The star of this week’s Picture Sunday is the just announced SONY MDR-Z1R headphone. Check out other recent Picture Posts Here, and Here.
Sony surprised everyone this week by announcing a brand new top of the line headphone, a new DAP and a desktop sized unit. At IFA they had about a dozen of these new setups available for listening and so I took the shuttle to hall 20 where Sony always does his stuff.
Sony also had displays in the middle of the gigantic booth where they were showing how these new products were made and they took the new units apart piece by piece. I have to admit I really like the design of both the new headphone as well as the DAP but at the same time Sony did not blow me away.
I have read very different things about the sound impressions of people who like me got the chance to listen to them. First of all show conditions are far from ideal as there is a lot of noise and the time you can spend with the gear is limited. Second, there have been hundreds of people before you listening to the headphone and god knows how they messed up the DAP settings. Third, it is hard to tell what sounds like what if you’re listening to both a new phone and DAP.
My experience with the beautiful MDR-Z1R wasn’t really positive. It sounded very bassy and muffled overal and I can’t believe a new flagship would sounds like this. So probably someone did something wrong there. Let’s hope that anyway. DAP wise I can only say that it looks good but it is extremely heavy, the heaviest portable unit I ever got my hands on and I really can’t get what they were thinking doing that. I do hope I get to listen to it soon as the SQ probably is great.Will it beat the AK380? We’ll see…
Design-wise this new MDR-Z1R is gorgeous and refreshing, Sony certainly got the design part right.
More soon! I hope.