I got the headphones above specifically for one thing and that’s to use when exercising. None of my other pairs of headphones are suited for sports because they’re either the type you stick inside your ear which isn’t practical when playing sports or they’re the kind you put over your head and then spend the whole time adjusting them so they don’t fall off. The 680’s are made for sports and I’ve had them for a couple of weeks now and really really love them.
First off these headphones are very light, once you’ve got them on you really can’t tell they’re there. You can also jump up and down, wiggle your head and probably hang upside down and they wouldn’t fall out of your ears. The headphones wrap around over your ears and then behind your head and once you put them on there is absolutely no need to fidget with them anymore, they just stay there the whole time. I’ve used them for running, walking and biking without facing any issues or having to adjust them in the middle of my routine.
The versions I got are the 680i, the “i” standing for ipod or iphone since the remote that comes with it works with them. By that I mean you can pause, play, forward, rewind, fast forward and fast rewind with the remote as well as raising and lowering the volume, activating voice over, answering calls as well as acting like a mic when talking on the phone. Now the problem is ALL the above is done with just 3 buttons. That’s where it gets tricky since you have to memorize a lot of button combinations like a double click is forward, a triple click is rewind, a double click and hold I think is fast forward, a single click and hold does something else… they’re just too many to remember and with my memory all you end up doing is rewinding a song by mistake instead of forwarding it or accidentally ordering pizza while trying to fast rewind.
Sound wise they’re pretty good, at first I found them a bit too bright but that got solved once I put on the tiny black ear foams that came with them. Another solution is to run them through a headphone amplifier like the FiiO E5 which I did and got some great results (without the foams). Only problem is you add bulk by running around with a small amp clipped to you as well as the fact you lose out on the iphone/ipod controls. Overall though I highly recommend these headphones for fitness and other sport activities. I ordered mine from Amazon for $70 but I found the same headphones except the cheaper 680 version without the “i” at Go Sport for KD18.5.
Here is the link to Amazon. [Link]
9 replies on “Review: Sennheiser Adidas PMX 680i”
The main problem I face when running of biking with an earphone is the sound caused by the cable as it move and shake around. Do you still get that with these earphone?
Another annoying noise when biking is the sound of the wind which somehow gets amplified with regular earphones when biking, did they manage to get rid of that with these?
I’m also assuming these have no noise isolation since they are used over the ear and not in the ear canal, which is much safer to use in the street.
no cable sound at all. They’re open type headphones so yeah they’re not isolating you from your surroundings which is a good thing if you’re out on the road. Wind noise is there, when running or walking u don’t hear it but when u r on the bike u do.
How is the low-end on these?
I confess I am a bass addict.
you’re exercising so bass shouldn’t be a priority. But when I hooked it up with the E5 amp the bass was pretty good.
lol i just ordered these last week from amazon. But the other version with the two pieces.
Mark, what would you suggest for someone who is really into techno but doesn’t want to wear studio headphones?
Not really sure, techno headphones would mean headphones with bass and it’s hard to get bass with small headphones.
Can you skip songs with the 680’s or do you need the 680i’s for this?
You need the 680i. The 680 just allows u to raise and lower the volume.