Sennheiser IE 100 Pro Wired in Ear Earphones

Per chi canta e le usa come in ear monitor si ha un buon ritorno dove prevalgono gli alti mentre i medi e i bassi sono sottotono, un pò carenti seppur presenti, ed il volume non è altissimo ma abbastanza adeguato. Leggere e comode da indossare. Per chi cerca solo la pulizia e la chiarezza della voce approcciandosi per la prima volta a questa tipologia di attrezzatura allora possono anche andare più che bene. Per chi è più esigente e cerca un ottimo equilibrio tra corposità e chiarezza sia delle voci che degli strumenti allora meglio virare su altro magari sempre dello stesso brand ma di livello superiore. Confrontandole con altri brand più o meno della stessa categoria, se paragonate alle audio technica ath-e40, in mio possesso, queste sennheiser hanno un suono più aperto e chiaro ma meno corposo per via dei bassi e medi meno potenti. Prezzo e corposità sonora sono nettamente a favore delle audio technica che presentano anche un buon feedback sui medi e bassi e costano addirittura meno di 100€, se si può disporre solo di questo budget da spendere! In conclusione, mi sarei aspettato qualcosa di più conoscendo la qualità del marchio sennheiser e visto anche il prezzo non molto economico per questo non do 5 stelle. Ps: non sono un audiofilo/professionista del settore, esprimo solo il mio umile parere da amatore. Buona musica a tutti!

I have listened to the lower variants of Sennheiser and I wasn’t impressed. I have used Beoplay earset & h3, Focal sphear s, AirPods Pro, Beats Studio and several other budget ones. I have consistently rated the h3 as good. Even AirPods Pro sound good in movies with spatial audio and less with music. On my budget, I was considering shure aonic 215 and Sennheiser ie100 pro. Although I saw more people recommending shure, l was confused as I couldn’t get hands on an auditioning piece. I was able to see a YouTube piece which have compared these two earphones side by side with an elaborate setup by TekitouSoundComp. The IE100 Pros had a great rounded audio with clear vocals and decided to buy it.
At 6300, I got myself a decent bargain and I am not regretting it. To enhance the sound, I would suggest the usage of a small headphone amp. I use the ifi audio’s go-link. It has an impressive sound stage. Played a few tracks, Hotel California (remastered), Coldplay’s Yellow and Hymn for the Weekend, Chain by Fleetwood Mac, Blue Heron by Sarah Jerosz, Baby by Clean Bandit and all played with great clarity – both in vocal as well as instrumental. The bass is more than sufficient and does not overpower the music. The sound is well rounded. The mids and the highs are good and does not shrill. Neither does the mid overlap with the highs or the base. I watched a few TV series with this and I wouldn’t recommend this for movies. Not that it sounded bad, but once you have heard the airpods pro, you will be addicted to the spatial audio. The isolation with the silicon tips itself is pretty decent and the headphones are very light. Fit is also good, however, if there is someone who needs to talk to you, the headphone must be removed and unlike the direct iems, this takes slightly more time to fit in the ears due to its design. This portion is annoying. This earphones was able to take up any sort of music thrown at it, rock, jazz, pop, bluegrass. These earphones are audiophile quality, and has no mic. They are wired. This piece of information is important as many using headphone amps may not prefer a mic. These are the go-to earphones if decent bass and clarity are top of your list. I am pretty s(h)ure to go with Sennheiser.

This is my first iem experience, I’ve been used to wired earphones from JBLs, Skullcandys and audio technica CLR100 before. So this won’t be a professional review but my personal experience.

Quality and comfort :

The build quality feels solid, the red colour looks great and these are really comfortable even for long hours. Absolutely no complaints in this department.

Sound quality :

The first time I listened to these I was totally impressed by the level of detail and the soundstage that this can produce. Every single detail in the song or the recording is audible. Whenever I’m listening to a live recording or some raw ambient sound (like asmr) the sound feels completely natural and real.

Coming to the frequency response and tonality, in the very beginning it took some time for me to adjust to the high end sparkle or presence of these. It was feeling too sharp. Maybe because I’m used to consumer earphones which almost always tend to be bassy and boomy. But now since I’m used to it everything sounds great.
Bass is present but only as much is needed. Mids and vocals sound really amazing. And the treble clarity is amazing too. Overall to my ears, I still feel these are slightly more focused towards mids and highs but if you’re listening at sane volume levels it sounds perfect and extremely detailed. The strings in the background of some songs, the cymbals, the clicks…. These are some of the sounds which you would rather miss on cheap consumer earphones but you can hear all those with these. And the vocals on the songs sound amazing too.

Overall I’m satisfied and still going through the journey of getting myself adjusted to these iems and experiencing the detailed sound from them.

TLDR at the end. I am no audiophile. I listen to my music on spotify and I’m content. if you are here looking for a review about how these sound for music, and monitoring instruments, feel free to disregard my review, as I am going to be talking solely about gaming. I bought these because I read a review saying these were great for FPS games and I was looking for a competitive edge. The IE 100 pro are VERY comfortable. probably the most comfortable iem I’ve ever worn. They sit deep in my ear with no issues with the silicon ear tips and the foam ones.
I often find myself touching them to make sure they are still seated in my ear correctly because SURELY something sitting in my ear canal should feel at least a little bit uncomfortable, right? Well, these disappear into my ears and the cable rests gently around my ears and I forget they are there. They sound perfectly fine for music and podcasts at least in my opinion.
My issue is, I used them for a few days playing games like call of duty, the Dark and Darker playtest, counter strike, but mostly COD. I was struggling to tell where footsteps were coming from. it was a little easier with less going on, but if there’s gunshots and grenades going off I can barely hear any footsteps. I’ve tried changing the in game sound profiles and I think it helped a little but I was still losing people behind walls and just felt lost. it was a struggle trying to determine if there was an enemy above or below me or on the same level, and if they were directly behind me they sometimes sounded like they were right in front of me. I started thinking to myself I must need to just get used to them, but no. After I swapped these out for my old Tin audio T2 iems, it was like night and day. I was able to tell if someone was upstairs. If someone was behind me, I could tell they were behind me, but also HOW FAR they were! I was able to track people’s footsteps so much more accurately and the imaging and soundstage of the Tin T2s painted such a better picture of the space around me in game.
if you want to get the IE 100 pros for music, editing sound, tracking instruments on stage, these are great, because that’s what they were meant for. If you want a REALLY comfortable IEM for use at work while you listen to podcasts or your pop/punk music playlist on spotify, these are really great, and that’s what I’ll be using mine for. But if you think you wanna get these for an in game advantage over other players in FPS games, look elsewhere, cause this ain’t it chief.

TLDR: These IEMs are really comfy and play music and podcasts just fine for everyday use, but their separation and imaging leave much to be desired. IEMs that were $30 cheaper were better for FPS gaming (Tin T2).

I’ve tried different brands of in ear monitors (Shure, MEElectronics, among others), and none of them seem to fit my ears for some reason. My ears are small, and I’ve always had a hard time with in ear monitors because of it, I assume.

Until I tried these. Do they sound good for the money? I’m actually not sure how $100 in ears are supposed to sound, but to my ears they sound perfect. I already tried them in one gig, and they didn’t fall off (which happened with other brands), they were comfortable the whole way, and they sounded great.

I have absolutely no complaints here. These are the best $100 in ear monitors I’ve ever used, and if they break for some reason in the future, I’ll check again what Sennheiser has at the $100 range, and buy it again. I have another pair of in ear headphones that I bought like 5 years ago, and they still work, and they’ve always been comfortable to my ears.