Sennheiser MX 685 Review

Sennheiser have become renowned for producing high quality headphones. The MX 685 earphones are no exception – developed with Adidas specifically for sports use, they have a lot to live up to. Read our full Sennheiser MX 685 review to see if they live up to our expectations.

Where Sennheiser succeed most often, is producing headphones for specific purposes. One of the most notable examples of this would be DJ headphones where they have a very solid reputation for coming up with the goods time after time. Its the attention to functional details that sets them apart from many other manufacturers – making sure that the product can excel at the specific task that it is meant to perform.

Sennheiser MX685 Sports Earphones

At first glance, these may look similar to many other sports earphones on the market. However, there are one or two details on the MX 685 earphones that are not immediately apparent on first glance – we’ll get to those details shortly.

As mentioned above, the latest crop of sports earphones from Sennheiser, have been developed in partnership with Adidas. They have been rigorously tested by athletes to make sure that they can perform under the toughest conditions.

Aimed at the outdoor sport or running market, the Sennheiser MX685 in ear headphones allow some sound from your surroundings to be heard as well as your music. This is crucial for safety when running as it allows you to hear traffic and the occasional, over excited dog that chases you across the park.

Special Features

What sets the MX 685 earphones apart from other sports earphones is the custom fit. As you’d expect, they come with a few different sized silicon adaptors so you can get a nice tight fit in your ear canal – but they also have an extra trick up their sleeves.

The top rubber hook is adjustable as shown to the left. Sennheiser calls this the slide-to-fit EarFin. The EarFin extends and adjusts to fit you ear perfectly, hooking directly into your ear, giving you an incredibly secure fit. You can see this demonstrated in the video at the bottom of the page.

The next bonus feature is that they are fully sweat and water resistant – so much so that you can rinse them under a tap after use to give them a good clean. Again this is shown in the video below – we feel is much more than just a marketing gimmick. Keeping your earphones clean is essential & can help prevent ear infection.

Sound on the Run

The Sennheiser MX685 in ear headphones have been designed from scratch specifically for use while participating in outdoor sports. Because of this, the audio quality is sacrificed a little at the cost of the extra sports performance. As the MX 685’s are designed to allow external sound in for safety – you can’t expect them to have a deep thumping bass. They do still retain a good amount of bass, just not deep rib tickling sub. Overall the sonic detail is good and the sound is nicely balanced as you would expect from such an experienced brand. While they won’t give you an audiophiles dream, they will keep you motivated while running out on the open road.

Sennheiser MX 685 Review Conclusion

I have personally owned several pairs of Sennheiser headphones over the years and rate them very highly. The MX 685 sports earphones fill their design brief almost perfectly. The secure fit is the strongest point – have a look at some of the reviews on Amazon to back this up. They perform very well during exercise and we feel are particularly well suited to running. The sound quality is as good as it needs to be, whilst still allowing you to hear your surroundings as well as your music.

While there are other sports earphones that we feel are perhaps a little better, the Beats Powerbeats (click for review) come to mind here, the MX 685’s are significantly cheaper in comparison. The tough, chuck them in your gym bag nature of the Sennheiser MX 685 earphones makes them some of the best and most usable sports earphones around.