Sennheiser CX 980

Short-Term Use (7.50)

For us, most of the Sennheiser CX 980s’ sleeves skirted the boundary of uncomfortable. The majority of the sleeves are designed to fit somewhat inside your ear, but not enough to keep them in there securely. Fortunately, the headphones also come with a set of foam sleeves that allow the headphones to fit further into the ear canal. If you’re like us, skip the rest of the sleeves and just use the foam ones.

Our standard subjectivity clause applies here: this is wholly our own educated opinion. As far as you know, we could all be horrible mutants with grossly misshapen ear canals, rendering this entire section utterly useless for humanity at large. The best way to tell if you’ll find a set of headphones comfortable is by trying them out yourself.

Extended Use (6.00)

The problem with foam sleeves is they can feel a bit irritating over time. Since the CX 980s only come with two different types of sleeves (foam and soft plastic), after six or so hours of wear, they’ll start to get a bit uncomfortable regardless. This isn’t so much a problem with the CX 980s specifically as it is with all in-ears: your ear canals don’t want foreign objects crammed into them for long periods of time.

Customizability (5.75)

The CX 980s come with a few customization options. First of all, there are multiple included sleeves, though most are just different sizes of the soft plastic type; as mentioned above, there’s also a set of foam sleeves. Also included is a shirt clip, which is useful for those people who don’t like threading the cord through their shirts. By tethering the cord in place, you cut down on line noise from the cable bouncing around as you step.

The plug can swivel to attain a 90° angle. We suppose that kind of counts as a customization option.

Additionally, the headphones have an in-line volume control for when the iPhone in your pocket just isn’t convenient enough.