[REVIEW] Sony MH1 – The Best Kept Secret - Page 78

the sony beats the beats dre?

 

I'm pretty sure that they're made in China.

 

Mine has not arrived yet.

Are MH1C replacement tips available anywhere?  I too have torn my mediums.  Are these the only ones that are available for purchase?

Yeah,

 

I'm jumping in a bit late here on this one. Where are these available at a low price? is $30 for the MH1C on amazon worth a try?

 

Sure, if you're not two months behind in rent or child support, then they are worth the money, despite their wonky cable, but most likely way better than any other similar priced cheapies that you have picked up the last year or so.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Livesound-Headphones-Earphones-Head-sets/dp/B008CCSD7K/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353652958&sr=1-2&keywords=sony+mhc1

You can still get them here for $25 guy's. There's a wait involved though on shipping times. (Hong Kong)

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/170876113045?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

I just got time to play with my MH1C. I dont have much experience with other IEM's, not even a lot of regular headphones.

 

In last couple of months I got Sony MDR-XB500, and I dont like them, BASS is really good, but seems that interfere with mids, so with most of music I constantly hear some kind of humming in back, like all music sounds are duplicated triplicated and lowered in volume and put in background.

 

Then, I got Sennheiser HD428. I quite like them. Nice mids, solid highs, I can hear a lot of details, bass is right as I like, some say these headphones are bassless, but for me they are not, and even in time, bass become bolder and very very tight.

 

So I will compare Sony MH1C with Senn HD428, as its only reference I can rely on :)

 

First I did about 20 hours of Burn-In with Daft Punk's  'Tron Legacy - Reconfigured', looping it, just from time to time interrupted by my wife, as she constantly muted laptop volume as she said noises she hear makes her crazy lol.. oh well.

 

Then, I gave them quite a lot listening of different music, different genres, etc.

 

My setup that I used was/is Laptop -> FLAC -> FiiO E10 (low gain, amp 5 out of 8) -> Sony MH1C

 

First, I have to say that MH1C and HD428 need about the same amplification, and HD428 need more amplification than MDR-XB500, about 1 to 2 points on a scale to be on same volume level.

 

Also, with my HTC EVO phone, MH1C was obviously underpowered, as sound level at max was just ok for listening on medium loundness in quiet environment.

 

Compared to HD428, highs are better defined, less metallic, more fullmore sparkling, but a bit too sparkling for my taste, they can become bit harsh in some songs on higher volume, but not problem generally, as it is not all the time and probably depends on cd's post production, and probably AMP too? maybe E10 is too bright for MH1C?

 

Mids, to my opinion, are great. Full, lively, and very realistic, IMO. Both male and female vocals sound natural, just at times they can be a bit overlapped by instruments, i think. in 'Madonna - Frozen' I heard her voice is practicly trembling while singing, I didnt hear or noticed that before, and I listened that song a lot of times.

 

Amount of bass is, for my taste, bit higher, but very acceptable. Would be nice if bass is more precise, that is the only part where HD428 is better. Someone said that can feel vibrations of low bass, and that is really true! It happend that I felt those vibrations in ears, not even hearing bass!

 

That is it. MH1C is well worth of $27.9 I paid for them on Amazon, and I thinking buying another one just in case :)

 

And one question: Is anyone compared them to Fischer Audio DBA-02 / Brainwavz B2? And what are your conclusions? Brainwavz B2 are now $129.5 on Amazon so I thinking to make my Cyber Monday nicer if they worth of that :)

Finally got mine in the mail after 3 weeks, USPS first class sure is first class.

 

Initial thoughts out of the box, nothing that hasn't been said before - perhaps my brain's been prejudiced through all my reading...

 

- there's no way this is 15 ohm impedance, it's more like 32 because there are tracks I'm maxing out volume on my phone just like my Senn 558 (50 ohm) - I wouldn't go over half with my IE80.  There's noticeably less hiss coming out of it too in comparison. I might finally be able to put my Fiio E5 to use after all these years...

- Not so hot about the fact that the cable is J cord, will take some use to.  Shirt clip helps a lot.

- I don't feel like there's more bass than my IE80 (I have my bass dial in the middle) in general, fairly certain the IE80 has more sub bass.  On some tracks it's a bit harder to distinctly pick out the bass notes.

- The new tips aren't as soft as the original hybrids.  In any case I feel like I can use smaller tips due tot the tiny housing and by shoving them deeper, but they don't really get a good hold without pushing in by hand so I ended up using the largest tips even though it makes them stick out of my ears a bit (just like the advert pictures).  Perhaps I'm used to shallow insert due to IE80 now.

- It's really hard to A/B between them because I don't hear a dramatic difference, source / material probably matters as well and it doesn't help that I have to change volume whenever I swap.  I *think* the male vocals in a particular busy j rock song is somehow smoother and doesn't blend in with the rest, in comparison to the IE80 it's a bit like EQing up the 1khz region.  Definitely no sibilance (I really hated that on my Meelec M6)

- on my Android 4.2 Galaxy Nexus with Google Music the + and - buttons skips forwards or backwards in the tracklist instead of changing volume.  Middle button pauses or plays.

 

If these isolate better (and they probably do) on my daily commute then I might actually shelf my IE80 for a bit.  Jury's still out but on one hand I want my $350 to sound like it's that much better than $20... on the other I keep telling myself what's the difference if I can't tell.  Surprisingly I'm so used to the IE80 now (ergonomics was my first complaint when I got them) I dislike wearing the Sony. 

 

No, I am not saying they are as good (or bad) as the IE80 or anything like that, it's too early to tell.

Edited by macbug - 11/23/12 at 2:29am

I got two pairs of these mainly for the hands free functionality with android phones. I wasn't expecting much sound quality wise to be frank, but as it turns out i was wrong.

 

Straight out of the box they didn't sound so good. The bass was excessive, boomy and it was drowning the mids and the treble which i could hardly hear. After one hour of usage the bass settled down and the mids and treble came out. This is not a psychological effect, i compared the sound with my unused pair, the sound really did change considerably.

 

Right now i have to admit that they are unreal for their price. They produce a great non fatiguing treble that conveys detail without a hint of sibilance and mids that sound just about right if only perhaps a hair recessed (i think these phones have a slightly U shaped FR). The bass is almost a deal breaker though, there is just too much of it. I have to admit that their ability to go very low is impressive and desirable to me, because my hearing also goes pretty low. The quantity is a problem though. They output more bass then my pair of DDMs and they are nowhere near as polite with it. I had to cut 6 db with an equalizer from the lower frequencies to make it sound non fatiguing to my ears, but when i did it sounded almost perfect.

 

This IEM truly does some things that where unheard of in this price range. Dynamic range is impressive as is instrument separation. Soundstage and imaging are accurate and 3 dimensional, and the tonality is really nice with most instruments and vocals. All in all they offer a dark, dry, sweet sound that strikes a perfect balance between smoothness and detail.

 

On another note, there is no way these have an impedance of 15Ω. They produce no hissing whatsoever and they are harder to drive than every low impedance pair of earphones i own. My guess is that their real impedance is over 30Ω if not over 40. Still, they have a good synergy with the Wolfson DAC inside my smartphone, although they do seem to benefit from the extra juice of my Xonar.

 

I have to admit that i have never been so impressed with the price/performance ratio of a product before. Still, i believe the hype will eventually die off because of their tuning (which isn't geared towards audiophiles). A pair of these with a flatter, more neutral tuning would really be a game changer. Maybe a new model with different tuning and a dual micro driver configuration ? We can only dream :).

Impedance and sensitivity are two different concepts.  A low impedance phone can require more voltage and wattage to sound as loud as a high impedance one.

 

Because Power = Current * Voltage, and current through a load is inversely proportional to the impedance, feeding the same voltage to a low and a high impedance phone results in less power fed to the high impedance phone.  When you adjust the volume on a player you are adjusting the voltage output.  So if the two phones have the same power sensitivity, the higher impedance phone will play softer.

 

But suppose you have phone x with half the impedance of phone y but 1/4 the power sensitivity.  Feeding x and y the same voltage yields double the power through x but because x has 1/4 the power sensitivity, it only plays half as loud as phone y...

Edited by Joe Bloggs - 11/23/12 at 6:18am

 

I am sure you are right, i only took Ohm's law into account, never thinking that efficiency could vary so much from phone to phone. 

I was just wondering if MH1C needs burn in. Looks like some users reporting that they sound nicer after certain time. What about a method of burn in? Is it better to play pink/white/brown noise or put some kind of album on loop?

A lot of poeple forget about the sensitivity part. Glad you posted this reply.

No need for all that, just place them in your ears and listen to them. After one hour they will have settled to their intended sound. The 100-200 hour procedures involving specific noises, volume and painting glyphs with the blood of a goat seem a little excessive :P

Does someone understand Chinese? I maybe found a way to export some from China at a very low price (and of course resell them to head-fiers at a special price ) but I want to make sure they're genuine and not fakes!

The seller says

全新原装 最新到货，如假包换 假一赔百 这款耳机设置独特

and google translator says

New original latest arrival, disguising fake a lose 100 this headset settings unique


which doesn't really make sense but that "fake" scares me.
Even though I don't see why one would even bother making fakes of "unknown" (horrible) headsets for a Sony phone!
Edited by -sandro- - 11/23/12 at 1:16pm