Sony MDR-Z1R

He calls the R10 "the least Japanese sounding headphone" he's ever heard. Now he's a guy who owns and loves the HD650 but didn't like it with the schiit Valhalla as it sounded "dark, flat and boring" to him. He likes Violectric and recommends their products over schiit cuz "hail master race, Germany's technology is the world's greatest!". Seems like a nice guy tho.

 

His gripe seems to be less with the sound and moreso with the technology.

Spoiler: An answer from his R10 video:

"Yes, I remember what I said. What I meant was, for the price of an R10 I could have bought two SR009s but I didn't because....it's a Japanese, later in the video I also say and I quote "If you want to buy a Japanese, only buy the R10". I could't find the exact minute, will have to re-watch to find it.

It would be quite stupid of me to hate on Japanese Headphone Technology without proper reasoning, of course there is a reason behind my disparaging tone. There's a lot to cover which I have in some of my earlier videos and many posts on a forum called "Head-FI" so, I don't have to time to cover everything but the biggest issue is they don't understand Acoustic Engineering. They think Membrane materials make no difference, they rely on insignificant characters such as the Wood to make any real world differences to fidelity when in reality all it does is affect the response. I have consistently mocked upon their Magnet structures for the Electrodynamic Transducers, across all brands. The lack of thought they put into Magnetic Intensity by locking down the Assembly is astonishingly shallow for any Engineer who knows how to extract maximum Field Strength. Their Electrostatic system was a complete rip-off Eugen Beyer technology from the 1920s that they used with no credit. The Membrane material science link also applies for all Technologies. There's so many examples I could list but it would take a lot of time to cross-reference my Videos and Posts.

The R10 and the CD3000 especially for the Magnetic structure are the only Japanese Headphones devoid of that albeit the BioCellulose is a complete derivative of the Polymeric Revolution for Electrodynamic Transducers made in the 1960s by Beyerdynamic. I didn't mention it as it didn't seem that significant but the idea remains the same and could be a topic of argument but I didn't want to stretch on it. Preference over a certain Headphone is irrelevant as we are talking about Raw fidelity."

He has the Stax Sigma, various Sonys and he likes the Fostex TH610. His "hatred" towards Japanese headphones appears to be more of an excessive joke he likes to throw out every once in a while to come of as edgy and provocative.
It seems he likes bass and warmth with a slight treble emphasis. His favourite headphone is the DT48 because he dislikes everything that is unoriginal. He EQs all of his headphones. He doesn't like hype. He likes dynamics. However he appreciates all kinds of headphones. He, He,
He's alright.

 

Yup, fair 'nuff @Marvey . May be able to post my own impressions soon as I think I've persuaded myself to take a punt on an Amazon order with a 30-day return policy. I wouldn't usually do things this way, but it appears impossible to get a listen to these in the UK. They're certainly not appearing at any of the trade shows.

 

His body language and the way he fold his arms while talking and rubbing his nose. And the way he put downs Japanese Audio. He gives me an impression of a snob, this time an audiophile snob.

 

Like.

 

DT48 is like "the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead..." That's why it's so polarizing.

 

come on its not THAT bad guys

it just has a 10dB driver resonance smack dab in the middle of the natural human ear canal resonance

 

Received a Z1R from Amazon today. It's pretty bonkers that Sony think this is an appropriate tuning for a flagship headphone. Jude was right, this thing needs the bass EQing down. Using JRiver's basic built-in PEQ, -3dB at 60hz and 170hz at least makes it listenable. Without it, there's all sorts of crappy resonance that ruins things. +3dB at 10kHz give it some much needed air as well. Early days, but at least it's bearable now.

ps. using a mixture of Jodie, Metrum Hex and a DiDiT DAC212SE

 

Can't believe you bought these already!

Are you going to keep them?

 

lol yeah well Amazon have a good return policy

Not sure yet. Will give it a few days. I'm wondering if these have been tuned with live acoustic music in mind. Seem to be a better fit in that direction so far.

 

Damn... These look right up my alley. Too bad I'm not a headphone guy as much as iem. I may have to add a 2nd headphone to my very small headphone collection, if you can call it that.

I may have just found a reason to sell my Noble yawn, K10s.

 

Quite interesting that actual impression of Z1R can be heard!
I'm really wondering how z1r reproduce similarly or differently from R10, which I generally respect in terms of design philosophy and engineering effort (not quite so about qualia q10 though).

How Sony people explained about z1r's acoustic design (I read the related article in Head-fi) sounded reasonable, but I am curious whether it could lead to better sound in reality.

 

@pedalhead please post a more complete impression, particularly paired with any schiit multibit offerings,

 

Sorry @Vtory , I've never heard the R10.

My ears & ability to articulate aren't as good as many on here, but here are the things jumbling around my head...

Good
- high mids/lower treble sound well balanced to me.
- no midrange honk or push
- lovely build, light, comfortable
- bassy tuning can be fun on some tracks (eg acoustic, jazz)
- works well at low volume levels
- seems to respond quite well to EQ

Bad
- bass boost for the kids, can overwhelm everything especially at higher volume levels
- rolled off above ~9k, lacking in air. "Dark".
- mids a bit smooth, unoffensive, lacking in detail and tonality of modded HD650.
- generally lacking in micro-detail retrieval compared to HEK
- bass has some texture, but not at HEK level
- expensive

Honestly @WNovizar , I don't think the subtleties between dacs will change any of the above.

I've heard enough of the Z1R to know for me it won't be a keeper so I'll be sending it back to Amazon soon.

 

Now that's disappointing to say the least. Back to hunt used HD800 I guess....