Since its foundation in 1990, Sennheiser’s factory in Tullamore, County Offaly, has played an essential role in transforming their engineers’ ideas and specifications into reality. Tullamore is the origin of some of the finest hi-fi transducers and the final point of assembly for their audiophile headphones, all the way up to the world’s best headphones, the HE 1. With the opening of their new Audiophile Experience Centre in 2023, they offer selected visitors an exclusive insight into the heart of their audiophile production. In the last few months they held a competition to host 6 lucky winners a chance to tour the factory, assemble headphones (and keep them), listen to the famous HE 1, and meet the team behind Sennheiser. They also visited the nearby Tullamore Dew distillery and local pubs and restaurants for a taste of Irish hospitality. See below for one lucky winner’s insightful review of what he experienced.

The Tullamore Factory

There are more than 100 highly specialised colleagues working in Tullamore. They work with dynamic transducer production and audiophile headphone assembly. The latter is an almost artisanal process that requires human interaction, focus, and intensity. It takes a lot of time and attention to detail from the very first assembly of the transducers right through to the packaging of the finished headphones. The goal is to build the best headphones in the world. Meet some of the Tullamore staff below.

Meet the Sennheiser staff

“I don’t think there’s never been a day where I didn’t want to go to work.”

Meet Lisa, Production Supervisor

Meet Paul, the technician who has worked in Sennheiser for 17 years.

A winner’s review of Sennheiser

Taps Das is an art director, designer, photographer, & writer from 0102 Studio, who was lucky enough to be on the exclusive team, invited to Sennheiser’s HQ in Tullamore. In his YouTube review (see below), he said it was amazing to watch how the products were made and how clean and organised the factory was itself. “Sennheiser don’t just make the headphones themselves; they make the drivers that go inside the headphones.”

He enjoyed seeing the actual headphone drivers being made in the factory and how specific the equipment has to be to make them. He said; “Seeing actual people making these was phenomenal.” They also got a chance to listen to some exclusive products from Sennheiser, especially the ‘HE1 electrostatic headphone system’ that retails for 70,000 dollars in the US, according to Taps. He explains that the maker of this particular headphone system is called Damian, who meticulously assembles it with more than 6000 pieces that fit perfectly into their Italian Carrara marble housing.

For more of a look behind the scenes, visit Sennheiser