Sony MDR-V6 (and family) Appreciation Thread - Page 4

Interesting. Thanks for your opinion on how they stack up. Interesting how you observe that the  V6's are slacking in the highs. How many pairs of V6's have you owned? Also, are the ones you have made in China or Japan? I am curious because I have the Sony MDR-7506s as well as a pair of V6's, both made in Japan and both sound practically identical. I have always found the 7506s to be very, very bright. In fact, in the past I found them fatiguing and a little bit harsh, in particular on the highs. In comparing them to other headphones, many times I feel other headphones are muffled in comparison or mids too recessed. Usually, when trying out other headphones, I found myself thinking, these sound too warm or there isn't enough clarity due to being used to the 7506/V6's bright character.

I have always thought if the 7506's have an Achilles, its in the low end, where its too boomy at times and not very accurate (for certain applications)...definitely not on the high end though.

Originally Posted by Kodhifi 

He asked me to compare the V6 to the DT880's............

 

The V6 is used professionally for MONITORING work, not for mixing, mastering, effects, or any critical listening other than live monitoring.

 

The 880 is not marketed as a studio headphone but it does a better job of it than the V6 and when comparing the two to each other the V6 might as well not have any highs at all next to the 880's soaring clean sound.

 

Take a look at their frequency response and my observation holds up graphically. The V6 loses up to -25 db from 10khz to 20khz compared to the 880.

 

 

 

 

 

In practice I didn't find the V6 to sound nearly as veiled in the highs as the graph suggests, but compared to the DT880's highs, like I said its like throwing a 90lb weaking into the ring with a heavyweight boxer.

Got a pair of V55's that come in 4 different colour schemes.

Not sure how they compare with other MDR models, but I really like the performance of these cans. The all white pair is currently being sold on amazon UK for £36.69, which is an absolute steal for the sound quality they offer.

The bass response is strong, but tight and well controlled. The mid-range is beautifully clear and well defined, even with complex genres. The highs are nice and bright without being overly fatiguing.

They're pretty easy headphones to run straight from portables, although I find I get superior performance out of them through my Fiio E7 DAC.

All in all, a great all round headphone which certainly deserves a look at, especially at the price you can get them for. (They still retail at up to £90 in some high street stores!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by bachatum 

How much do the pearsons alter the sound from the original?

The Pearstones do not alter the sound, IMHO.  The DT-250 pads, do - because they're bigger.  The Beyer's change the way the headphone sits on your ear.  The Pearstones are 1 to 1, but with velour instead of massively-flaking pleather.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thoughtcriminal 


Edit: looks to me like that's not really a problem. The v6 is brighter at the top till about 15khz, at which point you're well into a harmonic only range. Where you are hearing the 880 as brighter is the 6khz dip. Other than that the v6 is a much flatter can, with the 880 having a rather noticable lower-mid forward sig.
Also, can you site your source as to their professional use?

It's not the kind of thing you site a source for. It's a statement of fact that producers and audio engineers use monitor speakers as their primary method of mixing music. Nobody in the industry uses headphones (for mixing and mastering music) outside of light home production work before taking it in and mixing it on monitors.

Headphones are however used often in studios but mostly as monitors. When you have a musician playing a performance it's not always with the whole band in a live setup. Often it's 1 musician listening to a recording and playing along to it. Other 'monitor' uses would be a sound man doing location sound work like for your TV crews, movie production, etc, and he needs to monitor what his mic is picking up so he knows if it's a good take or not.

Please don't get me wrong about the V6, for under $100 it's my absolute favorite headphone. I can't say enough good things about it. But it's not a cure all and while it's unfair to compare it to $300-$400 headphones, that is what was asked of me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bachatum 

Interesting. Thanks for your opinion on how they stack up. Interesting how you observe that the  V6's are slacking in the highs. How many pairs of V6's have you owned? Also, are the ones you have made in China or Japan? I am curious because I have the Sony MDR-7506s as well as a pair of V6's, both made in Japan and both sound practically identical. I have always found the 7506s to be very, very bright. In fact, in the past I found them fatiguing and a little bit harsh, in particular on the highs. In comparing them to other headphones, many times I feel other headphones are muffled in comparison or mids too recessed. Usually, when trying out other headphones, I found myself thinking, these sound too warm or there isn't enough clarity due to being used to the 7506/V6's bright character.

I have always thought if the 7506's have an Achilles, its in the low end, where its too boomy at times and not very accurate (for certain applications)...definitely not on the high end though.

 

 

That's funny because some people say the same of the Beyerdynamics, that they can be overly bright or fatiguing but I've never found that to be the case after break in.The V6 doesn't really sound veiled in my opinion and if I didn't have the 880's I'd probably think their highs were pretty good. The 880 is on a whole other level though, not just in volume of the highs and their presence, but in their purity, and smoothness. It's like putting on gods ears. 

I'm not sure how to find out where my V6's were made. I gave them a simple check for counterfeit to make sure they were real but don't know how to tell their origin.

Most of what people describe as 'highs' end around 10khz. It's surprising actually how 'high' something midway like 10khz sounds. For my personal taste, those upper harmonics sell me on a sounds authenticity. I think some of the differences in how we perceive highs have to do with age and the condition of our hearing. I'm 38 and 17khz is where I notice a steep drop off and I have never abused my ears which is quite hard for a drummer and guitarist. I like drumming with the V6 when I want to drum at concert volume because they actually protect my hearing somewhat.

I have some special Vic Firth headphones that are supposed to be really good for that but my god are they bad. Imagine the hearing protection you wear for shooting a gun, but with crappy speakers jammed in them, and thats the Vic Firth.

Yeah, and one thing I forgot to mention in my first long-winded post is that I feel that since driver manufacturing moved to China and then to Thailand, the tolerances between different driver lots (and thus manufacturing dates) varies a great deal more than they did with the Japanese-made drivers.  I mean, everyone has manufacturing tolerances, and we're talking about headphones that have been manufactured since 1986 or 1990 so there's bound to be some "drift," so I think the differences account for a lot of the different opinions, or people who say that one pair of V6s sound different from one pair of 7506s.  I have one pair of Japanese 7506s that is almost unusable because it's so bright, but two other pairs that are delightful...

As for the CD900 vs V7, I could be wrong about the amorphous sapphire driver in the V7; I don't remember where I first heard that- can you confirm it?  I have a box for the V7 that only says "titanium evaporated driver," while an old Sony catalog from Japan says the CD900 had an "amorphous diamond" driver.  The part numbers might be a clue: CD900 driver was 1-505-076-21, V7 was 1-505-076-01.  (V6 was 1-505-076-11).

And to the discussion about "monitoring" versus "mixing," a good engineer will mix on studio monitors, but also give it a listen on cans, on earbuds, as an mp3, as a cassette in the car, etc., etc.  I liken the 7506s to the headphone equivalent of the Yamaha NS-10M studio monitors, or a Shure SM-57 microphone: ubiquitous, imperfect, but totally valid, so long as you know the limitations.  I've known some recording engineers- especially those who do remote work for classical music- who don't always use studio monitor loudspeakers, and even I rely on my 7506s for critical work- mixing, building sound effects, but I've learned what to trust and what not to trust-

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kodhifi 

That's funny because some people say the same of the Beyerdynamics, that they can be overly bright or fatiguing but I've never found that to be the case after break in.The V6 doesn't really sound veiled in my opinion and if I didn't have the 880's I'd probably think their highs were pretty good. The 880 is on a whole other level though, not just in volume of the highs and their presence, but in their purity, and smoothness. It's like putting on gods ears. 

 

I'm not sure how to find out where my V6's were made. I gave them a simple check for counterfeit to make sure they were real but don't know how to tell their origin.

 

Most of what people describe as 'highs' end around 10khz. It's surprising actually how 'high' something midway like 10khz sounds. For my personal taste, those upper harmonics sell me on a sounds authenticity. I think some of the differences in how we perceive highs have to do with age and the condition of our hearing. I'm 38 and 17khz is where I notice a steep drop off and I have never abused my ears which is quite hard for a drummer and guitarist. I like drumming with the V6 when I want to drum at concert volume because they actually protect my hearing somewhat.

 

I have some special Vic Firth headphones that are supposed to be really good for that but my god are they bad. Imagine the hearing protection you wear for shooting a gun, but with crappy speakers jammed in them, and thats the Vic Firth.

You can see where they are made by looking at the underside of the headband, on the left where the headband begins, there is a plastic piece. In between two screws it should say "made in"

Hi

I'm just about to rewire my V7's. They've needed it for some time but now I've no choice as the right channel has gone down.  I may replace the whole cable, any recommendations, anyone?

I'm missing them already!

Andy

Good news, I'm finally getting my velour earpads for my V6's from Amazon. They were out of stock a few months on the Beyerdynamic DT250's and the companies that had them in stock started gouging up to $60 (usually $30)