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Sennheiser HD 450BT
February 4, 2020
Original: $199 USD
March 2022: $125 USD
1.5m (cable length)
238g
508386
Good noise canceling headphones can cost a small fortune, but the Sennheiser HD 450BT disrupts that model. These headphones afford active noise canceling (ANC) and great sound quality for just $150. The battery life is enough to power you through plenty of roundtrip commutes, which is no small feat when ANC is involved. Even still, the HD 450BT is a budget noise canceling headset, so let’s see if the price pardons its shortcomings.
Editor’s note: this Sennheiser HD 450BT review was updated on March 1, 2022, to add a Controls section, add the Shure AONIC 40 to the Alternatives section, expand the ANC section, and include a disclosure box.
Who should get the Sennheiser HD 450BT?
- Commuters will appreciate the HD 450BT active noise canceling (ANC) headphones. While the ANC isn’t the best on the market, it audibly reduces background noise.
- Remote workers can also take advantage of the noise canceling and excellent battery life. There’s even a microphone for conference calls, though its quality is only okay.
- General consumers should consider this well-rounded headset that offers a bit of everything for a reasonable price.
What’s it like to use the Sennheiser HD 450BT?
Sennheiser headphones never struck me as intuitive, and the HD 450BT falls in line with that schema. The cluster of onboard controls is overwhelming at first glance, and it took me a moment to realize the front-most button, between the USB-C input and microphone, controlled power status. Once I got used to the haphazard layout, it operating the headset was fine.
The oval ear cups have an ergonomic shape, but there isn’t much room for average to above-average ears to fit comfortably. Some users have even reported that these headphones fit more like on-ears than over-ears. While this is annoying, it makes the headset more portable than the expensive Bose Noise Canceling Headphones 700. You can always replace the ear pads, though, which is good news for tinkerers or anyone who wants an upgrade from synthetic leather.
When I first wore the headset, I thought the fit was borderline painful because of the clamping force and how a hotspot formed at the top of my head. After a week of continuous use, the headset loosened and I’ve since been able to wear it for hours at a time—this is severely shortened when wearing glasses though.
Ear cup rotation is minimal, which doesn’t affect comfort but does limit transport options. Some headsets give you the option to stow headphones flat and balled up, but your only option with the HD 450BT is to fold the ear cups toward the headband. This works well with the provided case, but I missed the option to just flatten the headphones and slide them into my bag.
How to use the HD 450BT controls
Here’s a quick list of controls so you don’t fumble around as much as I did.
- Tap and hold the power button for two seconds to turn the headset on/off.
- Press the power button once to toggle noise canceling on/off.
- Press the voice assistant button (closest to the headphone yoke) to talk to your virtual assistant.
- Slide the switch back (located just below the voice assistant button) to skip back a track.
- Slide the switch forward to skip to the next track.
- Press the switch like a button to pause or resume playback.
- Press the volume rocker up or down to adjust media output.
For calls you have two options:
- Depress the switch button once to answer or end a call.
- Press and hold the switch button for two seconds to place a call on hold.
Does the Sennheiser HD 450BT stay connected?
I never experience any lag when streaming videos from my Samsung Galaxy S10e or MacBook Pro. The HD 450BT supports Bluetooth multipoint, so you can connect two devices to the headset at any given moment. This is great, but I experience similar issues with Bluetooth multipoint on the HD 450BT as I do with the Sennheiser PXC 550-II. When my laptop and smartphone are connected to the HD 450BT, text and email notifications aren’t pushed from the secondary source device to my headset. The only event that notifies the headset is an incoming call.
Learn more: What you think you know about bit-depth is probably wrong
The Sennheiser HD 450BT uses Bluetooth 5.0 and supports plenty of Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX, and aptX Low Latency. Whether you’re an iPhone or Android user, you’ll be able to stream consistent audio to the headphones. If you subscribe to a streaming service like Tidal or Amazon Music HD and want to take advantage of FLAC files, you can always use the included 2.5mm to 3.5mm cable.
How long does the Sennheiser HD 450BT battery last?
We enabled Bluetooth and noise canceling while subjecting the headset to a constant 75dB(SPL) output, and the battery lasted 27 hours, 2 minutes. This falls slightly short of the listed 30-hour battery life but is still exceptional and more than necessary for the typical listener. Once the battery is drained, they’re easy to top up via the included USB-C cable. Fast charging is absent, so you’ll need to set aside two hours to fully charge the headphones.
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Is the Sennheiser HD 450BT noise canceling good?
The Sennheiser HD 450BT is a mid-tier active noise canceling headset that renders low-frequency noises half as loud with ANC enabled as when you disable ANC. While this change is audible, you can absolutely get better performance with other headsets that cost just a bit more like the Sennheiser PXC 550-II. When using the headset outside, wind and noise from passing cars were less pronounced but both sounds remained distinctly audible.
Related: How to read charts
Passive isolation performance does a great deal of heavy lifting as far as blocking the midrange and treble frequencies. This is because it’s very hard for ANC to block out unpredictable sounds like speech and your run-of-the-mill clangs and pangs, which often fall above 1kHz. To get the most out of the noise canceling technology, you should make sure the headphones are snug and don’t leave any gaps between your head and the ear pads.
Hold up! Something’s different:
Some of our picks’ frequency response and isolation charts were measured with our old testing system. We have since purchased a Bruel & Kjaer 5128 test fixture (and the appropriate support equipment) to update our testing and data collection. It will take a while to update our backlog of old test results, but we will update this review (and many others!) once we’re able with improved sound quality measurements and ANC performance plots. These will be made obvious with our new chart aesthetic (black background instead of white).
We’ve also made a big improvement to how we demonstrate the microphone performance of products we review. We now use a standardized test setup that plays back pre-recorded phrases from a calibrated artificial mouth in our test chamber, either with or without simulated background noises, simulated reverberant spaces, or artificial wind. This means that samples from every product can be directly compared, which makes it far easier to make meaningful comparisons between products in terms of the raw speech quality or the product’s ability to reject noise.
These new mic demos will be made obvious in each new sample which begins with the phrase, “This is a SoundGuys standardized microphone demonstration …”
Thank you for bearing with us, and we hope to see you again once we’ve sorted everything out.
How does the Sennheiser HD 450BT sound?
Sound quality is Sennheiser’s strong suit whether it’s releasing over-ear headphones or true wireless earbuds. You can always trust Sennheiser to, at the very least, make a product that sounds great with all genres of music. Sennheiser keeps to its roots with a few minor deviations to make for a more engaging but still pleasant sound. The slight bump from 20-100Hz makes bass notes a tinge louder than mids, but not so much louder that vocals are hard to discern. Another emphasized range occurs from 450Hz-3kHz, which is where the most important instrumental notes fall.
Lows, mids, and highs
In Domic Fike’s song Babydoll, the electric guitar riff repeats throughout the intro until 0:32. Clarity is unchanged when the drums kick in at 0:11, which is good news for anyone who values instrumental detail beyond percussive sounds. Fike’s vocals are a little difficult to hear toward the end of the song when he’s singing the lyrics, “I can’t move on babydoll, waiting on calls…” As he says the words “move on,” the kick drum slams down and makes it difficult to perceive the consonant sounds of -v and -n.
Cymbal hits recur through the song and are easy to distinguish from the rest of the instrumentation. It sounds a little quieter than I’m accustomed to hearing, especially when Fike is singing concurrently, but that’s only noticeable because of my great familiarity with the song. Most all listeners will enjoy how the headphones sound, and if you want to make minor adjustments, you can within the Sennheiser app.
Can you use the Sennheiser HD 450BT for phone calls?
You can use this headset for phone calls in the same way you can use a spoon to dig holes: it gets the job done, but most would grab a shovel if given the chance. Oddly enough, the dual beamforming microphones amplify bass notes which deviates from typical headset microphones. Take a listen and judge for yourself.
Sennheiser HD 450BT microphone demo:
How does the microphone sound to you?
As of December 3, 2021, a total of 2,188 readers have rated the above mic sample as somewhere between “okay” and “good,” which rings true to our evaluation.
Should you buy the Sennheiser HD 450BT?
The Sennheiser HD 450BT is a very good pair of headphones for the price, noise canceling is good and sound quality is great—quite rare at this price point. Like any product, this headset isn’t without its faults and may even be hard to justify when the Sennheiser PXC 550-II costs just a bit more. The PXC 550-II is much more comfortable, has a better mic, and offers more effective ANC that can be adjusted within the app. If someone in your life has below-average to average-sized ears, though, the Sennheiser HD 450BT could be the perfect gift, and at $125 USD it’s not the most expensive gift either.
Sennheiser PXC 550-II vs Sennheiser HD 450BT
Let’s not waste time: the Sennheiser PXC 550-II is better than the HD 450BT in virtually every way, save for the price. Even then, the extra $50 affords superior noise canceling, a great microphone array, and more comfortable, spacious ear cups. Battery life is excellent, and we recorded just under 22 hours of playback on a single charge. Charging the PXC 550-II is the worst part of the experience because it has a microUSB input instead of USB-C. It doesn’t support fast charging, so you’ll need to set aside a couple of hours for a complete top up.
The Sennheiser PXC 550-II combines tactile button controls with touch gestures for comprehensive control. This hybrid system is much easier to use than the crowded buttons and sliders found on the HD 450BT.
Both headsets use Bluetooth 5.0 firmware and support the same Bluetooth codecs for high-quality streaming. If the battery dies on either headset, you can always revert back to wired listening; each pair of Sennheiser headphones has a 2.5mm headphone jack. Another similarity is that they each have a dedicated button for smart assistant access.
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Unless you need the modern comfort of a USB-C charging input, the Sennheiser PXC 550-II is the better value.
What should you get instead of the Sennheiser HD 450BT?
The Sony WH-1000XM4 costs more than double the Sennheiser HD 450BT but is worth considering if you’re in it for the long haul. Sony’s headphones use AI technology and are the best noise canceling headphones available. Battery life, while shorter than the Sennheiser HD 450BT, is very good and fast charging is supported. There may be fewer Bluetooth codecs supported by Sony’s headset, but it has LDAC which, when consistent, streams at a higher rate than aptX.
Alternatively, there’s the Shure AONIC 40 which is a good middleground option between the HD 450BT and Sony WH-1000XM4. Like its more expensive sibling the AONIC 50, the AONIC 40 is a sturdy headset with great sound quality and an intuitive, feature-packed app. For $249 USD, it’s a bit pricy but you get SBC, AAC, aptX, and wired connectivity options along with USB-C passthrough audio. The ear pads are very comfortable and the battery life is above average (nearly 37 hours).
Don’t want to spend so much on a pair of wireless noise canceling headphones? Check out the Monoprice BT-600ANC, which has very good noise canceling, Bluetooth 5.0 with aptX, AAC, and SBC support, and great battery life all for less than $100 USD.
Listeners who don’t need ANC may want to consider the Audio-Technica ATH-M50xBT2. This headset models after the wired ATH-M50x with its large 45mm dynamic drivers and chunky headphones. Audio-Technica forgoes the first-generation’s aptX support for the higher quality LDAC codec. One of the best things about the ATH-M50xBT2, however, is its insane battery life.
Should you get a pair of Sennheiser earbuds instead of the HD 450BT?
If you don’t want all the bulk of a pair of headphones, consider the Sennheiser CX Plus True Wireless or the CX True Wireless earbuds. These headsets look very similar to one another, with the Plus variant offering active noise canceling and supporting more high-quality Bluetooth codecs. If you don’t need any of that, save a buck and get the CX True Wireless instead.
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Frequently asked questions about the Sennheiser HD 450BT
The Sennheiser HD 450 BT is definitely a good headset for people with smaller heads and ears, but whether or not it will fit your head can’t be guaranteed. We typically recommend something by Puro Sound Labs, such as the PuroQuiet headset, for listeners with smaller heads who want active noise canceling headphones. This company designs headphones for children, but the cans themselves don’t have the garish designs you find on other kids headphones so they’re perfectly suitable for adults too.
While the AKG N60NC Wireless are a really good pair of on-ears, they’re still a pair of on-ears. This means that they rest on your ears instead of completely covering them. While we didn’t mind this in our full review it’s definitely something that you want to keep in mind as not everyone enjoys the way on-ears feel on the head.
Noise canceling performance is very similar between the Sennheiser HD 450BT and Sony WH-CH700N, but the Sennheiser headphones do a slightly better job of canceling out low-frequency noise. The default frequency response varies between the two headsets: Sony de-emphasizes bass, while Sennheiser amplifies low-bass and upper-midrange notes. Both mobile apps allow you to EQ the sound to your liking.
Both headsets have completely plastic exteriors, though the Sennheiser HD 450BT seems a tad more durable. Ultimately, the headsets are very similar. If you prefer mic quality get the Sony WH-CH700N, and if you value ANC performance, get the Sennheiser HD 450BT. Alternatively, you may also want to consider the Sony WH-CH710N, which feature modern comforts like USB-C charging and a sleeker design.
Unfortunately, with some Bluetooth headphones, you can hear electrical interference from the integrated amplifier. This shouldn’t be audible during music playback. While our purchased unit did not have this latent “hissing” sound, users have reported it. To remedy the issue, reset your headphones. If all else fails, contact Sennheiser support.