Review: MDR-1A is the Head of Its’ Class (UPDATE: 1 Year Later at the bottom)
Intro
There exists a number of different schools of headphones with many different classes. In elementary school we had Apples Earpods as required reading, middle school saw the kids wearing their cool looking skull candies, and in high school all the popular kids, who either had jobs or parents with money, could be seen donning their colorful and fun sounding Beats By Dre headphones. Going into college, interests and style becomes more refined while education in sound becomes more advanced. Some headphones are on the “5-year program”, while others are hard at work getting 4.0’s and prepping for their masters.
In a competitive class of ~$300 headphones, Sony’s MDR-1A, with its’ double major in both sound engineering and design, is making a case for class valedictorian.
Sound
If you’re looking for bass, you will certainly find it with these headphones, but there are some distinctions that make it of the awesome variety and not the crap variety. Bass response is reasonably controlled and tight in its presentation. Where the bass really shines is its’ overall impact and volume. It can be described as nothing short of stupendous. While I hear a slight bleed into the lower mid-range and just a touch of bloom in mid bass region, it’s really impressive how it handles these details considering its’ overall volume and impact. Equally as impressive is the bass region’s versatility in regards to different music genres. If the cool kids are throwing a rager and bass was invited to the party, it shows up in spades. If, however, the parents are having a house-warming or wine-and-cheese party, bass will still show up with a few small gifts, but doesn’t have a problem behaving himself.
The mids are nice, very clear, a little creamy sounding, and just the right "distance" for my preferences. I will say that I like a mildly recessed mid-range, which is what I hear with these headphones. Male vocals tend to showcase that mild-recession more than female vocals. The bass blends slightly into these lower ranges of the mids, but contribute to more of a smoothing and creamy effect for the lower midrange as opposed to muddying or sloppiness. In fact, detailing and separation remains impressive and is aided by how well the mids blend into the higher frequencies. No spikes or shrill vocals to speak of. It is comforting to hear the mids so well represented here because often times when the “cool” kids show up with their crazy colors and bass and crash symbols, they tend to pick on the mids. Sometimes they get beat up, but at this party everyone seems to be getting along great.
The highs on these headphones are also very impressive. Detail and separation is crisp and and delicious, preventing some tracks from sounding congested. It also contributes to overall atmosphere and what is excellent soundstaging with this pair of headphones. Highs are a little rolled of on the top end and avoid sounding terribly bright or sharp. It works really well for pumping up the volume and locking in for long listening sessions without fatiguing easily.
Soundstaging is very good for these closed back headphones. Depth, separation, headroom, and width are all top notch in my book and some of the best for a closed back design. Bands and instruments are well placed, live concerts can be felt as if your a part of the crowd, and some soundtracks like Gone Girl, House of Cards, or the Social Network absorb you into a whole other world.
These headphones are so good in its’ sound reproduction that they can be pretty unforgiving to poorly mixed tracks and low quality audio, which is a good thing. Some headphones lack detailing and offer a somewhat blurry or highly colored sound. That can actually help low-quality music files to be passably listenable. With these however, listening to lower-quality audio files becomes incredibly apparent and distracting. So go ahead and change that spotify audio quality setting to extreme, download your MP3s in 320KBPS, rip your CDs into lossless, upgrade your source, and do whatever you gotta to do give these things the fuel they deserve to really sing.
Note: These headphones have an impedance of just 24 Ohms making these very easy to drive from a variety of sources like your smartphone, laptop, and whatever whoosie-whatsie you plug these into. While amps and dacs generally aren’t necessary for pleasant listening with these headphones, they certainly benefit from high quality sources and audio. Also note that using a source with an output impedance of higher than ~3 Ohms may impact sound signature and quality.
Design
Design is the marriage between aesthetics and function (among other tertiary traits and subtraits). Good design not only executes either one of those well, but also executes the relationship between the two well to provide a great package deal. So how does the MDR-1A perform in this area?
The MDR-1A and both of it’s color options offer a lot of modern appeal with the use of clean, rounded shapes, soft and supple (fuax?) leather with “invisible” seams, while also providing some old-fashioned, tried-and-true headphone design techniques, such as how the enclosed speakers appear as distinct circles as opposed to a unibody design that blends into the earpads.
Insert close up of enclosing speaker
The choice of coloring is very versatile between the two options. The black pair has this slight spattered technique on the exterior plastic housing (the same as on many higher-end Nikon cameras). The use of black with the slight metallic red accent seems like a great choice that can appeal to a wide crowd. The color is subtle enough to provide youthful appeal, but understated enough, especially in conjunction with the dominating black that it wont alienate a more refined adult.
The silver and brown versions offers a different style and appeal. The silver appears as more of a very light, metallic cobalt as opposed to the silver coloring that appears on Apple products. The brown is very deep and rich. In dimly lit situations, it appears almost the shade of coffee; just a shade or two away from black. In better lit situations, it takes on this beautifully rich brown akin to a piece of hershey’s milk chocolate. Most of the headphone has a matte finish, but there are a few touches of a high-shine metallics that help with it’s modernistic appeal. (pic of metallic parts) The silver version has this very cool gold accent by the headphone connector that appears as part of Sony’s Hi-Res audio branding it has adopted as of late. In keeping with good design through both form and function, the headphone connector also slopes forward just a touch, which helps to avoid cord rubbing, microphonics and the like. There are also ports that sit on top of the headphone housing to help provide airflow and space for speaker movement, thusly aiding in its’ ability to create some truly awesome bass and volume.
Comfort
Putting these on for the first time, it became immediately apparent that these are the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn. After having listened to them for a few weeks and putting these things through some long listening sessions (had these on for almost 12 hours in one day), I have to say that my claim stands. This thing is king. As a design choice, Sony chose an almost all plastic body and housing (aside from metal headband) and it feels incredible to wear.
The choice of plastic seems deliberate for comfort reasons as opposed to a cost-saving method, but it does come at the cost of durability. These headphones are also non-collapsable, so making for compact travel is pretty difficult with these.
While it is nice that these headphones are easy to drive and highly compatible wit a myriad of portable devices, these headphones themselves are not particularly portable.
Accessories
Sony includes what is needed with these headphones, but includes little else. Inside the packaging you’ll find two cables of equal length, a soft carrying pouch made of leather and ballistic nylon, and the headphones. One cable has a microphone and control button with all black housing. For the silver headphones on the non-mic’d cable, one connector end color matches with the headphones housing color and looks very sleek. There is no creaking or wobbling with connectors either, which plagued some MDR-1R owners. For a pair of headphones designed to play well with smartphones and laptops, it seems like a hard carrying case should have been included for portability, especially since these headphones are non-collapsable. For those looking for what seem like standard extras, airline adapter, 1/4" adapter, hard case, and then some…you'll be disappointed. Fortunately, these headphones perform so well that these minor gripes become forgotten the moment you hit “play”.
Overall
Sorry ladies, I am off the market. Post it on facebook, ‘cause it’s official. I am taken by the MDR-1A they have me head over heels……..OK, maybe it’s not that serious, but these headphones are winners for Sony! Almost everything is so great with these that you quickly become enamored and any minor gripes fall by the wayside.
While the bass is certainly the headliner for the MDR-1A, it’s sort of by default because everything else well executed. However, those seeking a flat frequency response may not be satisfied. These headphones aren’t terribly portable either and the choice of plastic housing may impact long-term durability.
Speaking of plastic housing! That turns out to be one of the MDR-1A’s biggest upsides! The design choice of plastic housing make this one of the most comfortable pairs of headphones you’re ever likely to wear.
The Highs
The Mids
The Lows
Sony’s offering with the MDR-1A offer some best-in-class sound and are a very good value at its' MSRP of $300. The value is even more fantastic if you can get them for less. Some very minor gripes aside, these headphones don’t just sound fantastic, they also look fantastic and they feel fantastic. In a packed class of headphones that offer huge logos, aggressive color palettes, bells and whistles, and some skewed sounding signatures, the MDR-1A performs the essentials with straight A’s.
UPDATE (06/03/16): Having had these for over a year and having listened to them quite a bit, I have a few additional positive marks to add. I have found that these headphones fare much better for portability than I had given them credit for. Since they fold flat, it would actually appear that there may be better structural rigidity than a pair that simply folded in at the hinge. It's a little hard to explain, but it mostly has to do with pressure distribution on the headphones in the case of impact or bending. Laying flat would appear to distribute pressure in a manner that is spread across the stronger parts of the headphones and help to minimize pressure on the weak points of the headphones. I have not done any thorough scientific tests to determine this. Laying the headphones flat also minimize their footprint when placed in a laptop bag or a backpack, making them much easier to carry around. I still would have liked a hard carry case included, but these aren't half bad.
I have found that these respond really well to EQ. The bass impact and sub-bass depth is rather impressive to my ears when EQ'd or paired with amps that have a bass boosting feature. One other thing I am very pleased with is that because of the low impedance of these cans, they play well with just about any source. I use a sony NZW-A25 right now (I have an amps I use occasionally) and they sound pretty dang good straight through the source. These do benefit from having power applied (their max power input is 1500mW) via a good source or amp, but they sound pretty damn good on just about anything.
I am very happy to say that even one year after having owned these, they have held up beautifully and remain my favorite pair of cans I have used in the price range. So much so that I have had no desire to search further, higher, or wider to find a better pair.
Sources and Music
All listening was done using an Astell and Kern AK100ii and all tracks were 16/44 lossless. I did some testing on youtube music as well as various listening on Spotify at 320kbps using an iPhone 6 Plus and Macbook Pro.
Music listened to included Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, John Mayer’s Paradise Valley, Ghost Stories by Coldplay, DeadMau5 While 1<2, The Social Network OST (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), Gone Girl OST, Linkin Park’s Albums, Incubus, House of Cards OST, Man of Steel OST, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Miles Davis Another Kind of Blue, Lil Wayne on Spotify, and some various hip hop tracks on either Spotify or Youtube.
Track Notes
Track notes: The bass is so versatile and well-tuned to my listening. With DeadMau5, impact and subbass is strong. With John Mayer, it provides some warmth to his voice and energy to his music, but has good enough separation to let his guitar shine. Coldyplay’s Ghost Stories was a joy to listen to with these things. House of Cards provided great and subtle sub-bass extension adding to mood. I’m not that big of a rap and hip hop guy anymore nowadays, but I still listen. I gotta say these things do is justice. Want to hear something just jaw dropping with these? “It’s Good”, Lil Wayne off of Carter IV. Holy crap…..
Track notes: Daft Punk’s Give Life back to music sounded fantastic. The sparkling after the power intro sounded just too good. The separation and detailing in all of the movie sountracks was also just top notch. Added to the overall depth and atmosphere of the music.
High hats and crashes from Linkin Park and Incubus were pretty radical too. Just makes you really want to rock out.
Track Notes: Almost every range of vocal was well presented and sounded very good. While I did not have any stand out tracks, I didn’t have any that stood out for being bad or too veiled or clouded. They really are great, smooth, placed well, and blend well with the overall sound signature.
Intro
There exists a number of different schools of headphones with many different classes. In elementary school we had Apples Earpods as required reading, middle school saw the kids wearing their cool looking skull candies, and in high school all the popular kids, who either had jobs or parents with money, could be seen donning their colorful and fun sounding Beats By Dre headphones. Going into college, interests and style becomes more refined while education in sound becomes more advanced. Some headphones are on the “5-year program”, while others are hard at work getting 4.0’s and prepping for their masters.
In a competitive class of ~$300 headphones, Sony’s MDR-1A, with its’ double major in both sound engineering and design, is making a case for class valedictorian.
Sound
If you’re looking for bass, you will certainly find it with these headphones, but there are some distinctions that make it of the awesome variety and not the crap variety. Bass response is reasonably controlled and tight in its presentation. Where the bass really shines is its’ overall impact and volume. It can be described as nothing short of stupendous. While I hear a slight bleed into the lower mid-range and just a touch of bloom in mid bass region, it’s really impressive how it handles these details considering its’ overall volume and impact. Equally as impressive is the bass region’s versatility in regards to different music genres. If the cool kids are throwing a rager and bass was invited to the party, it shows up in spades. If, however, the parents are having a house-warming or wine-and-cheese party, bass will still show up with a few small gifts, but doesn’t have a problem behaving himself.
The mids are nice, very clear, a little creamy sounding, and just the right "distance" for my preferences. I will say that I like a mildly recessed mid-range, which is what I hear with these headphones. Male vocals tend to showcase that mild-recession more than female vocals. The bass blends slightly into these lower ranges of the mids, but contribute to more of a smoothing and creamy effect for the lower midrange as opposed to muddying or sloppiness. In fact, detailing and separation remains impressive and is aided by how well the mids blend into the higher frequencies. No spikes or shrill vocals to speak of. It is comforting to hear the mids so well represented here because often times when the “cool” kids show up with their crazy colors and bass and crash symbols, they tend to pick on the mids. Sometimes they get beat up, but at this party everyone seems to be getting along great.
The highs on these headphones are also very impressive. Detail and separation is crisp and and delicious, preventing some tracks from sounding congested. It also contributes to overall atmosphere and what is excellent soundstaging with this pair of headphones. Highs are a little rolled of on the top end and avoid sounding terribly bright or sharp. It works really well for pumping up the volume and locking in for long listening sessions without fatiguing easily.
Soundstaging is very good for these closed back headphones. Depth, separation, headroom, and width are all top notch in my book and some of the best for a closed back design. Bands and instruments are well placed, live concerts can be felt as if your a part of the crowd, and some soundtracks like Gone Girl, House of Cards, or the Social Network absorb you into a whole other world.
These headphones are so good in its’ sound reproduction that they can be pretty unforgiving to poorly mixed tracks and low quality audio, which is a good thing. Some headphones lack detailing and offer a somewhat blurry or highly colored sound. That can actually help low-quality music files to be passably listenable. With these however, listening to lower-quality audio files becomes incredibly apparent and distracting. So go ahead and change that spotify audio quality setting to extreme, download your MP3s in 320KBPS, rip your CDs into lossless, upgrade your source, and do whatever you gotta to do give these things the fuel they deserve to really sing.
Note: These headphones have an impedance of just 24 Ohms making these very easy to drive from a variety of sources like your smartphone, laptop, and whatever whoosie-whatsie you plug these into. While amps and dacs generally aren’t necessary for pleasant listening with these headphones, they certainly benefit from high quality sources and audio. Also note that using a source with an output impedance of higher than ~3 Ohms may impact sound signature and quality.
Design
Design is the marriage between aesthetics and function (among other tertiary traits and subtraits). Good design not only executes either one of those well, but also executes the relationship between the two well to provide a great package deal. So how does the MDR-1A perform in this area?
The MDR-1A and both of it’s color options offer a lot of modern appeal with the use of clean, rounded shapes, soft and supple (fuax?) leather with “invisible” seams, while also providing some old-fashioned, tried-and-true headphone design techniques, such as how the enclosed speakers appear as distinct circles as opposed to a unibody design that blends into the earpads.
Insert close up of enclosing speaker
The choice of coloring is very versatile between the two options. The black pair has this slight spattered technique on the exterior plastic housing (the same as on many higher-end Nikon cameras). The use of black with the slight metallic red accent seems like a great choice that can appeal to a wide crowd. The color is subtle enough to provide youthful appeal, but understated enough, especially in conjunction with the dominating black that it wont alienate a more refined adult.
The silver and brown versions offers a different style and appeal. The silver appears as more of a very light, metallic cobalt as opposed to the silver coloring that appears on Apple products. The brown is very deep and rich. In dimly lit situations, it appears almost the shade of coffee; just a shade or two away from black. In better lit situations, it takes on this beautifully rich brown akin to a piece of hershey’s milk chocolate. Most of the headphone has a matte finish, but there are a few touches of a high-shine metallics that help with it’s modernistic appeal. (pic of metallic parts) The silver version has this very cool gold accent by the headphone connector that appears as part of Sony’s Hi-Res audio branding it has adopted as of late. In keeping with good design through both form and function, the headphone connector also slopes forward just a touch, which helps to avoid cord rubbing, microphonics and the like. There are also ports that sit on top of the headphone housing to help provide airflow and space for speaker movement, thusly aiding in its’ ability to create some truly awesome bass and volume.
Comfort
Putting these on for the first time, it became immediately apparent that these are the most comfortable headphones I have ever worn. After having listened to them for a few weeks and putting these things through some long listening sessions (had these on for almost 12 hours in one day), I have to say that my claim stands. This thing is king. As a design choice, Sony chose an almost all plastic body and housing (aside from metal headband) and it feels incredible to wear.
The choice of plastic seems deliberate for comfort reasons as opposed to a cost-saving method, but it does come at the cost of durability. These headphones are also non-collapsable, so making for compact travel is pretty difficult with these.
While it is nice that these headphones are easy to drive and highly compatible wit a myriad of portable devices, these headphones themselves are not particularly portable.
Accessories
Sony includes what is needed with these headphones, but includes little else. Inside the packaging you’ll find two cables of equal length, a soft carrying pouch made of leather and ballistic nylon, and the headphones. One cable has a microphone and control button with all black housing. For the silver headphones on the non-mic’d cable, one connector end color matches with the headphones housing color and looks very sleek. There is no creaking or wobbling with connectors either, which plagued some MDR-1R owners. For a pair of headphones designed to play well with smartphones and laptops, it seems like a hard carrying case should have been included for portability, especially since these headphones are non-collapsable. For those looking for what seem like standard extras, airline adapter, 1/4" adapter, hard case, and then some…you'll be disappointed. Fortunately, these headphones perform so well that these minor gripes become forgotten the moment you hit “play”.
Overall
Sorry ladies, I am off the market. Post it on facebook, ‘cause it’s official. I am taken by the MDR-1A they have me head over heels……..OK, maybe it’s not that serious, but these headphones are winners for Sony! Almost everything is so great with these that you quickly become enamored and any minor gripes fall by the wayside.
While the bass is certainly the headliner for the MDR-1A, it’s sort of by default because everything else well executed. However, those seeking a flat frequency response may not be satisfied. These headphones aren’t terribly portable either and the choice of plastic housing may impact long-term durability.
Speaking of plastic housing! That turns out to be one of the MDR-1A’s biggest upsides! The design choice of plastic housing make this one of the most comfortable pairs of headphones you’re ever likely to wear.
The Highs
- Excellent Bass in quantity, impact, and depth
- Very good clarity across the spectrum
- Some of the best soundstage for an over-ear
- Versatile sound for all genres of music and plain ole’ fun to listen to
- Premium look, attractively stylish and well designed overall
- Most comfortable headphones ever(?). Mattress companies should be taking note
- Sounds great out of smart devices, laptops. Even better from high-quality gear
The Mids
- While a mostly positive design choice, plastic housing decreases durability
- Slightly rolled off highs, but not at the sacrifice of detail, clarity, and contribution to depth
- Cable with mic and control is nice length for smartphone, but other cable should be longer
- Non-collapsable, which can be a preference
The Lows
- Not very portable
- Included accessories are just enough, but may disappoint
- Very mild bleed of bass into lower midrange
- Those seeking flat frequency response will not find it here
Sony’s offering with the MDR-1A offer some best-in-class sound and are a very good value at its' MSRP of $300. The value is even more fantastic if you can get them for less. Some very minor gripes aside, these headphones don’t just sound fantastic, they also look fantastic and they feel fantastic. In a packed class of headphones that offer huge logos, aggressive color palettes, bells and whistles, and some skewed sounding signatures, the MDR-1A performs the essentials with straight A’s.
UPDATE (06/03/16): Having had these for over a year and having listened to them quite a bit, I have a few additional positive marks to add. I have found that these headphones fare much better for portability than I had given them credit for. Since they fold flat, it would actually appear that there may be better structural rigidity than a pair that simply folded in at the hinge. It's a little hard to explain, but it mostly has to do with pressure distribution on the headphones in the case of impact or bending. Laying flat would appear to distribute pressure in a manner that is spread across the stronger parts of the headphones and help to minimize pressure on the weak points of the headphones. I have not done any thorough scientific tests to determine this. Laying the headphones flat also minimize their footprint when placed in a laptop bag or a backpack, making them much easier to carry around. I still would have liked a hard carry case included, but these aren't half bad.
I have found that these respond really well to EQ. The bass impact and sub-bass depth is rather impressive to my ears when EQ'd or paired with amps that have a bass boosting feature. One other thing I am very pleased with is that because of the low impedance of these cans, they play well with just about any source. I use a sony NZW-A25 right now (I have an amps I use occasionally) and they sound pretty dang good straight through the source. These do benefit from having power applied (their max power input is 1500mW) via a good source or amp, but they sound pretty damn good on just about anything.
I am very happy to say that even one year after having owned these, they have held up beautifully and remain my favorite pair of cans I have used in the price range. So much so that I have had no desire to search further, higher, or wider to find a better pair.
Sources and Music
All listening was done using an Astell and Kern AK100ii and all tracks were 16/44 lossless. I did some testing on youtube music as well as various listening on Spotify at 320kbps using an iPhone 6 Plus and Macbook Pro.
Music listened to included Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, John Mayer’s Paradise Valley, Ghost Stories by Coldplay, DeadMau5 While 1<2, The Social Network OST (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross), Gone Girl OST, Linkin Park’s Albums, Incubus, House of Cards OST, Man of Steel OST, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Miles Davis Another Kind of Blue, Lil Wayne on Spotify, and some various hip hop tracks on either Spotify or Youtube.
Track Notes
Track notes: The bass is so versatile and well-tuned to my listening. With DeadMau5, impact and subbass is strong. With John Mayer, it provides some warmth to his voice and energy to his music, but has good enough separation to let his guitar shine. Coldyplay’s Ghost Stories was a joy to listen to with these things. House of Cards provided great and subtle sub-bass extension adding to mood. I’m not that big of a rap and hip hop guy anymore nowadays, but I still listen. I gotta say these things do is justice. Want to hear something just jaw dropping with these? “It’s Good”, Lil Wayne off of Carter IV. Holy crap…..
Track notes: Daft Punk’s Give Life back to music sounded fantastic. The sparkling after the power intro sounded just too good. The separation and detailing in all of the movie sountracks was also just top notch. Added to the overall depth and atmosphere of the music.
High hats and crashes from Linkin Park and Incubus were pretty radical too. Just makes you really want to rock out.
Track Notes: Almost every range of vocal was well presented and sounded very good. While I did not have any stand out tracks, I didn’t have any that stood out for being bad or too veiled or clouded. They really are great, smooth, placed well, and blend well with the overall sound signature.
If you try them out, please let me know and everyone else what you think about them!