Sennheiser RS185 Review
Thanks to Sennheiser for the sample.
First Impressions: Squeeeeee!!!!
It would be improper I think for me to not acknowledge I have excitedly
waited for the parcel man to bring me the RS185’s. I have had the old
RS180’s and while I don’t use them a ton I recognise them as being
pretty damn awesome. They are what makes cleaning and tidying up round
the house bearable. I like Sennheiser rather a lot and I think I
probably have more Sennheiser products than I do from any other
company. I am sure I’m not alone in this. Anyway, so excited was I
when they arrived that I completely forgot to write my “first
impressions” at the start of my time with them. Oopsy.
With that in mind I do recall a bit of an initial quandary whether to use the analogue or digital input.
I ran with analogue for the first day or so. Initially I felt that the
sound sig was a bit changed from the 180 in that the 185 felt much less
dramatically V shaped in sound. More of a mature sound but less
immediately attention grabbing. One thing however is very clear, these
are a seriously quality sounding product. If you were blindfolded you
wouldn’t be able to tell these are wireless from their audio quality.
They are superb. Frankly I’d be shocked if any upper end product from
Senn wasn’t.
Source: Err it doesn’t really have
one. It has an optical input therefor it uses its internal DAC and
then the headphones being wireless have their own inbuilt amp.
Lows: The 185 is the open one so
as you expect with a big open can the bass reaches to a point then it
drops off like a cliff. Senn may be good but they can’t change
physics. Stylistically I’m a fan of open can bass, it’s far more open,
articulated with far better dynamics and expression than you ever get
from a big closed can. The detail and nuance is gloriously agile. Fast
and ever so clean which making it far more suited to a little bit more
grown up music. Sure it’ll do trashy pop rubbish but it never really
lets the bass overwhelm and dominate like pop is inclined to and its
openness means it never feels super bassy, that feeling the air on your
ears move. It’s just not. It’s like trying to send a Bentley round a
racetrack. Sure it will do it and it perform pretty well but there is
no mistaking that’s not what it’s made for. The 185 is meant for the
sort of lows that come out of a cello or double bass, not a subwoofer.
In quantity terms the bass is a bit elevated but not as much as Senn normally do.
To compare with the 180, the bass here is more grandly scaled, that
symphonic breadth and depth whereas the 180 is more directly punchy.
The 180 is the more immediately aggressive and feels more eager to blast
out something from the top 40. The 185 feels a little all above such
petty trifles.
Mids: Arguably the mids are you
probably expected, are in a bit of a valley. It’s a gently sloped
valley but nevertheless it’s still a valley. Senn don’t really do
anything midcentric, the closest they have come yet was the IE7 (still
one my all-time fav’s) so the sound here isn’t a shock. They have a
great, just achingly broad width to the mids however. Lots and lots of
air, it may be open and perhaps a little bit warm, little bit muggy,
still it’s there. Being a particular fan of clear, clean, maybe even a
little cutting vocals the 185 are a bit laid back. I personally want
the vocalist to shine, they don’t here. Detailed of course and without a
doubt very nuanced and capable but everything is so integrated. The
180 in comparison seems so more liquid in the mids. They can shove them
right up into your face, not quite “aggressive” let’s say assertive.
The 185 is ever so much more mature and controlled. I suspect that
while the 180 was happily tuned with Senn’s traditional pretty
mainstream sound, more V shaped sound, the 185 feels like its aiming for
a more audiophile audience.
Even when I push them, pulling out the big lady from Malta, (Chiara) she is a big old beast of woman vocally.
Think not much in the way of delicate but a big old belter vocally.
She should be the only thing on the stage and the 185 has politely asked
her to tone it down a bit, to play nice with instrumentalists. The
articulation is beautiful and so full of detail but…. Vocals just aren’t
capturing the soul in the way that the likes of Dido or Nora ought to.
Superbly polite but reticent and lack any will to be creamy or liquid
in their presentation.
Highs: Delicate, tremendous
breadth and scale. They convey the orchestral grandeur before you and
the highs are flat out amazing for something wireless. Highs are simply
the hardest bit to get right, stay accurate and for me, not get ear
stabby. Sennheiser have clearly worked some magic or been selling souls
to the devil. Detail, oh my god the detail is fantastic for wireless.
I’m never normally one to get gushy over the highs on anything but, holy
balls its good. Okay, so it’s not aggressive which won’t please
everyone but it sure as hell pleases me. The impact of a metallic edge
is a little bit on the muted side but the shimmer and trail away is
rather excellent. The 180 could get a little overexcited in the treble
when things get wild but the 185 has an improved level of refinement.
One curiosity though, I noticed on one
track the pithily named “There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered
Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet” the early treble in the
track felt a touch overly digital. Curious because normally the
185 is the more refined but I’m putting it down to the DAC in them. The
audio card the 180 is running off I feel is what’s giving the 180 the
more analogue tone there.
Quantitatively there is a bit of a lift to the treble but it’s very slight. Senn normally do rather more but here feels pretty much all in line with everything else.
Soundstage: Scale. Vast and
symphonic scale. The 180 feels soooo very much more up and in your face
but the 185 is far more relaxed and huuuuuggggggeeeeeeee. On paper
thats great right, but you know it meant the 185 at times felt a little
unengaging. Thats not a bad thing per say, just a stylistic choice.
Something you might want to use to relax with of an evening, maybe a
little Nora, or that Krall woman, a hefty glass of decent Scotch and let
the world melt away.
Fit: Grand. Slapped on head and boom, done.
Comfort: Excellent. I will toss
in a small caveat though. The 185 are big and pretty weighty. The 180
next to them feel far smaller and weigh nothing. The 185 doesn’t “feel”
heavy when on but flicking back and forth made it hugely apparent how
considerably much more the 185’s weigh. The spec says 204g for the 180
sans battery and the 185 is 310g with batteries. On paper it’s not a
lot but the 180 in the hand feels very light, light to the point it
feels a bit flimsy. The 185 feels considerably more substantive.
Cable: Woo hoo, no cable!!! So
what about the wireless connection that replaces it? The old RS series
used Kleer and the new use something in house from Senn. It’s been a
while since I used my old 180 lots but it never ever dropped unless I
was far away. The new one has a couple of times. I put that down to
there being 400 wifi points all trying to use 2.4GHz. It literally
happened a just a couple of times for a split second so nothing to worry
about. Still I’d have been happier if the pretty empty 5GHz band had
been used instead.
Build: These feel really quite
sturdy and solidly constructed. You know, because as we all know
expensive German products always feel like cheap crap don’t they J Given their increased weight these feel considerably more sturdy than their predecessors.
Microphonics: See Cable. Yey! Feel free to dance round your living room with them on if you like.
Amped/Unamped: Not really
applicable. They are their own DAC and amp which is something to keep
in mind when we get to the price. You aren’t just getting a headphone.
Isolation: Erm, pretty much zero. Do not think you can use these in a room with someone else and not piss them off.
Accessories: Well what do you
count as being an accessory? You could argue I suppose the DAC is an
“accessory” to the headphone. Then so must be the power cable and the
optical cable.
Value: Remember when I said before
to keep in mind that these are not just headphones? Yeah this is where
that matters. These being new are still going for full RRP, that’s
£300, 350 euro or US$400. So it’s not what you might call cheap. Given
that the RS180 goes for about £180 that’s a big jump up. The
difference is that the 180 has no DAC, so you need to feed it a decent
source. That you can plug this into an optical connection and let the
base station do the thinking is for many a good thing. Plus they are
wireless and are therefore their own amp so you get hell of a good
quality sound for your £300. It buys you the whole shebang. If you
want to start beating its sound quality in wired form you must think
about each component individually and of course use wires. In an age
where simplicity is at times favoured over any absolute, the package
that is the RS185 is superb. You slap in a little optical cable from
out the back of your TV or from your computer and you have an instant
audiophile grade headphone set up. It is that simple, the RS185 is
everything in one and you get the not insignificant bonus of it being
wireless to boot. If you are starting from scratch or you just like the
idea of no wires these do sound better than you would think any
“wireless” headphone has any right to. The convenience it offers is
wonderful, I can put these on and go clean the house with music of an
exceedingly high quality wherever I go. You have to pay for that.
Conclusion: I love the RS185, it
is a technological marvel that shows just what Sennheiser and every
engineer that Germany can muster are capableof when they put their minds
to it. It is nothing short of a miracle that you can have so high an
audio quality level out of something wireless, powered by a couple of
itty bitty AAA batteries. If you are completely new to audio or you
just want to massively simplify your set up you could chuck everything
out, plug this into your computer and you will have a first rate set up
that is good enough to be all you’ll ever need. Yes it is that good.
However………
Nothing in life is ever that simple is it?
Having spent many hours going back and
forth between the RS185 and the RS180 that is hooked up to my
Auzentech's HDA X-Plosion 7.1 sound card. Card I changed the
opamps in. I can’t remember what the hell to though. I remember it
being one that was rather middy and a bit creamy in its presentation.
So as a result I have found myself often liking the RS180 better. Yes I
know I could plug the RS185 into an analogue input but I can’t. I just
can’t do it. No, you buy the 185 because you get everything you need
all in one, that’s the whole point of it. You aren’t supposed to be
using a sound card that you can roll the opamps and fine tune. That’s
crazy audio people behaviour, the kind of weirdos who want a separate
DAC, a separate amp and then hooked up to a headphone. That’s not even
thinking about opamps and cables. The tinkerer in me wants to tinker.
The RS185 isn’t a tinkerer headphone. So while the RS185 is
declaratively the better of the two, its technical abilities are just
plain better than the 180. Sometimes I liked the 180 more.
If you are the chap or chappett who has a
home that looks like a catalogue, all open spaces and beautifully
minimalistic then the RS185 is so the headphone for you. Its
beautiful open sound is wonderful and that it’s the whole package in
one, DAC, amp and headphone is so staggeringly minimalist. It’s all so
effortless. This is the reason you buy it, or the reason you don’t.
The RS185 is a world entire unto itself.
You buy it because it’s the beginning, the end and everything
in-between of your headphone journey. You buy it because you want its
unsurpassable simplicity. You have it, a digital outputting source and
you’re done, not a wire to get in the way of anything, hell it even
charges its own damn batteries so you don’t even need a separate
charger. It is everything, everything you need. Everything wrapped in
one beyond minimalist bundle.
So the RS185 is pretty amazeballs. No ifs no buts its audio quality is awesome.
But…. When I pull out my old faithful HD600 (circa £200,) plug it into
the Solo Linear Ultra (circa £670,) running of a Majestic DAC (circa
£1700) and then the RS185 gets a thorough spanking from its “cheaper”
brother. Yes the £200 HD600 bests the £300 RS185 with ease. That of
course ignores everything behind it. This is why I’m finding it so hard
to judge the 185. In the Head-fi world if you already have all that
back ground stuff then you are paying a lot just to lose a cable.
All of that said, the final arbiter of so
much is, could I live with it as my only headphone. (obv I’d need
something in ears for outside.) I find myself thinking yes I
could. Its audio quality is excellent, there are no two ways about
that. It’s a pretty middling sound signature so I can’t see anyone
hating it. It’s good enough at absolutely everything and then you add
in the lack of wires. If it wasn’t for wireless headphones I might
never clean the flat again! The RS185 is never going to be the love of
my life, I could settle down and live with it.