HD400BT’s in the end as they got glowing reviews from just about everywhere, so I clicked on the ‘Buy’ button and, as ever, they arrived the very next day thanks to Amazon Prime.

>>>WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
As you’d expect for an £80 set of cans, they come in a very nice box. It opens from a clip on the bottom and the headphones themselves slide of it on a plastic tray, along with a 3.5mm traditional audio-jacked cable, a USB to micro-USB charging cable (but no charger), a soft carrying pouch and a set of three instruction books.

I’m always dismayed when I see plastic bags, trays and unnecessary packaging when I’m unboxing things. If you’re reading this, Sennheiser boffins, couldn’t you have made the tray out of cardboard or, even better, provided the headphones in an actual carrying case rather than provide a soft carrying pouch which feels like a bit of an afterthought? We need to paying attention to these things these days!

>>>FIRST IMPRESSIONS?
When I removed my HD440BT’s from their box, the first thing that struck me was just how robust they felt. Sennheiser are renowned for the quality of materials and attention to detail on their products, and it really, really shows in these – there’s a nice weight to them (they’re not heavy though) and they just feel really solid and dependable. The folding mechanism they have is also worthy of praise because it doesn’t in any way feel flimsy; it just feels smooth and well engineered.

I love how they look, too. I’m really not one for the glossy, brightly coloured shiny headphones that some people seem to favour and I felt drawn to these because they’re very understated, with no shiny chrome bits, big logos or flashing lights; they’re all about the matte black and the only thing that gives any clue to their pedigree is the subtle Sennheiser logo above each of the earpieces. Very classy. I also like the fact that they’re compact and don’t protrude too far out from the ears and make you look a bit gonky like some headphones do.

The minimalistic approach continues with the controls and ports at the bottom of the right earpiece, where you’ll find the power button, a multi-function slider button, the volume controls, a 3.5mm audio jack port and a Micro-USB port. None of these have any writing on them, which I think is pretty cool.

In terms of comfort, upon my first inspection of the headphones, I thought the padding on the earpieces looked very sumptuous and soft, with the pads themselves being made out of memory foam and protein leather. The bottom of the headband was a cause of concern to me, however. Although it has some padding on it, it wasn’t as sumptuous as I’d expect to find on headphones at this price point, so I initially had a worry over how comfortable these would be to wear.

>>>ARE THEY EASY TO CHARGE?
Yup. These headphones can be charged using any old Micro-USB cable. In fact, once I’d unboxed and examined them, the first thing I did was plug them in and charge them up. An orange LED illuminated on the right earpiece to let me know that they were charging and it took a couple of hours for this to go out, indicating that they were good to go. Easy peasy.

>>>ARE THEY EASY TO PAIR?
As with any new Bluetooth device, you’ll need to pair these headphones with your audio device before you can listen to music through them. Since the majority of people will no doubt be connecting these to their smartphones, Sennheiser has made this task incredibly simple. If you take the look at the side of the left earpiece, you’ll see an NFC logo. Yep, that’s right – if your phone has got NFC capabilities, you can pair it to these headphones by simply tapping it against them, which is super cool, really convenient and works a treat. Of course, if your phone does not have NFC, you can pair them together using the traditional Bluetooth way, which is very simple to do.

>>>HOW DO THEY SOUND?
Ah, yes – without doubt the most important thing when it comes to headphones is how they sound, innit?! I’d read some good things about how the HD440BT’s sounded, so I excitedly popped them onto my ears once they had charged fully and cued up some music via the Amazon Music Unlimited app.

DISCLAIMER: I should probably mention at this point that I’m not a audiophile and don’t have a set of £500 headphones to compare these to, but I do have a good ear for quality sound. I’ve got a pretty eclectic taste in music too, so I tried to listen to a few different genres to see how they sounded. First of all, I had a listen to the pop track (or as poppy as my tastes dare to venture) ‘Break it to me’ from Muse’s new album ‘Simulation Theory’. It opens up with a nice guitar riff and I was very impressed when the drums started – it was immediately apparent that the HD440BT’s were capable of pumping out some seriously powerful bass as the drums and bass synth in the song sounded simply fantastic; really deep, punchy, dynamic and engaging – but not to the point where it swamped everything else. Once the vocals began, they cut right through the bass with strong mids and impressive clarity and everything in the song sounded incredibly tight. Impressive… Most impressive!

Next up, I had a listen to the track ‘Spider/Waves’ from the brand new album ‘Bi/Mental’ from Le Butcherettes and was actually blown away by how good it sounded. The clarity and control over the audio from these – particularly when listening to something that’s well mixed and mastered – is quite breathtaking and I listened, grinning and somewhat slack-jawed, as the beautiful bass, drums and moog in the song punched my ears with meaty slabs of bass while the ethereal guitar echoed resonantly – and Terri’s crystal-clear vocals cut right through everything, totally unimpeded. I was definitely coming to agreement with the reviews that I’d read about these headphones sounding great.

Now for something a little more challenging – I fired up the track ‘Eldrich’, the title track from Parius’s album ‘The Eldrich Realm’, which is a very loud and fast paced metal track with some surprising depth and orchestration. It’s also a very well mixed track and again I found myself pleased to hear how well these headphones dealt with the sonic assault that this track imposed on them – they didn’t get muddled or swamped and were able to keep a tight rein over things. I’ve heard some headphones really struggle with tracks like this and these just breezed through it perfectly.

Finally, something far more relaxed and delicate – ‘Scheherazade: The young prince and the young Princess’ by Rimsky Korsakov. This is a beautiful classical piece and I was super impressed by how these headphones dealt with it. They’ve got a beautifully rich tone to them when listening to classical, with that added bass kick really adding power to the low end, and the mids and highs dealing perfectly with the nuanced elements in it.

I’d read that these headphones worked best with rock, pop and metal, but upon listening to a few more tracks through them, I’m pretty certain that the majority of people (or at least the ones who are not complete audio snobs) will agree that pretty much everything sounds good coming through them. I love the powerful bass that they’re capable of, but what impresses me even more is the fact that it’s balanced so well that it doesn’t interfere with the mids and highs and makes just about anything you play through them sound great.

>>>ARE THEY COMFORTABLE?
So far, yes. There’s a good deal of adjustment in the headband and the earpieces rotate, so it’s pretty easy to adjust them until they feel right.

Unlike my last headphones, which sat on the top of my head and used it as a support for the soft headband they had, these Sennheiser ones are designed differently and actually clamp onto the ears so they don’t really rely on the headband that much for support, which probably explains why it’s not as padded as some are.

When it comes to the earpieces themselves, I was surprised to see how small the aperture in them was. Although they appear to sit on the ears, they’re actually designed so that your ears fit into the aperture, which works very well for my ears, but I would imagine that it could be bothersome and possibly uncomfortable for those who have larger ears. I use my headphones mostly for when I’m on public transport, which means that I’ll wear them for an hour at the most going to and coming from work, and during those periods I’ve found them to be very comfortable. I do suspect that they’ll make my ears toasty warm during the warmer months, though – so I might report back here as to whether I find that a problem or not.

>>>ARE THEY NOISE CANCELLING?
Well… No. If you’re after proper noise cancellation, you’ll need to go for the Sennheiser HD450BT’s which have got ‘NoiseGard’ active noise cancelling and are about double the price. Thankfully, because the HD440BT’s sit quite tightly on the ears and have wonderfully soft earpieces, they do a very good job of isolating the sound from the outside world anyway. When I’m sitting on a packed Edinburgh tram and there’s lots of people chatting and there’s generally a lot of noise, I have to say that I’m completely oblivious to it with these on my ears.

>>>ARE THERE ANY DROP OUTS?
Not so far, no. The Bluetooth/ApTX connection to these from my phone (a Huawei Mate 10 Pro) has been really strong and stable and I’ve been able to roam around Edinburgh city centre without experiencing any issues with these dropping the connection or stuttering – which is something that absolutely plagues lesser headphones.

>>>IS THE BATTERY LIFE GOOD?
Actually, I can’t answer that yet – I’ve been using them for a week so far and after charging them when I first got them, they’re showing absolutely no sign of needing charged yet. According to Sennheiser, they should be good for 25 hours of battery life, which is very impressive and means that I should only need to charge them every couple of weeks. I’ll come back here with an update to let you know if that’s the case.

UPDATE 09/03/19 – I’ve now had my Sennheiser HD4.40’s for a month and after using them every day for approximately two hours and the odd listen when at home (and also having a week’s holiday where I didn’t use them at all), I finally had to charge the, for the first time yesterday – so it’s fair to say that the Battery life on these is nothing short of INCREDIBLE. In fact, by my calculations it’s actually better than expected, which is a pleasant surprise.

>>>SUMMING UP
Although I was upset when my old set of headphones kicked the bucket, I’m sort of reaping the benefits now because these Sennheisers are superior in pretty much every single way. They look great, feel very well designed and constructed, sound FANTASTIC and tick pretty much all of the boxes for me, so I would have no hesitation in recommending these if you’re looking for a good set of cans that won’t break the bank.

Actually this Headset / Headphone does come with some cons but these surely even compete against some top of the end wireless ANC Headphones like Bose QC35.

Also 4.3 stars are for Sennheiser HD 4.40BT and 1 Star is for Really unexpectedly fast delivery & Good packaging too.

———→ Sound quality :-

Now Coming to Sound quality of these Cans….

It was UNEXPECTEDLY GOOD for wireless 11k cans. It’s Bit unique I would say it simply has Typical Sennheiser sound signature with More emphasize on Vocals and It is Mid Bass Centric and have bit less Emphasized Low end bass But that low end bass is still there and is presented in very Control way.

I would also like to mention these Cans do sound bit better in Bluetooth Mode Specially Bass distortion is very very less and it’s well presented and well Controlled.
Also it does retain 80-85% Volume as compare to it’s wired mode which can be really loud and In WIRED MODE these Cans sound superb and really good enough bass to even satisfy a bass head which I am not.

Highs are bit rolled off and Treble detail is there but not much as you would expect if you have used any good Audiophile Headphones then you’ll get my point. But Whole Treble / High freq spectrum is presented in such controlled way that these cans sound really really relaxed and you ain’t going to feel any sort of ear fatigue.

• So yeah these DO Sound BIT WARM BUT VERY RELAXED AS WELL VERY SMOOTH so you can use these cans for even 5-6 hours continuously without any sort of ear fatigue and these are very very breathable Headphones.

Mind you I ain’t an Audiophile but I tried my best to explain how these sound.

Just for a side note I do own Audio Technica M50x and these don’t sound as AGGRESSIVE & In your face and DOESN’T SOUND AS DETAILED as M50’s. But I can guarantee you that You are definitely going to enjoy these cans like very much and these are fun to listen to RELAXED sounding Headphones.

Also I have Tried Sony XB950bt, Xb650ap, xb450ap, Bose Qc35 ( Picture included ), Beats solo 3 ( Picture included ) and these do stand out and sound far better yes even better than all of those cans and Specially even better than 30k Priced Bose Qc35.

Maybe bass heads will choose Xb950bt or Skull Candy Crushers which sounded very less details and they were totally bass centric.

————→Pros :-
1) These are very light weight Headphones and earpads of these Cans are simply very freaking comfortable ( for small to Avg size ears ).

2) After 2-4 hours of usage once you’ll get familiar with it’s Controls then it does certainly have very simple straight forward Trigger button to pick up phone calls and to skip songs and for fast forwarding and approx all sorts of functions are quite easy to do with that Button. And Volume buttons do provide feedback which that Trigger Multifunction Button doesn’t provide which is totally fine for me.

3) These are well Build Headphones for Specially it’s price range and these surely do provide Premium feeling and These do have that minimalistic design and it’s actually really Very Beautiful simple Looking design and very Public Friendly design so you can wear them in public while looking cool and without catching attention of many people.

4) Fit and stability of these cans is simply superb and once you’ll wear them you can go to Gym, Running, for work out or any sort of activity. As these cans simply have good fit and doesn’t slip from your head.

5) BT Pairing of these cans is very simple procedure and You can pair it with two different devices at a time and These do provide really excellent Bluetooth range as I was able to use even in my duplex house too. Also whenever you Power on These Cans simply keep bluetooth of your device Always ON as these cans do pair automatically with the device if that device is available to connect.

6) Call quality on these cans is simply superb and these certainly do impressive work as you can listen to your own voice too otherwise you’ll end up speaking loudly while using these cans as Headsets because of Noice isolation of these cans. It’s omni directional mic also picks up some background noises as well.

7) Passive Noise cancellation / Noise isolation of these cans is simply damn good and so good I literally thought I am wearing an ANC enabled Headset. There is minimum Sound Leakage even at 100% Volume and specially if you are sitting in a bit noisy environment like travelling in Bus so person sitting next to you simply ain’t going to be disturbed at all .

8) These have quick pairing NFC option so without pressing it’s power button Everytime you can simply slide your NFC enabled Android phone over it’s Left earcup to simply pair it with these HD 4.40BT and these also come with AptX codec too.

9) Battery life of these Cans is simply freaking amazing. There was 30% battery left Even after 20-21 hours of usage at 100% volume and I also used these headsets for calling in that 20-21 hours usage interval. Specially It’s audio plug is positioned in such manner as well it’s included cable is so light that you won’t feel like that you are using them in Wired mode.

————→Cons :-

1) Your earsize should be either small or avg and if you are ears are large or way above avg earsize then your These cans might be bit Uncomfortable for you because it’s Earcups are more suited for Small to Avg size ears. (Check M50x earpad vs HD 4.40BT earpad size difference in picture.)

2) These cans surely have bit more clamping force and you might actually have to adjust these after half to one hour But if you’ll find that sweet position by adjusting them a little bit so you can wear these for hours and hours without any issue at all.

3) There is Bit of a distortion in Wired mode at 100% volume in like 2/3 songs outta 100 songs which are Mid bass Centric songs and naturally really really loud songs too & which I have on my iPhone 5s it simply feels like Bit overdriven for those 2/3 songs and due to that there is bit fuzz type noise in Mids other than that for rest of 97 songs these did a freaking job of sounding really good and really relaxed as well without any Sound & Specially bass distortion at all. ( I am pretty sure these are being overdriven for those specific songs ).

4) Carrying pouch or bag is bit of disappointment which I shouldn’t mention for it’s price point but still it’s not something that reliable pouch which you would like to have for these cans.

And So yeah this was my Review about it and Thanks for checking out my Review.

Also I bought these for 7500 while they were on discount but these do certainly deserve 11k easily and I do recommend these to anyone looking to buy wireless cans under 11k.

———→ Some Side Notes :-

1) Yes, These Cans do Require some burn in and after two week usage ( 4-5 hours on daily basis ) bass has improved so as other Upper Mids and treble has more detail now specially bass has increased and is being presented more tightly and it’s bass now goes even more deep without leaking in mid spectrum at all and These do surely sound better after some burn in.

2) For Those WHO ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT LOW VOLUME in Bluetooth Mode…….
– First Make Sure to Increase Volume of these cans to Max 100% as well as volume of your mobile media player to 100% as well.
– Use High Quality 320Kbps Audio Files otherwise low quality audio files can result into low volume in Bluetooth Mode.
– For Videos Use Mx Video player and use its SW Decoder and increase Volume of your music video or movie to 30 if you want to.

I will keep updating this Review if I need to in future.