The Next Sony R-10! - Page 3

now that would be kick ass

Plasma headphones-check 'em out.

It's also worth mentioning that many think the Ed 9s are also in the top tier. And they're still available.

And so is the GS-1000, which Mr. Grado himself sees as a top tier headphone (and that is shared by many users).

Theres loads of brilliant flagship level products in the market right now. None of them will be seen as fondly or with as much desire as the R10 or L3000 crowd until the day they're discontinued. Wait until the JVC DX1000 goes OOP, or the GS-1000, or the Ergo AMT. Any of them could go like the K1000 did.

its worth note that the "second batch" of he-90 headphones did not sell as quickly as people say. it STILL took several months to fill the spots for (drumroll please) 15 headphones.

Its also worth note that these headphones were not "new production" but senheiser agreed to put them together from spare parts.

regarding the R10:
if you think it would work, offer to distribute them, and buy the 500 to make a run upfront. taking a keystone margin, and inflation into account, it would only be about $1.5milion investment perhaps $1milion if you could talk sonly into selling them at a $2000 cost. it took sony 12 years to sell the 1200 (or so) with the full efforts of their advertising team behind them.

If you want to compliment sony for their old products, write their general customer service department a letter. it is seriously bad form to write the CEO of a multi-national company for a general comment.

Bounty says their paper towel absorbs twice as much as "the other guys."

Seeing as I've never heard an R10, the point is sort of moot, but when I look at the Sony MDR-R10 and then the Grado GS-1000, the latter looks like a joke. The R10's driver housing inner chamber, alone, puts the entire present-day Grado lineup to shame, imo. That said, I think the GS-1000's moniker upon release (poor man's R10) says volumes.

Anyway, I'm getting ot. Are we talking "top" tier, or completely off the charts, world class tier? 'Cause if we're all talking about holding out for competition to the Edition 9 and GS-1000... well, peace out all.

In any case, what good is all this uber resolving equipment with contemporary recording/mastering? The loudness war must end, mp3's must die and kids have to care about the reproduction of their music before manufacturer's (and more importantly, consumers) will see we really have a need for something "more" than what we already have. And before all/any of that happens, I'd like to see this hobby go "open source" for the lack of a better term. I wanna see DIY headphone kits and build manuals almost like we do for amps-by the people for the people, you know? If we were all ferreting about inside our headphones (between listening sessions, of course ) we'd all probably be somewhat more educated on the matter of audio engineering which, I feel, would not only increase our own enjoyment in the hobby, but the number of minds thinking "I can make a difference" in reference to said hobby.

If Sony did another run, would they actually sound the same? Would they use the same materials and manufacturing processes? No guarantees. Would new run be the earlier bass light version (preferred by many) or the later bass heavy version? There would certainly be a lot of risk here for a buyer, especially if pre-paid orders were taken. Nevertheless, I think trying to persuade Sony to do another run is a great idea and worth that risk. If any one has the clout to approach Sony it has to be Headfi. I'd certainly offer my support.

Best just to email a pic of a pair of R10's being crotched.

-Ed

it would be cool, but greatly non-profitable and a huge nuisance to sony...

i estimate that only ~10-20 of them will be sold if they ever re-released the R10... and i think i'm being generous in that number too

Whoa! Hold your horses, there. No disrespect to Markl, but I'm sure he would tell you as well that the mods he's made to the Denon's D5000 product really are pretty straight forward. Sure, he did a fair bit of experimentation and relied on the best instruments he had at hand: his own two well experienced ears. But stuffing a little extra padding in the earpads and adding some dampening materials to the driver housings is a far cry from designing and manufacturing the entire product on his own.

I'm not saying that Markl couldn't develop a decent sounding pair of headphones on his own (I don't know, maybe he has more of an engineering background than I know of), but to achieve the excellence and craftsmanship of the Sony R10, it took a whole team of people from Sony's design team, and I suspect it didn't happen overnight. What's more, I think that's the whole point of this thread. If you want to know why there aren't more R10-like products being developed by the major manufacturers, the answer is simple: it's not cost effective given the research, design and development costs and the very limited number of people in the target market for a pair of headphones costing more than $1,000, let alone $5,000.

I agree that Sony could probably sell out a small batch of 100 or maybe even 200 pairs of R10's to the loony fringe headphone enthusiasts like we find hanging out here. But that would be based on an existing product design that simply needs to be replicated on a one-off limited run basis, much like Sennheiser did with the HE90 a couple of years ago. AKG could do it with the K1000 as well, etc., etc. That's totally different than new product development, and all of the large manufacturers seem to have come to the same conclusion concerning the cost-benefit equation as applied to flagship headphone products. The market for such toys is still too fringe relative to where their resources could otherwise be deployed (i.e., into markets that promise sustainable volumes for years to come).

What I think might change this perspective one day, and perhaps one day soon, is when headphone technology takes a big turn in a positive way into the future. The most amazing thing I've come across since listening to some binaural recordings several years ago was the demo at CanJam '08 of the Smyth Research "head tracking" device (whatever it's called). Essentially, this kind of technology has "breakthrough" potential which could have major implications for the high end headphone market. Suddenly there will be a REASON why typical speaker-based audiophiles would become interested in headphones. When they hear how realistically headphones (using this kind of technology) can reproduce the environment of a 5.1 or 7.1 listening room, of course they're going to want a top notch pair of headphones to go with the package.

That, in turn, could light a huge fire under the hind ends of the product planners at the major headphone manufacturers. In other words, when (if ever) there is a real, sustainable, demand for high end headphones, the supply of such new product developments will expand to meet that demand and then even extend to create new market niches. Give it a couple of years, you might be surprised at what could happen.

At no offense to him, I feel many Head-Fi'ers are more knowledgeable about audio, in general, than markl. I'm not saying I'm one of these people, however, simply, the markl mods aren't as insane as people make them out to be. I don't know the full extent of his modifications, but changing the space between the drivers and your ears? This is a practice ortho modders have known (and I'm sure many many audio enthusiasts before us) for a while. Move the drivers closer to the ear and you get more bass, but less sound stage. Further away, the exact opposite. This also relates to fit. Sometimes you'll hear people discussing how they like to wear the same headphone. It's all about placement of your ear within the ear chamber. Also, I believe Mark added cotton damping to the rear. I've seen dozens of threads talking about this type of thing, but usually in reference to the K340/Headphile mods. And once again we see that ortho modders have been using fabric/materials of varying acoustic resistances as damping in order to fine tune sound. Mark heard something wrong with a headphone, and knew how to alleviate that fault. I did this with my SFI-380's over and over and finally got to an end product I preferred over my $700, highly modified Sony MDR-CD3000's. Is it better? Imo, yes. Does that mean most will believe me? Absolutely not, and that's because I'm a 19 year old kid who's only been in the hobby for maybe a year. I've never reviewed any gear for some big fancy company and I can't exactly keep anyone interested in what it is I have to say for probably over a page and a half (my English teachers will attest to that). I feel that if I had bought a Denon D5000 and did the same exact mods as markl, no one would believe me if I said it beat out an R10 in a blind test, and you can certainly forget about people paying me to do the same mods to their pair!

All I'm really saying is do a little research on the Sony R10 through Head-Fi, Google, or w/e. See the hell Sony went through to engineer that monster. Do you really think a woodified Fostex with "Denon" slapped on the side and some dynamat behind the drivers can outperform this? From the wood Sony used for the housings (not only the type, but even the age of wood), to the crazy light and bacterially grown driver diaphragm, to the magnesium alloy frame to cut down on microphonics, to the hand stitched lambskin earpads; the entire headphone screams "We did our fuggin' homework" and its bow-down status, I feel, is well deserved because of it. I can't wait 'til I finally get to hear one.

I'm not sure you're still talking to me here, but I'll assume you are and, no offense, I feel that w/o any kind of market for such a product there isn't much to back. There wasn't really a market when it released and there really isn't one now. And, even though I greatly respect the R10 for what I think it is (an emotionally stirring piece of modern art balancing both beauty-yes, I think the R10 is one of, if not the, most beautiful headphones ever made-and performance), I'd like to see something go above and beyond it... at a price point I can hopefully stomach.