Sony MDR-100AAP

a few broad dips but other than that not too offensive. would you recommend them at their current price? (~$200)

 

Yeah, you can get them cheap if bought from other places. For example, Amazon's Spain site has them for $150+ (with VAT or whatever) but since shipping is to the US, it comes down to $130+ or so. Pretty good price I think (and, being Sony, YOU KNOW they will get cheaper with a bit of time! lol )

I think that between the MDR-1A (which I like a bit more even though it has a boomier bass), this one and the Z7, Sony might actually be doing some good stuff. Hopefully they'll throw us a real flagship soon!

BTW ultra, can you plot the 1A and 100AAP graph (and maybe even the 1R) in one plot? I definitely think this one is the less offensive of the three with regards to the whole frequency spectrum...


Thanks for the measurements.

 

What a beautiful, balanced, fun sounding headphones!

Honestly, I exptected nothing special, but when I put them on, I was impressed. One of the rare headphones that I didn't have to adapt to, I just put them on and they sounded good. Balance surprised me the most. Deeps are not really noticable, plus they are in not really fun sounding areas. There is a small bass bump, that sounds just perfect for my taste, drums sound soooo good on those, punchines is perfect. Everything I played on these sounded fun, from alternative rock to drum and bass. These are KSC75 level fun.

Now, the look. IMO, they are beautiful! Minimalistic design with interesting colours. They had turquoise where I tried them and I loved them. f**k Sennheiser, AKG and Beyer, and their design of portable headphones, it's like your parents choosing clothes for you, THEY think it is cool, but in reallity, it's far from it. There is a reason why young people buy Beats, it's not just because of bass, it's because of the design! And this one is how it should be done. Pads are nice, but a bit sweaty tho.

For a 200$ they are a bit pricey, but if you want good looking, balanced, fun sounding heaphones, mdr100aap is the choice. Or, at least, they would be mine.

 

They do look very nice.

 

The MDR-Z7 was SUPPOSED to be a real flagship...

 

There was this rumor that Sony was going to release a headphone above the z7 in the kilodollar area.
The z7 was trimmed towards extreme high margin production but still managed to perform decently. Imo that speaks for good engineers. Imagine what those people could do with a higher budget product.

To put it in Tylls terms: I lust for it~

 

Really disagree on this point. I thought it sounded awful.

Also those kilobuck headphone rumors were spread primarily by that idiot nomax on HF, and iirc it turned out to be the HE-1060 he was talking about all along? I don't know, either way I'd take it with an entire cup of salt until Sony actually says something. Given their current financial state I thought an $800 headphone was already an extremely ballsy move on their part considering their primary place has been in the consumer and prosumer scene for the past few decades, not the enthusiast scene. I find myself doubting whether they really have what it takes to push out a truly competent headphone again since they've been out of it for so long, especially since the MDR-Z7 failed to impress me in the slightest.

Just my two cents, YMMV, blah blah.

 

Nomax is a class-S troll. He actually seems to have very solid connections but he boozes 24/7 which clouds his senses completly, barely enough to keep him from loosing money on his shares.

On the Z7: You seem to be used to treble/midrange forward vintage headphones. Doesn't suprise me you dislike the z7's sound. However I do think the bassy signature is kinda missplaced in this price range.

Btw, heres some stuff on their financial state: (skip to 8min mark)

 

... Actually, the Z7's FR doesn't bother me very much, I can listen to pretty much any FR provided it doesn't have nasty ringing or peaks. What bothered me about the Z7 was that it was a cloudy, murky pile of shit that can't out resolve a shrunken midrange cone from 1978.

The sound presentation was my second main problem with it; it was like listening to an open headphone with a bucket on your head, there was almost no stereo width, it was a dense, confused sphere of sound hanging out somewhere in front of your forehead with no depth or placement and no subtleties or nuance. Add to this poor extension at BOTH extremes of the FR and it becomes extremely lifeless and hollow.

Also, you might want to be more mindful of declaring all vintage headphones as midrange/treble forward. One vintage closed headphone that I find much superior to the MDR-Z7 is the Koss Pro/4AAA. It provides a very similar fun/bassy/V-shaped sound signature but also offers far better performance. Not midrange-forward at all; it actually provides better bass AND treble extension than the Sony as well as lower distortion throughout basically the entire frequency range. The soundstage is also far more realistic and expansive.

 

I was judging by your old fav, the dr-z7. Somehow ended up rationalizing. I'm fully aware of those planars that blow your with a fully sealed pressure chamber to be able to go flat up to 1k. Sorry for not being uptodate regarding your sonic preferences.

 

These are down to $120 with free ship from a legit seller (BuyDig on eBay) so I'm giving them a go. I liked what improvements Sony made from the 1R to 1A and feel this is now a fair price to give them try. Will report back in a couple weeks with findings.

Black is unavailable so I will be looking fabulous during my daily walking commute

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-h-Ear-...hash=item488e9ef203:m:mEt-IIiew8STbLTtCmtzanA

Edit: Nevermind, my order was cancelled days later due to an "inventory error" and I'm not going to pay more to try a pair of these at this time

 

Two sellers on fleabay selling these for less than $20 haha
I ordered
the catch is the box is not labeled Sony

Edit:
Joke on me,
they super fake and plastic but still nice to give away for a kid lol