It’s hardly surprising considering that, while the budget end of the headphone market is swamped with companies, Sennheiser’s main competitors in the high-end space number only three or four. And most of these are hardly household names – AKG, Grado and Stax are the main ones that come to mind, certainly for on- or over-the-ear headphones.

This is where the firm’s latest product unashamedly sits – firmly at the high end of the market – and with a price to match. Its PXC 450 noise-cancelling cans will set you back anything between £180 and £300.

They’ve certainly got a quality feel to them. As soon as you open up the box with its posh, magnetised flap, you know that you’ve purchased some serious gear. The headband and circumaural earcups (the kind that sit over and around your ears) are wrapped in luxurious soft leather and are beautifully softly padded. The chunky hinges and headband, underneath their luxurious cladding, are constructed of hard-wearing steel and aluminium. The cable feels thick and hard-wearing and can even be replaced should you ever trap it in a closing car door. The whole set has a pleasing, industrial feel to it, like a pair of luxury, high-tech ear defenders.

The PXC 450 is a large headphone set, but it folds up into a fairly compact shape for travel, and it comes in a slim, easy-to-pack black zipper case a bit larger than the Bose carrying case. It also looks similar to the QuietComforts—silver plastics and a heavily cushioned black headband and earpieces. Volume, Power, and “Talk Through” controls rest on the right earpiece. Although it’s great to have these options, you can’t see the buttons when you’re wearing the headphones, and most of them (except Talk Through) feel the same—which makes it hard to know what you’re pressing even if you memorize the layout. I think most folks are likely to keep the volume setting on the headphones constant and adjust levels on their sound source instead. The right earcup also holds the single AAA battery used to power the unit, just like the QuietComfort 2 (the QuietComfort 3 has a more convenient rechargeable battery). The left earcup houses the detachable audio cable connection and the normal/bypass switch (more on that later). The cable itself is 55.1 inches long and of a substantial thickness more like Grado’s cabling than Bose’s. There is a double-mono airplane adapter included, as well.