Written by Matt Turner
If you are like me, having a good pair of earbuds or headphones to enhance your experiences with music is nearly essential. It’s not enough to have a pair of earbuds that just play the music–you need something that lets you engage it and hear everything that is going on. This is the reason I use Sennheiser products.
The Sennheiser MX-470 earbuds–priced at a reasonable $30 USD–are one of the cheapest pairs the company offers. Sennheiser advertises their products as some of the highest quality sound reproduction devices on the market, which can be difficult to argue with once you hear what they can do. Featuring LiveBass (an integrated bass-booster), these particular earbuds are perfect for bass-heavy music such as hip-hop, funk, electronic, and other genres, while still retaining a balanced sound for everything else. Like many earbuds on the market, the Sennheiser MX-470’s also come equipped with ear-canal slips that block most outside noise while simultaneously preventing your music from leaking to nearby ears that may not want to listen to your electro-dreampop-shoegaze stylings.
The MX-470 earbuds come with a full package. Along with the earbuds themselves, Sennheiser delivers you with multiple ear-sleeves of different sizes, a pouch that snugly fits a small iPod and the earbuds, and even a 2-year warranty in case you cut the cord with a pair of shears in the yard while listening to Radiohead.
While there are many positive things to say about these earbuds, I found over time that they suffer from a few of the same pitfalls that most earbuds in this price range are prone to. While they are generally a good fit for non-active listening (on the bus, sitting at home, etc.), I would not recommend these earbuds for jogging, high-energy dancing, or other physical activity. They will almost certainly fall out of your ears, making whatever activity you are doing less enjoyable as you fumble with the buds trying to keep them in. Depending on your height (or the distance between your pocket and your ears), you may also find the cord a little bit too long, making it easy to snag it on door handle or chairs as you walk by.
Despite these minor annoyances, I think the Sennheiser MX-470 earbuds are the perfect fit for passionate music lovers on a budget. All things considered, you will have a difficult time finding a more economically sound purchase.