Reviewed: Sennheiser OMX 680 Sports earphones

After months of looking for my perfect running earphones, I finally decided to give the Sennheiser OMX 680 Sports a go. A recommendation from a colleague at work helped to me to make my final decision. He runs about 50k a week and these earphones accompany him on every step.

Running earphones or headphones come in multiple variations:

• Ear Hooks
• In-Ear
• Clip-ons or Over-Ear clips
• Neckband earphones
• or old-school headphones.

The main selling point is comfortability and stability. Ideally, the earphones should be water- and sweat resistant and offer a good sound balance between music and ambient noise. Running headphones characteristically don't blend out ambient noise completely to ensure runners are safe on the roads and are still aware of their surroundings.

Up until now I was used to simple in-ear earphones. On many occasions an ear bud would fall out as my left ear canal seems to be slightly smaller than my right one. To provide more stability while running with music I decided to go for earphones with ear hooks this time.

The Sennheiser OMX 680 earphones set comes with the following features:

• a pair of clip-on earphones with adjustable 
• extension cable with volume remote control
• a cable clip-on
• various sizes of yellow ear sleeves, air cushion adapters and foam ear pads
• a storage pouch and
• an instruction manual.

Once I adjusted the ear buds to fit my ears - the left ear seems to be smaller than the right one - I was ready to go. I was planning to do my first 14k run and I didn't want to get distracted by loose earphones. I skipped, jumped, strolled and sprinted - my earphones remained tightly in place. Also, they didn't leave any marks on the back of my ears or made me feel uncomfortable while wearing them over a long time period. I also enjoyed using the mini remote control to adjust the volume, however, it would have been nice to include more playback options such as skip and stop.

My verdict: 4/5
Overall I'm very pleased with my first ever set of running earphones. The waterproof Sennheiser earphones fulfil their main purpose of staying place, however, personally I would love to see more functionalities on the remote control.