Movie Audio

In order to test out the movie fidelity of the HD435, we listened to a certain section of “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”. The section we picked involves a confrontation between Gandalf and the Witch-king of Angmar on a road in Minas Tirith. Hoof beats provide a good reference as to the crispness of the sound, the sweeps of the Fellbeast’s wings give off a good base, and the screech of the Nazgül fills out the high end. In general, it is a good test to run. For starters, the HD435s provides very crisp sound. A sound that’s supposed to be quick is recreated as such, so you don’t get any “smoothing” of the sound. The bass response, however, set the HD435’s apart. They really brought us some power as the animal landed in front of Gandalf. Obviously, there is more to sound than just bass, even though some of us might forget that sometimes. These headphones don’t overdo it though. They still provide the same clarity in other sounds, which is a refreshing change of pace from many base-heavy audio tools. Finally, we come to the high end. As with the music test, the HD435s perform particularly particularly well in this. It is of course much harder to bring treble across as powerfully as bass, but the HD435s still didn’t meet our expectations. A final note on these headphones: they aren’t very loud. If you crank up the volume, they start to crackle much earlier than the HD555s. From an audio standpoint, these headphones are good, but only in moderation. They tend to top-out on their quality at medium volumes.

Comfort

The benchmark we’ve used to compare nearly any headphone to be the Icemat Siberia. Its original headband design makes it feel like it’s literally floating on your head, and it’s a comfort level that we haven’t seen headphones be able to duplicate since. The HD435 is no exception. The HD435 follows the conventional idea of a solid crossbar that has some sort of padding and then earphones that has padding on them as well. The problem with this approach is that the headphones are kept in position by the pressure put on your ears. No matter how good the padding is, it still won’t compare to the innovative design in the Siberias. That being said, the HD435 is a comfortable headset. We were able to wear it for several hours at a time before having to give our ears a chance to breath and rest. It is certainly better than anything in their PC headset series, and does honestly give the Siberia a tiny bit of a fight, but only a Poland vs. Germany-level fight (World War 2, not world cup). It still gets our recommendation.

Bells n' Whistles

Given the audiophile market that is the HD435’s birthright, we were happy to find an in-line volume control. It is common to find these not included in high-end headsets, and it is a fairly important thing for gamers to have. Therefore we were happy to see it on here. Accessory-wise, the headset comes with a ¼” adapter in case you want to plug the headphone into something bigger than its default 1/8” plug, although it isn’t a very common plug to have on a PC. Finally, the thing that most caught our eye was the carrying bag. We’re not talking some cheap plastic baggie; this is the type of stuff Crown Royal comes in. It’s a very soft, jet-black bag with rip cords to keep the precious cargo shut in. It is a very nice extra to just be thrown in by Sennheiser. Whoever thought of that in the marketing department needs a medal.

Pros:

• Above average musical sound
• Nice carrying bag
• Cheap (comparatively)

Cons:

• Not the most comfortable in the world
• Gaming sound isn’t great

Rating:
7/10