Sennheiser was quick to jump on the "made for iPhone" train after the iPhone 3G was released in Australia, and it now has a full range designed specifically for Apple products. The notion that these headphones are designed almost exclusively for Apple may be confusing at first; after all, the 3.5mm jack looks a lot like every other 3.5mm jack you've seen before, right? But if you're looking to use these headphones with anything other than an Apple product you can expect to find a few features missing.
We tested the MM30i headphones with a number of different devices including an iPhone 4, an iPod Touch, an HTC Desire Z and a Nokia E7. Audio came through loud and clear on all devices, but the headphones' mini device controller only works entirely with the Apple range. Pressing the centre key of the controller launched the default media player on the HTC, while the up and down buttons had no functionality at all.
Thankfully, the built-in mic worked across our test units with excellent results. Many of the people we called during our testing assumed we were speaking into the phone microphone, and the audio quality of the MM30i lacks the tinniness we tend to find in speakerphone headsets.
Most importantly, the audio quality of the headphones is absolutely top notch, especially when you consider the price. The in-ear fit is secure and comfortable and provides great ambient noise reduction. Better still, there is almost no audio leakage at all, so you won't upset other commuters on the train home each evening. The high and low frequency sounds in the music we tested was reproduced well, with warm rather than thumping bass, good sharp vocals and snapping snare drums. The mid-tones are a little fuzzy to our ears, but this hasn't impaired our enjoyment of using these headphones one bit.
Overall
Buying headphones to replace the crummy ones that came with your new phone shouldn't be a difficult or terribly expensive task. If you own an iPhone or iPod and you want to spend under AU$100 we highly recommend these headphones. If you own any other music-playing device, you might want to consider the microphone-less Sennheiser CX300-IIs instead.
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