Sennheiser HD 450SE Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Over Ear Headphone with mic, Alexa Built-in – Active Noise Cancellation, 30-Hour Battery Life, USB-C…

Look and feel: Really classy and minimal design. It’s not a head-turner, but it looks quite premium. Yes it’s all plastic, but the good quality type. Great decision to have the outside ears be empty and have a matte finish.

Fit and Portability: Very tight and snug fit, with holes that are surprisingly small for an ‘over ear’ headphone. People with big heads or ears might face some discomfort with long usage, but for the majority it should be absolutely fine. It folds up into a small form factor, and comes with a decent carry case for daily use. Sadly, the ear cups don’t completely swivel, which makes carrying it around on the neck slightly uncomfortable.

Sound: Compared to it’s competitors (Sony, Soundcore), it has a neutral sound signature, with a mild bass boost. Not recommended for those who want thumping bass, but for everyone else it’s a pleasant sound. Sound quality is brilliant as expected from Sennheiser, as long as you’re using the higher quality Bluetooth codecs (Aptx for Android and AAC for Apple/Windows). Pro tip – Use the app “Wavelet” if you have an Android phone, you can use the AutoEQ feature to smoothen out the sound even more!

Mic: Same as most Bluetooth headphones. Good enough for phone/video calls but don’t expect to go and record anything serious with it.

Noise Cancellation: ANC performance is above average. It will block out most of the droning, lower pitched sounds (ACs, Car Engines etc.), but you can still hear people talking and other higher pitched sounds. Lack of a “transparency mode” outside of phone calls is a negative, hopefully it’s available later with a firmware update.

Controls: Slightly challenging to initially learn (lots of buttons bunched together), but it’s pretty logical, and eventually you’ll get a hang of it. Voice Assistant button works as expected, as long as it’s properly setup.

Battery: Holds up to the claimed 30 hours quite easily. As long as you’re charging it every few days, you never have to worry about it running out.

App: Thankfully, Sennheiser are pretty good at keeping the smartphone app maintained and regularly updated. The app recently got an overhaul, and the headphones got a firmware update that added a feature (Sidetone). Wish there were more options for EQ rather than a simple 3 band thing.

Price: The SE model (which I have) is great value for money; a newer model in a cheaper price. The regular 450BT seems slightly overpriced, as it’s older, yet more expensive.

Overall, the 450 has both pros and cons, but it comes out as a net positive. It’s a good recommendation for an entry level ANC device, that offers Sennheiser’s trust and quality.

Respectable competitors in the 8-10k price range (as of writing this review) are the Sony WH-CH710N and Soundcore Q35. Do check them out before making a purchase.

I purchased these a couple of month ago for €99.

Pros:
1. Great sound for the money.

Cons:
1. Not over-ear but on-ear.
2. Case is just a crappy cheap pouch.
3. The app is pretty much useless. eg. In order to perform a firmware update the app needs to be on the front and it took around 20 minutes. So both headphones and my smartphone were useless for almost 20 minutes in order to perform a firmware update.
4. The noise cancellation is just useless. Even the fan noise from my laptop can be hear over the headphones when NC is on the same as when it is off.
5. The headphones try to connect to all of my paired devices at the same time, but they are not capable of working when that it happening. When the TV turns on the headphones will automatically connect to it even though they are connected to my laptop or my smartphone. At that point the sound will turn awful and the headphones will need to be disconnected one of the devices.
6. The voice info is pretty bad. When you turn the headphones on, you do not get a message “headphones on” until you release the button. If you keep holding the button the headphones will go into pairing mode automatically.
7. If the headphones are on, you cannot go into pairing mode. You have to turn them off and turn them on into pairing mode directly.

All in all a pretty annoying situation. At this point I use them to not annoy my wife when I game on my laptop or on my switch. For this they work pretty well and the sound is very decent if you are listening to music. Again though I paid €99 and not €200. I would not recommend these for 200.

I liked my very old Sennheiser wired over-the-ear headphones but it recently lost sound in left ear-cup after 10 years of service, so decided to buy another pair of cans with BT connectivity. Watched good reviews of these headphones on YouTube and decided to give these a go.
Bought these for Rs. 6700 during Amazon sale.

Here goes my experience with these..
NOTE ~ I used these only for 5-6 hrs. before packaging them back & initiating a return.

BT connectivity ~ While it’s good to be able to connect multiple devices at once, you explicitly have to pause/stop the music/call on one device and then play on other. The experience is not seamless.
Moreover, the sound kept disconnecting (sound will go out and then will come back in a second) in-between while playing songs while holding phone in hand/pocket, over bluetooth.
Both these features worked way better on my 4 year old Samsung’s Level U Pros (Pro version is not sold in India). They are able to switch seamlessly without user intervention & never knew that sound disconnection can be an issue for BT devices.

Noise Cancellation ~ It is a gimmick in these headphones. Period. DO NOT BUY these for noise cancellation feature. I could even hear the fan & AC’s humming noise in the room. It just doesn’t cut anything.

Connection via AUX cable ~ It only supports it’s propitiatory AUX cable as it has some locking mechanism and aftermarkets one won’t work with these headphones. So, keep your AUX cable safe, which came with these headphones. If they break or are lost – no wired connectivity for you.
Also, when connected via AUX, BT connection does not work. You’ll have to disconnect AUX to be able to connect to BT device.

Build Quality ~ It a good looking set of headphones (Your opinion on this may differ) and has fairly good build quality. Though I had only 1 worry that the soft rubber cushioning underneath the head band might wear off with time (not sure though, but it seemed very soft to be sturdy for a long time).

Ear Cup Size ~ You got to have very small ears like mine to be able to use these headphones as over-the-ear headphones. Otherwise, these will work as on-ear-headphones for you. Good luck there.!

Comfort-ability ~ These were comfortable enough for me to wear for an hour or so in Air-conditioning (otherwise your ears might sweat a lot) but then the pressure from earcups begin to press to hard on ears & you might start to experience some uncomfort.

Sound Quality ~ Sound quality was fine as expected from Sennheiser. I like how they sound. Though, it is not for bass-heads. Though, my old cheaper wired over-the-head sennheiser sounded the same.

Other issue ~ I & my wife, both noticed that the sound in left-ear cup was less than right one. First, I thought it was a defected-unit, but after getting second replacement unit, the issue persisted.

Conclusion ~
I have not bought any high-end BT headphones before but I do own a pair of about 10 year old high-end in-ear earphones (UE Triple Fi 10) and a pair of Samsung Level U Pros (BT in-ear) & a wired Sennheiser on-ear headphones (forgot the model #). I wanted to buy these to replace all my current headphones/earphones with 1 single set as they offered a very good proposition.
While, these sounded fine for a pair of BT headphones but failed to deliver on all other aspects.
So, now, i’ll hopefully be buying another Sennheiser cheap wired cans to replace the broken ones and will stick to Level U Pros for BT connectivity.
Hope this review is helpful for anybody looking for new set of BT headphones in the market.
All the best & Happy shopping. 🙂

I have bought this item with 9500 with some offer. It’s looking good and the noise cancellation is too good. But only one thing is … Sound is not soo much better. It’s like normal Rs. 500 earphones. Only it’s drawback for me.

As most reviews, it was more of a on ear rather than over the ear headphone. The clamping force was also on the high side. Wearing it for prolonged of time hurt your ears.

Enabling the ANC actually enhance the bass while cutting off the higher frequency.

Overall, it is a good buy for the price.

Delivery was fast though. Received the item in 2 days.