Page 2 - Physical Look - Hardware
While the original Sennheiser CX 6.00BT came to us in one color, the Sennheiser CX Sport comes in two colors. However, both of the colors exist on the single model of the CX Sport, which is a neon green and black. It may not be the cleanest of looks, but I think it fits in well in the sporting market. The lime green reminds me of something that Adidas or Nike would make. I am not really sure why there is such a link between this color and the active world, but perusing Wikipedia site on the color shows a similar lime called "Volt", which was used by Nike in their Air Max 90 Hyperfuse shoes. Moving along, you can see the rest of the body looks very much like the CX 6.00BT. Sennheiser logos are embossed on the back of both ear buds. We have a similar mix of glossy and matte finishes on the plastic. The whole thing is again pretty light in weight at about 15g and this slight increase in weight is probably because of the ear fins. The body of the ears are angled to go into your ears. In combination with the ear tips and fins, I found the lightweight earphones to be really comfortable. I went with the medium size for both the sleeves and the fins. Of course, this varies from user to user, so I am glad Sennheiser has given users options.
On the left side of the Sennheiser CX Sport is the 100mAh battery module, which promises a six-hour battery life. The battery is a lithium-polymer one and it takes around one and a half hours to fully charge. Sennheiser advertises a "quick" charge which allows you to get two hours of listening time by only charging it for ten minutes. It should be noted you cannot use the headphones while they are charging, unfortunately. On the other side, we have a three-button remote with an LED indicator. The buttons act as you may expect as the top and bottom is the Volume Up and Down while the middle one is a multipurpose one. The LED is located under the Volume Down button on the remote and it provides users with power and connectivity statuses. The manual shows that it blinks blue when starting up and red when not paired or shutting down. It lights up red when charging and changes to blue when it is fully charged. When calls come in, the light flashes purple. Otherwise, in normal operation, the LED should be off so it does not get distracting. Sennheiser also implemented audio cues, which voice out different actions like "Power On, "Connected", and "Power Off" in English, as well as giving cues about the remaining battery life.
As this is a wireless pair of earphones, the Sennheiser CX Sport connect to your devices via Bluetooth 4.2. This includes the supported codecs of SBC, AAC, aptX, and aptX LL. SBC, or Subband Coding, is the default Bluetooth audio codec with decent audio quality and low processing power requirements. This codec maxes out at 328 kbps. AAC, or Advanced Audio Coding, is preferred by Apple's devices and their iPhones, and maxes out at 250 kbps. Despite having a lower maximum bitrate, AAC is still known to offer better sound quality. Qualcomm's aptX and aptX LL offer slightly higher bitrates at a maximum 352kbps, while offering a "CD-like quality". While this term seems to be vague and overused, this codec still offers a more efficient audio encoding. This does mean you need a source with aptX support, which is not implemented in Apple devices. The LL version refers to a lower latency implementation of aptX, which should result in a better synchronization between visuals on your devices and audio, but has even less supported devices.
If we take a closer look at the earbuds of the Sennheiser CX Sport, you can see how similar this pair of earphones are compared to the CX 6.00BT. As we referred to before, the company's logo can be found on the back of each earbud with three dots marking the left side on the cable guard leading into the earbuds. The drivers inside have a frequency response of 17Hz to 21kHz, which are beyond the normal hearing range for a human being. It has a rated sensitivity is 112dB and a total harmonic distortion of less than 0.5%. The drivers are directed to aim into your ear for a direct and transparent sound reproduction. The sleeves are there to aim at the user's ear canals, while also creating a passive noise canceling effect. Sennheiser has made these earphones more water-resistant and you can see this in the earphones, as a thin foam membrane is present there to prevent liquids from going all the way through to the electronics inside. Otherwise, we also have the three sizes of ear fins to keep the CX Sport hooked into your ear. These also have "L" and "R" indicators to represent the left and right sides.
As we talked about, the Sennheiser CX Sport comes with a three-button remote that is compatible with both Apple and Android devices. The buttons provide decent tactile feedback, though I find the presses to be a bit too shallow and the feedback can be improved. An omnidirectional microphone exists on the back of the remote. The module also houses the wireless antenna and features a micro USB port for charging purposes. I would have loved to see USB Type-C on this pair of headphones, especially since this is now 2018.
The whole Sennheiser CX Sport is connected with a flat cable measuring approximately 60cm in length. It is light, easy to bend, but also does not tangle very easily. The microphonics characteristics on the Sennheiser CX Sport, or the feedback you can hear when you rustle the cable, is about the same as you would expect from most in-ear monitors. They could be improved, but it is not too bad. You can adjust the cable guide at the end to increase or decrease the extra cable based on your head size. You can also use the included shirt clip to prevent the cable from swinging about.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
