Sony MDR-Z1R

its a closed back..

I am expecting a lot of bass.

Bassheads need a TOTL unicorn that isn't super bright like the th900.

 

Apparently the treble us a little "zingy" from an impression I read somewhere. Hope it's not true

 

No way this is gonna be good with that puny magnetic circuit trying to drive a 70mm diaphragm. Low bass and high treble rolloff just like the MDR-Z7, calling it right now.

 

Any chance despite it's (the magnet) small size it has enough power to drive the large diaphragm? I really want to like this one, but, I'm with Marv. Gonna wait it out. Is there any other potential Utopia option right now?

 

I sincerely doubt it. The lighter compound diaphragm might be easier to move but its still a 70mm driver we're talking about here. Even the HD800 has a much larger magnet than this with substantially less diaphragm surface area. Senn made that decision for a reason.

 

I wonder why Sony's magnet systems are always so lackluster.
However I think z1r's driver is a substantial improvement over the 40mm in disguise from the z7.
Very thin (low mass) magnesium dome whose edge is covered with the lcp surround which is going to push breakup higher.
Alot of venting. No PCB. Haven't seen that since the CD-series/r10.
Voice coil and magent are actually quite big in diameter. But the height of the coil and pole piece is going to limit excursion, although such a big driver probably/hopefully won't need to move much in a "sealed" enclosure.
Baffle looks way better. Bass extension is definitely going to be better than on the z7.

But I'm positive they'll screw up the sound.
The new Sony housesound where they tune everything so it sounds good with overly compressed Top 40 music doesn't seem to work well in 2000$ headphones. Hopefully that is not the case with these.

The guy (the one you see in the ad) who worked on them also worked on the MDR-1A which was quite decent. That gives me hope.

Btw, if you people speak Japanese or Google translate, Sony updated their headphone park http://www.sony.jp/headphone/special/park/products_m1/tech6.html

 

This looks like a custom ring-radiator design, just like the HD800. Except that the dome is a separate and solid piece instead of the HD800 having... essentially nothing there.

Maybe the slightly less control over the diaphragm will benefit this driver in a closed enclosure, since it'll be starved of air more so than the open-air design of the HD800. I noticed the ear pads are very thick, and they likely will make a pretty insanely good seal, considering the Z7 already sealed pretty well. Basically, it'll give it more bass.

But I can share your skepticism in the design, Tak.

The ear cups look like they are about the right shape for an even midrange response, and to eliminate most of reflections, but there will still be something for sure, and it kind of matters what that something is, which was why the R10 cups were even more bizarre than this.

The pads look like they'll seal too well, and being made entirely of leather, they'll cause even more midrange reflections. Whether that's a good thing or not (sometimes the reflections can be complimentary) remains to be seen.

So all of this will ride on how Sony will tune and color the midrange. We already know the midrange will be colored to kingdom come and back...

 

I've said this before and I will say it again. No matter what magic they've worked, I highly doubt that a 70mm driver is going to have dome breakup outside the audible range, unlike the HD800 and the new Focal headphones. I'm sure you can push it above 20kHz but it's always a matter of tradeoffs. The smaller magnet might have measured with a better FR.

EDIT: Meant cone breakup or just generally driver resonances. I'm pretty sure drivers that big, no matter what special geometry, material or coating will have their first resonance in the audio band if you want to get some treble out of them.

 

The driver is 70mm. The dome won't be much bigger than 30mm in diameter. That's about the same as the Elear.

 

Sony fanboys please pardon my frank sentiments:

Sony is a pretty idiosyncratic company. They are so unpredictable in their execution. Sometimes they create classic gems while times they make utter crap that should be thrown into Mount doom(e.g. XBA-4, MDR-Z1000).

But this time I think Sony's audiophile division might be very well on the right footing after reading this article:

http://www.cnet.com/news/sonys-high-end-personal-audio-range-is-suitably-nuts-hands-on/

side note: I really love their new motto, made for music lovers by music lovers:

 

What is promising is that they are using a pool of engineers and studio monitos to tube these. Not sure if they did that before.

 

mdr-z7 was also tuned in collaboration with some studio. Also there is the Se-Master 1. Imho not a seal of quality.

 

Well, you've gotta be wary here. Like Marv said.

First, that's a cnet article. Disregarding what level of audiophilia the writer may be at, or even how his impressions matter or not, the problem here is that cnet, like many other sites, sometimes do paid advertisement, and they are also paid to hype up something. It's all in a grand scheme to push a product greater than it actually is. Considering that, it's probably best to be cautious, and have to eat our words later.

Second, I honestly don't "care" what level of "acoustic engineers" those dudes appearing in the video are at. The design of the headphone still raised some questions. I don't mean to sound like I know more than them, but honestly, after the Z7, and with this repeating some design elements of the Z7 (overly thick leather ear pads, for one thing, and I can point out at least a few more others), we can see that either:

1) They don't give a f**k, and they're just putting together something cool so that they can "justify" the price tag based on how cool it is...
2) Someone at Sony really loves the way the Z7 sounds and thought it'd be great to make a "super Z7"

And this is probably in stark contrast to my previous post, which was a bit more hopeful, but seriously, I don't think you should get sucked into the hype. It's good to remain at least 80% skeptical of this one, if for nothing but the fact that it's still a $2k+ closed-back headphone.

Aside from the R10, which was entirely designed by completely different people from the ones who are working at Sony right now, there has never been any closed-back headphone past the $1k mark that actually sounds any good... like, ever.

 

Steve Guttenberg mentioned on a CNET podcast years ago about the OG Beats Pro press conference where they talked up how it was tuned by studio engineers, then revealed that they only tuned to a single track - 50 Cent's "In Da Club", which literally has only 3 notes. I've basically come to dismiss any product that is endorsed by professionals in the industry. For every Eric Johnson who can supposedly hear the difference between Duracell and Energizer batteries in his guitar pedals there are hundreds of pros who exclusively listen to their music on Earpods outside of the studio and offstage.

 

Thats a good way to look ay it.

I meant to ask that in my post... If the z7 had the same thing said about it.

 

Was the Z7 really that disliked? I only auditioned a pair once but I liked what I heard.