“Transcendent” best describes my time with the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs. From the carrying case and included accessories to the build quality and sound quality, if I had purchased these with my own money, I would have absolutely no regrets.
Later in this review I will explain why.
The Sennheiser IE900 are not cheap
You can buy the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs directly from Sennheiser for $1,499.98. You can also find them at retailers like B&H Photo and Best Buy, and during recent Prime Day sales, you could find them on Amazon for just under $900.
In fact, if you wait on Amazon, the IE900s have been on sale a few times already, even dropping to $999.95 in June 2023. If I had money to spare for a major tech purchase somewhere, I’d jump at it and then build a shrine in my house to keep them when they’re not in use.
| category | SennheiserIE900 |
|---|---|
| speaker | Single 7mm dynamic driver |
| Frequency response | 5Hz – 48kHz |
| Impedance | 18Ω |
| Sound pressure level (SPL) | 123 dB (1 kHz, 1 Vrms) |
| Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) | |
| connections | Stereo jack plug, gold-plated, MMCX plug |
| Row 6 – Cell 0 | Row 6 – Cell 1 |
What do you get for $1,500?
In case you haven’t noticed, I like everything about my experience with the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs. Their casing is beautifully designed, even though it’s what’s on the inside that counts. It’s hard to make something so small seem $1,500 “valuable,” but they definitely show off their best side, as they are beautifully crafted and look like works of art up close.
There have been times when I’ve reviewed a product and felt that for the retail price, more accessories should have been included in the box. With some high-priced products, I’ve asked myself, “Why do I need to buy an extra ______ for the price of x?” Not with the IE900s.
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Included in the box are 2.5mm/3.5mm/4.4mm Para-Aramid reinforced gold-plated MMCX cables (Kevlar is a type of Para-Aramid), a high-quality hard case, silicone and memory foam ear tips (S, M, L), and cleaning tools. You’re in the clear unless you’re very picky and looking for a 3.5mm to 1/4″ adapter.
How does $1,500 sound?
Let’s talk about the most important aspect: how the IE900s sound. I used them with a few different mobile DACs and a desktop DAC, as I was testing a few for a roundup. Like a fine wine, IEMs can pair better with some DACs than others. My favorite pairings were the iFi GO Bar Kensei, iFi GO Blu, and Qudelix-5K due to their high-quality PEQ.
Listening to Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Souls of Her Shoes” and “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga (Main Title)” from the Get Out OST is, at the risk of overusing the word, transcendent. Ladysmith Black Mombazo’s a cappella intro to “Diamonds” is beautifully airy, while “Sikiliza” is hauntingly ethereal with its heavy, menacing vocals. I can recognize the pull and tension of the bow across the strings and the attack with the changing chords and movements when listening to “Violin Duel” from the Chevalier OST. Charles Mingus’ “Moanin'” is a masterclass in technique, layering instruments in a stereo image, brought to life in vivid color by the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs.
With its transparent, balanced sound, everything I feed the IE900s through the iFi GO blu and iFi GO bar Kensei is an absolute pleasure! Audiophiles might tell you, however, that an IEM like this is not for bass fans. They would be wrong. Very, very wrong.
The bass produced by the IE900s is well balanced and precisely controlled on its own, but doesn’t scramble your brain. Some of us musical masochists like that, though. Bring on the bass cannon!
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With that in mind (pun intended), I plugged the IE900s into the balanced 2.5mm output of the Qudelix-5K connected to a Pixel 7 Pro via USB-C. Then I went to the app’s 10-band parametric EQ, boosted the 36 and 63 Hz bands by 5.5 dB, and achieved bass nirvana. I beamed like Bruce Leroy as I bathed in the tight, poignant bass and sub-bass of Skrillex’s “Mumbai Power” and revived the sweeping double bass in Mingus’ “Moanin’.”
As balanced as the IE900 is, the X3R TrueResponse transducer showed no fear as it ate the hyped low-end curve I sat in front of. Unlike some IEMs with multiple drivers, the IE900 features a dynamic driver that sits in the X3R triple chambers milled into the aluminum housings. This technological wizardry allows the bass to be brought to nuclear levels without compromising the clarity and detail of the other frequencies.
Speaking of frequencies and technical stuff, let’s talk briefly about what Sennheiser did with their single driver. It’s quite difficult to get a balanced sound from one speaker in a pair of IEMs. That’s why other manufacturers cram multiple units into these enclosures; different speakers for highs, lows, etc. But then you face the problem of the sounds bumping into each other like that, and you get problems with phase coherence, which in English means two or more sounds blending into each other and causing an echo or sound weirdness. That’s a very rudimentary explanation, but I think it gets to the point.
However, there are also some problems that arise when using just one driver. To prevent that single driver from causing your mids and lows to blur and the overall sound to lack detail and clarity, engineers add a small chamber within a chamber inside the IEM housing. This is called the “back volume.” This controls the direction and overall volume of air flowing through the transducer system, while also suppressing any fatiguing resonances that occur when sound tries to bounce back and forth in that chamber.
For those of you who are interested in cars and speaker systems, the small chambers of IEMs are a type of very technical, precision-engineered “speaker box.”
There was nothing I didn’t like about the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs (and for $1,500 there shouldn’t be!), but there is something that some users may not care about if they’re primarily using these with a mobile device like a smartphone. There’s no inline microphone cable included.
You can purchase a replacement cable specifically for the IE900 with integrated microphone.
Is anything else comparable to this?
In this price range or close to it, there are definitely some options for your listening pleasure. Since sound is such a subjective experience, the question will be which option is best for you!
Technics EAH-TZ700 are solid units that are more forgiving on dodgy recordings and lower resolution Spotify streams, but less revealing on great recordings. Then there’s the Campfire Audio Andromeda “Emerald Sea” with its five dual diaphragm balanced armatures. It really holds its own against the IE900, although you might find a little more detail in the upper range of the high frequencies and the lower range of the low frequencies.
There’s also the Shure SE846 Gen 2 True Wireless bundle. While it’s only $1,000, it sounds great and comes with a package that makes it wireless.
Should you buy them?
I am completely in love with the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs. Their clarity, detail and ability to eat up the EQ like a champion hotdog make them a great pair for active leisure listening and analytical viewing.
There are enough accessories included to cover anything you want to connect them to, and fit shouldn’t be an issue as there are enough ear tip options to suit the most demanding ear canals. I highly recommend them…if you have the cash to spare.
Happy noise!
It’s as if the heavens opened up and started playing my favorite songs for me. Only it wasn’t that, it was me listening to the Sennheiser IE900 IEMs. Their clarity, detail, fit and finish, and ability to handle EQ put these alongside the $50 Sennheiser Orpheus among the best audio devices I’ve ever heard.
