Performance
Let's move on to the subjective views, and this time there are quite a few of us involved in the testing, doing the A/B regime etc. I used Chesky’s pure recordings first, before moving on to multimedia sound from games and PC movies.
The first thing that struck me about the Sennheiser was its loudness through my PC soundcard, which is courtesy the low impedance. This brings in a nice sensation of being engulfed by the sound at loud levels, though prolonged exposure to such levels is better avoided.
The sound is balanced at the low frequencies, though there is not much punch at the low end. The highs and mids are more impressive, with a controlled bump in the 2-5 K region of frequency response. What does this mean? Basically, it involves a slight increase in level at high frequencies, which gives the listener a sense of clarity and ‘air’. But there's a flip side to this: bad recordings sound too bright.
The detail in the sound is decent, so is the Dynamic range. I would not call the sound laidback, but this is typical with Sennheiser sound; it's not in your face at all.
The Koss is strikingly similar to the Senn is terms of frequency response; it too has a brighter sound. The better part of the Koss is that the lows are a little more powerful, and the dynamic range seems to have more vertical room. This means sound of different loudnesses are represented pretty accurately, but the Senns weren't bad either.
The Koss proved a bit softer than the Senn, and in terms of acoustic noise cancellation, both are bad. Hardly any sound gets blocked when you turn them on, so there you are.
Conclusion and pricing
The Koss UR29, at Rs 3060, is way more expensive than the Sennheiser HD201, which costs Rs 1290. That's in India though; the dollar price of both is similar. Funny economics or what? Anyway, Sennheiser wins hands down on this factor alone – it costs less than half of what the Koss does, yet offers sound that's almost as good.
Of course, if you don't mind spending quite a bit more for some extra bass and headroom, you should look at the Koss. Or if aunty/uncle is coming down from the US, get the Koss UR29 for sure.
ZAK...senn hd 201 is available at ebay.in....with just at 1048....
