All change?

The IE 900 could represent the end of an era. Ed Selley finds out if it’s a fitting finale

- Ed Selley

DETAILS

PRODUCT Sennheiser IE 900

ORIGIN Germany

TYPE In ear, dynamic driver earphone

WEIGHT 4g each

FEATURES

• 7mm driver in resonance controlled chambers

• Detachable balanced and unbalanced cables

DISTRIBUTOR

Sennheiser UK Ltd.

TELEPHONE [phone]

WEBSITE en-uk.sennheiser. com

News that Sennheiser had sold its consumer division to Sonova Holding AG came just days before the announcement of the IE 900, and it’s difficult to separate the two. The name will continue as before and there will be future product that involves input from its engineers, but the IE 900 arrives feeling like the last product done the ‘old’ way.

Fittingly then, it is also a flagship. It goes straight to the top of the in-ear range, augmenting (but at this point, not replacing) the IE 800 S (HFC 434), which previously fulfilled this role. In keeping with other Sennheiser in-ear designs, the IE 900 eschews armatures and multiple drivers for a single dynamic driver in each enclosure. This is called the X3R and builds on the ‘Extra Wide Bandwidth’ principles of earlier designs. It is 7mm in size, which – even judged by current standards – is pretty small.