SennheiserHD 450SE Black Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Headphone with Alexa Built-in - Active Noise Cancellation, 30-Hour Battery Life, USB-C Fast Charging, Foldable - Black

Updated Review 6/28/2025Over 5 years now and I still use these every day. Still great battery life. Never had a problem with bluetooth on my PC or phone. I use them via BT every night with my phone in bed.------------------------2 Years one month!Finally one of the padded ear cups has a tear and the foam is showing. I can't feel the difference but I will but a new set of replacement cups for $10 - $15. Maybe they'd last longer if I wiped them down sometimes?They still work like the day I got them. I use them every day.2 Year Review Update!Still going strong! Still hold a great charge, no connection issues. I use them every night for several hours.No damage, all the buttons work, the padding is fine, no tears or wear. They look and operate like brand new. I love these things.If you can get them for around $100 or so do not hesitate.Updated Review #5 3/12/2022Still great! No issues whatsoever. Price is currently $129, I'd do it at that price. No disconnections. Noise cancellation makes my window fan almost silent while not noticeably affecting sound quality. Can't hear the roommates. I'm in my own world with these on.I use these for watching videos on a PC where I can EQ and raise the volume more than someone with a phone. I use them on my phone too, but my audio player has a way to boost the sound so that I can play them extra loud if I want to.Updated Review #4 11/10/2021Still working great after almost a year now, still comfortable. Still 5 stars. I use them every night for several hours. Still holds a long charge.Updated Review #3 5/27/2021Still working great, I love these things. Paid a little less than $100. Holds a charge great. Never drops the signal. Ever. I use them every night to watch movies and they're fantastic.I am no longer bothered by the ear cups no matter how I wear them. Maybe they softened up a little. These are bad ass!Updated Review #2 1/29/2021Okay I got these headphones to fit comfortably. I hope I can explain this. Back to 5-stars.I put the headphones on, then I swivel the cups forward, like putting more pressure near my temple (front of the ear), and less pressure on the back part of the ear (that sticks out from my head).The mistake is trying to fit them evenly over my ear, or flat against my head. At least for me. The cups are simply too small (they should be bigger!). Making this adjustment makes them fine for hours. I have no discomfort and the sound quality is not changed at all.I still think the narrow ear design is flawed (I believe I said "stupid" earlier), but the sound quality and price I paid keep these at 5 stars.And I repeat, for better and louder sound on a PC, I recommend the FREE "Equalizer APO". It EQ's all sounds coming from your computer to the headphones and speakers. Also download another free program called "Peace" to control the EQ easier. Way easier.Updated Review 1/19/2021These are uncomfortable after prolonged use. I can watch a movie, but after that it is sometimes a bit painful. The ear pads are poorly designed and I am looking to replace them. They are too narrow, I really don't understand why they were designed this way.Just looking at them tells you they are not made to fit over the ear of a human being. I just don't see how you can screw up that part of a headphone design. It's dumb.I paid $99 for these less than two months ago, now they are $146. If I'd paid $146 I would definitely return them, but for the price I paid I'm hoping I can find better ear pads instead. They sound great and I like everything else about them.I also may have found a way of positioning them so that they are more comfortable, but seriously why should I have to? I shouldn't even know I'm wearing them after a few minutes. What a stupid design.-------------------------This is my first pair of wireless headphones and I am very happy with them.They sound so much better than the cheap wired ones I usually get, and I used to think they were pretty good! I didn't know what I was missing before. Now I can re-watch some movies with incredible sound!I can see why some people will find the ear cup padding uncomfortable. I may end up replacing them, but if I adjust them over my ears right then I really don't have any problems. They could be a little wider though and I do have to move them a little sometimes. This is the only issue that could remove a star from my review, but like I said, so far I'm fine with it so all stars are intact.The sound is very clear and they do a good job covering the entire frequency range. I use Equalizer APO for my Windows machine, so whatever I run through the speakers or headphones is custom EQd. That makes a giant difference!The battery life kicks butt! They last so long I forget to recharge them. it's just not something I have to do very often :)For the first few weeks I could hit the center of the volume "rocker" button and it would tell me how much battery life I had left. I can't get that to work anymore. No biggie though. It will warn me if there is less than 12 hours left anyways when I turn them on.The noise cancellation works well. But really the full cup nature of these headphones deal with most noise without the need of electronics. If I wear these with no sound playing I can't hear much in the way of noise.I could do without the button that handles the track skipping and pausing. I sometimes hit it instead of the volume by mistake and my movie starts over from the beginning. I use a mouse for that stuff so I don't need it. I just take an extra moment to make sure I don't do that. Maybe I can put some tape over it. A lot of people like this feature so I'm probably in the minority.I paid about $99 for these and I am very happy. They could be louder on the phone though, but my music app has a volume boost that I can use. On the PC I can make them as loud as I want.I love not tripping over the wire of my old headphones anymore, or rolling over the wire with my chair. Such an annoyance! Wireless is awesome!The sound quality is very good. Wireless headphones downsample the audio before streaming to your ears, but with these I can't tell. They are also HD in that regard - they transmit a higher quality sound. And if you're really picky you can plug them in with the cord and get full sound. I can't tell the difference.I had to buy a Bluetooth adapter so I got one here at Amazon. get Bluetooth 5! I had an issue getting all this to work, but once I figured it out they work great.I did a ton of research before buying these. I look forward to watching movies and listening to music more now. I highly recommend them, they are awesome!

The sennheiser HD450 BT is the successor to the 4.50. it's an improvement in every way.Comfort.The 450 BT has a thin headband but it never dug into my head at all. This is all plastic but it's well constructed and folds to a very compact size. The one thing i wish is that the earcups were a smidge wider, but i can think of a number of people i know and who i had try these headphones on, of varrying builds and none of them felt comfort was an issue. Truthfully it isn't anything i can't live with and i am nitpicking, but also comparing to other headphones i own.The headphones charge via USB-C and also have an analog cable with a 2.5 MM plug for the headphones, and a 3.5 MM for your headphone jack.The codecs they support are SBC, AAC, APTX and APTX-LL. The latter is designed to sync the audio from a TV or movie with what you see on screen.Note; IPHONES AND IPADS DO NOT SUPPORT THIS FEATURE.noise canceling. The headphones do well illiminating the whirring from AC units, busses etc, but with Air Conditioners for example, you'll still hear the fan noise, though it will be reduced. These also don't block voices very well, though they passively block them out enough so that with music playing at low-medium volumes and higher of course, you likely won't hear any of these noises well. There are headphones that cost double who's ANC is not as good as the Sennheiser HD450 BT.Sound. You can customize the sound via the Sennheiser Smart Control app, available on IOS and Android, via a dot EQ. The eq implementation is 2 stars only because i am able to get a sound i enjoy with these and other Sennheiser products i have which also use the Smart Control app, but from a programming and customization standpoint, it earns a solid half a star.By default the sound has an emphasis on bass in all it's forms, but these are not muddy by any means. The mids are full and the treble is rolled off slightly, but fortunately all this can be refined to some degree with the eq. Theres still a veil to the sound if i compare them to higher priced models like the NAD Viso HP70 or Shure Aonic 50, but those cost twice as much as the $200 MSRP Sennheiser placed on these. that said, these have some real potential and if you use an app that has a multiband eq, you could really make these shine. AS is, they have a good sense of space for instruments to have separation and sounds in tv shows to have their place as well.Functionality.The Sennheiser 450 BT uses buttons for it's functions.on the underside of the left side of the headphone just above the earcup, there is a braille L to indicate left. The right earcup is where all the buttons and ports are.you have the analog adapter mentioned earlier, the USB-C port, on the bottom edge of the right earcup. The volume button has a dot on one end, that's volume up. the other side closest to you while wearing them is volume down. Details like this help when you want to use them without looking, especially because while the buttons aren't hard to use, they are a little cramped in some instances. Fortunately they're distinct enough that it shouldn't be hard memorizing each one and what it does. Back to the layout, the next button over from volume moving towards your ear while you're wearing them is a toggle which rewinds and fastforwards by flicking it it up for fast forward, and down for rewind. Fun fact, if you hold the toggle in either direction, you can scrub through the track bit by bit. perfect if you miss something while listening to a podcast or audiobook. some devices and apps don't support this functionality however. pressing inward on the toggle pauses or plays music and also answers and ends calls. next button up, right near where the headphone band connects to the earcup is an assistent button. This worked 100% of the time. I didn't need to set it up like i have to with some products. This is using google Assistent. on the opposite side of the right earcup from the assistent button is the power/noise cancelation button. You press and release to turn ANC on and off and hold for 2-3 seconds to power on and off. Hold for 5 seconds to place in pairing mode.These also support multipoint connection, so you can have them connected to a tablet for music and a phone for calls for example. If you have music playing on one device, and recieve a call on another device the headphones are paired to, the music will pause, and the call will come in. you can hold the function button for a couple of seconds to reject the call. IF you do, your audio from the previous device will start playing again.Call quality. While these headphones don't have a transparency mode available while listening to music etc, they do use it for phone calls. This is a wonderful feature because you can clearly hear yourself and your environment while on a call. Vital while you're walking or might otherwise be occupied. The callers i spoke with in most cases didn't know beforehand i was using headphones for the call. And they never ask me to repeat myself or if i were on bluetooth. while speaking with them i did every day tasks, washing dishes, talking with my birds, vacuuming etc. The people i did ask for feedback on how i sounded said they could hear these noises in the background, but the sounds didn't overpower my voice and they could always hear me clearly. I left my phone in a room most the time while i wandered through my apartment and it never cut out on the call or while listening to music.These are a fantastic buy. If you want a well built headphone that has a lot of features but doesn't have a premium price, this is the one to get right now.