Sennheiser HD 400S Review. Worth The Price?

Welcome to the review of the Sennheiser HD 400S wired headphones. Wired headphones aren’t for everybody, especially with everything being wireless nowadays, but if you’re still interested then stick around. I assure you that the audio quality out of the box is impressive given the price tag.

Design & Comfort

They’re not too bad to look at. They have a very simplistic design, which is kind of expected at this price point. Nothing fancy, but they don’t look ugly either thankfully. They’re easily recognised as Sennheiser because the logos are present on both sides. An interesting note is that the 400S looks like the wired version of the Sennheiser 350BT (which is pure wireless) and the Sennheiser 450 BT (the 450 BT supports wireless and wired connectivity).

The 400S has a folding design, but it doesn’t work well. You see, the problem is that the body does collapse and it’s folding. It’s meant to do that, right? Except the issue is that the earcups don’t fold flat. So, when you try to put them in a laptop bag, it kind of bulges out a little bit. I’ve had the same problem with the 350BT. I’m not sure why Sennheiser designed it like that, it doesn’t make any sense. You want them as flat as possible for easy travelling.

When putting them on and wearing them, they’re very comfortable. I can wear them for 3 hours straight with no problem. Ears don’t get sweaty, warm, hot, or irritated. It’s just pure comfort. Another thing I have tested is with non-prescription glasses they’re still very comfortable, even with glasses I can wear them for 2 hours straight.

The headband flex is generous, it’s not too tight it’s just okay. The earcups themselves, the cushioning that rests on your head are soft, but also very thick. The interior of the headband does have some padding, but it’s very minimal. However, it should be adequate for people that have no hair.

When it comes to the earcup opening, they’re a little narrow, they shouldn’t cause discomfort for you in most cases. Although if you do have larger ears, you’ll notice that they kind of wrap around your ears a little. Not as bad as the 350. When I reviewed the 350BT, the earcups are too tight on those headphones even with my regular sized ears (even though I’m a weird looking guy). But if you have larger ears the 350BT is going to be too snug and not that comfortable. There won’t be much of a concern with the 400S. With my ears (again, normal size ears, I guess) they feel very comfortable. There’s enough spacing to feel not too congested for my ears, and they can breathe easily. If you have larger ears, you won’t have the same problem as the 350BT.

In case you’re wondering, when it comes to working out, I don’t recommend them. However, I just want to mention that if you’re purposely jerking your head, they almost don’t move. They’re going to be great in that regard to stay stationary. However, the reason I don’t recommend that is because they’re over the ear headphones, so your ears will sweat like crazy when you’re working out. That’s one thing to keep in mind. The other thing to keep in mind is that because it’s a cable-based headphones, most exercises such as weight training, it’s going to get in your way. If you’re doing cardio based exercises like elliptical, stationary bike, etc. it’ll be just fine.

There are no colour options available. It only comes in black, and that’s pretty much it.

They weigh 217 grams, which is not too bad and for this price the body feels okay in terms of sturdiness. There’s no concern about them breaking or cracking the plastic if you drop it a couple of times. But beyond that, just be careful, of course. They feel pretty good given the price tag.

In case you’re wondering, the manual itself specifically says to keep them dry. So, it’s best to assume that they’re not water resistant and not dust resistant.

In case you’re wondering, Sennheiser does not sell official earcup replacements. You’re not out of luck though, you can find third party resellers that sell them.

The headband is done in notches, it’s not a slider mechanism and the earcups can have a decent rotation of going up, down, forward, and back to accommodate most ears and head shapes.

When it comes to resting on my neck it’s not too bad given the size of the earcups. I can look left and right. My chin just barely touches the framing of the earcup, not annoying at all. Looking down it’s a bit tight, it kind of rubs against my cheeks, but it’s not a big deal.

Controls

There’s only a single button on the headphones that controls, well almost everything. That button is located on the cable itself. A single tap will play/pause media or answer/hangup a call, double pressing will go to the next track, triple press for the previous track, and a few other controls for media and phone calls when connected to a smartphone.

If you press and hold the button for 2 seconds, it will activate your voice assistant. In my testing I used it with Android and Google Assistant, and it worked well.

There’s one thing I want to mention about the media controls itself for that single button control. It’s really weird. On multiple computers Windows 10 and Windows 11, it doesn’t do anything, whether it’s Spotify, YouTube, even VLC, it doesn’t function at all. But when I tested on Android and an app like Spotify, for example, it works just fine. So, your experience may vary. I’m not sure who’s at fault here. Is it something to do with Sennheiser or the way Microsoft does some sort of compatibility with the button capability itself? I’m not sure so we’ll let it slide as a negative point.

Considering the price tag and there’s a single button for control, I’m going to mention it anyway, like I do with every review, there’s no passive play/pause. So basically, when you’re listening to media with the headphones on, if you take the headphones off then passive play/pause will automatically pause the content, when you put the headphones back on it will resume your content. That function obviously is not built into these headphones.

Noise Cancelling

There’s no active noise cancelling (ANC) on these headphones. When it comes to passive noise cancelling, just wearing them because they’re over the ear headphones that cover up your ears, that’s kind of what you expect. So, if I’m in one room of the house and people are talking in the kitchen not too far away as well (about 15-20 feet away) from me to talk in a normal volume, it sounds like muffles in the background with no audio playing.

Of course, if someone’s speaking a little bit louder and are energetic, you can kind of make out what they’re saying, just a bit muffled, but it can be barely understood.

If you’re in the same room with someone else and they’re talking at normal volume (about 5-10 feet away), you can make out what they’re saying, but it’s still muffled. It sounds like they’re talking behind a door.

Battery

With everything said so far, it shouldn’t be surprising that these headphones don’t use a battery. Everything is powered by simply plugging in the cable to your device.

Microphone Quality

When using the microphone in a quiet environment, it sounds acceptable for this price point. It’s easy to point out for other people on the call that premium headphones are not being used but the call clarity to understand what you’re saying is fine.

When using it in a noisy environment like a busy café it’s easy to tell you’re in that exact setting. Don’t use these in a noisy environment when on an important business call, it won’t sound professional! The background noise isn’t overbearing compared to your voice but some of the background noise will come through easy enough to tell you’re in a busy area.

When using the 400S in a windy setting, it doesn’t perform well. Whenever the microphone turns in the direction of the wind, it can be rather annoying for the other person on the call to understand you.

Audio Quality

Audio quality out of the box surprisingly, it does quite well at this price point. Everything’s well balanced. Bass, mids and highs.

That’s great, but what if you’re a bass enthusiast and you want to amp it up? There’s no app available. It doesn’t communicate and work with the Sennheiser app. On mobile devices or computers, you must use a third-party equaliser. In my testing with multiple equalisers (so really went through my testing), it’s the weirdest thing and I replicate it every time. If increase the bass, what happens is that even if you increase it just a tiny bit, everything else suffers dramatically. The loss of quality on mids and highs is just horrendous.

It’s an almost similar situation with the mids, is that when you increase the mids, bass suffers greatly and so does the highs.

When you increase the highs, it goes up, but not too much. Other sound quality is suffering for it.

Your experience is best at just a flat profile. Just leave it as it is out of the box.

In case you’re curious, when I was testing this with my glasses for comfort, one thing I noticed is that when wearing glasses because the frame has to kind of poke out to rest on your ears, some of the bass leaks out just a tiny bit. Not the fault of Sennheiser, the bass leakage is just minimal. When it comes to mids and highs, there’s hardly any noticeable loss of quality in that regard.

Conclusion

At this price point, the performance is not bad. Except it’s hard to argue, why would you want to get wired headphones? In some situations, you might have to just do it, but if you’re looking for something in a similar price tag at and are also great quality wireless headphones, you might want to check out the Sony WH-CH520. The 520 are a great pair of headphones.

Back to the 400S there are some weird nuances like the folding design doesn’t make sense. The third-party equaliser just touching it, will just destroy and wreck most of the sound.

Anyway, you have all my information. And with that said, I hope you do make an informed decision if want to buy these or not.