We purchased the Sennheiser PXC 550 so that our expert reviewer could thoroughly test and review them. Read on for our full product review.

The Sennheiser PXC 550 is a surprising entry in the over-ear Bluetooth headphone market. Most people will opt for options from Bose and Sony, which isn’t surprising considering how good the sound quality of those offerings is. But Sennheiser is a brand known for offering professional, musician-friendly sound across its headphone lineup. With the PXC 550, you arguably get the best of both worlds: a premium set of Bluetooth headphones that are portable, comfortable to wear, and deliver impeccable sound quality. We spent about a week with our PXC 550 to see how they stack up against some of the top Bluetooth headphone favorites.

Many headphones rely on rounded earcup designs. The Microsoft Surface Headphones, for example, are perfectly round, while the Sony WH-1000 series are a bit more tilted and oval. The PXC 550s look more like elongated ovals with their flattened tops. It looks funny out of the box, perhaps because we're primed to look for rounder, more symmetrical shapes. But upon closer inspection, this shape actually makes a lot of sense as it mimics the shape of the human ear, which is beneficial for both comfort and aesthetics. What's more, at just over four inches tall and with a very slim profile, these earcups are actually some of the slimmest we've tested.

The rest of the design is pretty predictable. Most of the construction features leather pads, a leather strap, and a soft rubber exterior to the cups. There are some nice, subtle silver accents and a rectangle on each side above the ear cups that houses the Sennheiser logo. There’s also a silver ring on the outside of each cup that houses the noise-cancelling microphone grille.