Sony MDR-Z1R

http://www.theverge.com/circuitbrea...-signature-series-audiophile-headphones-price

Sony flagship dynamic headphones, $2300, 70mm dynamic driver, "response all the way to 120khz"..blah blah blah...

 

The massive dynamic driver and cup shape give me some hope, and for Sony I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. At this price point I don't imagine they'll shoot for the commercial Z7 tuning.

 

Man the high end market is on fire!

I like the no nonsense looks. No bling for the sake of bling.

Pleeeeaaase be competitive with the Utopia! ☺

 

The Z7 driver was actually quite capable, just tuned wrong. Sony look like they have the engineering chops to pull off something interesting.

 

I just went through Wikipedia to see how much bigger Sony is than the likes of Focal. I was shocked. To use a sports analogy, whether it is Formula 1 or Football the richest teams dominate as they can hire the best talent.

I cannot understand why Sony can’t kick ass in this segment. What chance would 10,000 times smaller companies like Audeze and Hifiman have?!

The only reason I can think of why this hasn’t happened already is the size of the super high end headphone market. I guess there are only a few thousand people worldwide who would drop $1000 to $4000 on headphones. (complete guess on my part)

On the bright side the fact that they are getting involved is a sign that more people are becoming aware of high end personal audio and how much better the listening experience is with good quality gear.

Can’t wait to get my ears on these and the Utopias!

 

Looks great.
Typical Sony though, price will surely be sliced quick...

Color me interested.

 

Big companies are usually very slow at initiating a product. Especially when they don't believe in it. Big inertia.

They usually wait for smaller companies (start-up like) to come up with new ideas and either wait for them to test the market and then jump on it with their massive resources, or acquire said company altogether.

Older companies like Sony tend to have a insane ratio of managers per actual engineer. This is a waste. but hey, most people want to climb the ladder. Sometimes, steps are missing but they still need to fit these peeps somewhere...

Focal is a Hi-Fi with a lot of technical knowledge and manufacturing resources. They are much more performance oriented than Sony is these days. Sony is mainstream. Sony is dying.

 

http://www.sony.com/electronics/headband-headphones/mdr-z1r/specifications

CLOSED BACK

DYNAMIC TYPE
Closed, dynamic (circumaural)
DRIVER UNIT
2.76", dome type (CCAW Voice Coil )
FREQUENCY RESPONSE (HZ)
4 Hz–120,000 Hz
SENSITIVITIES (DB/MW)
100 dB/mW
MAGNET
Neodymium
IMPEDANCE (OHM)
64 Ω at 1 kHz
VOLUME CONTROL
N/A
CORD TYPE
Detachable Y-type
CORD LENGTH
Headphone cable (approx. 9.84 ft (3 m), silver-coated OFC strands, gold-plated stereo mini plug), balanced connection headphone cable (approx. 3.94 ft (1.2 m), silver-coated OFC strands, L-shaped gold-plated balanced standard plug)
PLUG
Headphone cable (Gold-plated stereo mini plug), Balanced-connection headphone cable (L-shaped gold-plated balanced standard plug)
USAGE TIME
N/A
CHARGE TIME
N/A

 

So from research it appears that instead of a big old port on the z7, they tried to make this one breathable yet the site lists it as closed back.

It has the housing frame, the acoustic filter, and a housing protector. So it looks like it is basically made up of dampening instead of a plastic cup with dampening in it. The closed back is just acoustic treatment mostly.

I hope it has a more solid bass and better midrange tonality than the z7.

Its 2199 usd so hopefully it sounds markedly better and the z7 build looks similar which is a good thing.

 

Hopefully this is a step in the right direction for Sony. Although an R10 successor will never happen at this point, something to compete with the new Focal's would still be interesting. Although, if Sony re released the R10 with more robust construction you can be damn sure I'd sell and save up to get one ASAP.

 

Seeing that magnesium dome and bass port I hope they won't be a ringy disaster like the Se-Master 1.
Looks very interesting though. The cup seems to be permeable enough to let high frequencies out but impermeable enough to dampen the resonant frequency of the driver.

Also this site has some more pictures http://www.sonyvores.fr/ifa-2016-nouveau-casque-super-haut-de-gamme-mdr-z1r-hi-res-audio/
Imho they are beautiful. Not as gaudy as the Utopia. 386 grams isn't unbearable.

 

I noticed the diaphragm and the magnesium dome - are they implying that this is a dual driver with a crossover headphone or all part of one driver.
Seems like a "dome" is the the new FOTM currently. My crystal ball is showing "inverted synthetic diamond dome for natural highs at a gazillion dollars" coming soon

 

The new pictures look even more promising. The first ones I saw it was hard to tell that the cups weren't much flatter like the LCD-XC or Ether C. The R10 style cups have me even more excited. Ear tits v2.

 

Yes, big bulge.



Jude has some more high-res pictures here , also showing off the driver without pads.
However I don't think these will please people who liked the R10. Jude said these have even more bass than the z7(!). The C-net guy reported zing in the treble. Someone already made the comparison to the TH900.
I'm looking forward to Tyll's and Messiah's impressions/measurements.

 

Very interesting design and nice try going back to hiend headphone market for Sony. Hope they have a better tunning this time.

 

So they tuned it right by making it open and charging three times the price? Wouldn't surprise me. That's 'flagship101'.