The Package

The IE7 earphones from Sennheiser ship in the same box as its smaller brother the IE6. The box is neat and can withstand some serious abuse. If you pop open the front you can inspect the earphones for damage that might have occurred during transportation.


With a set of IE7s you get a pretty extensive bundle. Like with the IE6 you get some ear hooks, a shirt clip, a good selection of tips, and last but not least a cleaning tool.


The same rather meaningless scraper tool that we saw supplied with the IE6s is also to be found inside the box of the IE7s.


The tip selection for the IE7s is a wee bit better than that of the IE6s. With the IE7s you get three sets of both single and double flange tips plus two foam tips in the sizes small and large.

Closer Examination

If you read our review of the IE6s we were very impressed with the ergonomics of the earpieces. It seems that Sennheiser opted to go the opposite direction for the IE7's design. The earphones are a bit bigger and the rather awkward shape means that you have to insert them pretty accurately to prevent them from digging into your ears.


From the front you can see how there is a relatively large hemispherical bulge that makes out the central part of the body.


The hemisphere dominates the part of the body that sits closest to the ear. From the ear on out the earphones tend to look a bit spacey. And from the side they do actually make a close resemblance of Darth Vader's fancy black cape if only held upside down (Some kind of sophisticated marketing trick here, one can only guess!).


Size wise the IE7s are a bit bigger than the IE6s, but still not big in the normal sense.


When it comes to finish Sennheiser has opted for a metallic black color which actually looks quite nice, although perhaps not as sleek looking as the plain black Westone 3s they still hold their own against the vast majority of in-ears.


The vent on the top of the earphone is there to make sure there is enough air behind the driver. Like the IE6s the IE7s use a conventional dynamic driver.


The nozzle is covered with a metal mesh like we saw on the IE6s as well, which makes the scraper tool kind of useless.