[Stevesebastianb]

A friend brought back a pair of these Sony MDR-XD1000 headphones for me as a gift from Vietnam. Quite honestly I have never heard of Sony having a pair of MDR-XD1000 heaphones and I really wondered if these were fakes and questionable. The box they came in was quite nicely designed with Japenese information and the phones themselves were quite well made but resembled some AT's.

So I naturally ran a check on Yahoo Japan and came up with nada, I then made a search on Yahoo and Google and only came up with details on these dynamic cans from sites coming out of China, Vietnam and would you beleive Brazil! Here is what I found on the so called Sony's:

The Sony MDR-XD1000 features a feather-light and sinfully comfortable design. These marvelously efficient headphones give you hours of stunning stereo listening. The large 53mm aperture drivers are based around bobbin-wound CCAW voice coils that regenerate the audio signal with crisp resolution and deep, balanced bass. They excel at accurately reproducing classical and audiophile materials. The lightweight honeycomb casing is comfortable for long periods of wear, and the unique 2-part headband has self-adjusting wings which exert little pressure and absolutely no force on the crown of your head, maintaining an enjoyable listening experience.

Key features:
Neodymium magnets

Open air dynamic element headphone

Copper clad aluminum wire (CCAW) voice coils

Aluminum matte housing with soft leather earpads

Specification:

TYPE: Dynamic,Closed

Headphones Type: Headphones - binaural

Recommended Use: Professional audio system, home audio system, portable audio system

Headphones Form Factor: Ear-cup

Connectivity Technology: Wired

Sound Output Mode: Stereo

SENSITIVITY: 107 dB/mW

CORD: Coiled 1-3m long single-sided LC-OFC litz cord with a gold plated stereo plug

Response Bandwidth: 5 - 30000 Hz

Headphone Weight: 300 g

FREQUENCY RESPOHNSE: 5-30,000 Hz

DRIVER UNITS: ø50mm,dome type

IMPEDENCE: 24 ohms ar 1kHz

Here are some photos also:

Anyone know anything about these cans, would like to learn more.

 

[Emooze]

If those are fakes, they are damn good ones. How do they sound? If they sound legit, I wouldn't question it.

 

[xenithon]

Look similar to the XD100 / XD200 / XD300. May be due to the fact that the same model may have different name designations based on the market/geography.

 

[obobskivich]

theres Sony MDR XB-300/500/700, which are "Extra Bass" and look quite different in construction and whatnot, those are available via SonyStyle US

one thing to note about those, notice the AudioTechnica style "3D Wing" headband? that doesn't appear on any of Sony's conventional hp designs, they have consumer market stuff with big padded headbands, pro market stuff which is usually all black and folds in some way, and premium hp's with the hammock (Qualia 010, SA5000, etc) or something similar (F1, R10)

I've actually never seen the AT style headband on anything BUT AT's, so thats quite odd imho

 

[Bencrest]

They have got to be fakes, the description claims they are 'Open air dynamic element headphone' ... which suggests open back to me, followed by 'TYPE: Dynamic,Closed'.

The driver housings look suspiciously like the old fake ATH-M50 style fakes I've seen before, with a Sony logo stuck on them. The specs sound suspiciously like Audio Technica, such as the 53mm driver, and as stated above, the 3d-wing headband.

So, it's a fake-frankenautechnicony

 

[obobskivich]

looks like 700DJ earcups with some gloss paint and A500 headband, or some other form of faked plastic crap

the 53mm driver alone isn't enough to make it suspect (a number of vendors love foster)

the Sony logo looks wrong though, as I've never Sony bill their logo up in orange, outside of the orange/white and walkman, but its usually boxed up with white text

still interested to hear how they sound (and steve owns like, every headphone ever made

, can probably get some interesting impressions)

 

[nullstring]

very weird..

You think they are overflow AT parts?

I mean... has anyone seen the fake AT's with the 3d wing design?

 

[obobskivich]

I'm guessing these are somwhere between "fell off the back of a truck" and "random overruns pieced together"

 

[apatN]

How do they sound?
They might well be only for the Asian markets.

 

[obobskivich]

see, I'd agree with that, except the headband is unique to AT, and I don't see Sony re-branding a product, it costs more than just building some massively cheap stuff in-house

but also thinking about it, not all fakes have to sound bad, neccisarily, theres a number of chinese rip-offs of american CE and software stuff that works just great

 

[nullstring]

so, yeah, how do they sound?

 

[fjrabon]

I'm pretty sure AT has a patent on the wing headband design. So, yeah, I'd go with these being fakes.

 

[kjpmkjp]

How about the lack of a copyright symbol next to "Sony". That's what tipped me off.

Well, and the MDR style cups attached to an AT headband. Just plain weird.

 

[freakmax]

This one looks fake to me.
There are lots of fake Sony headphones in Thailand and I think it's the same in Vietnam.I'd not buy any Sony products from unauthorized dealers.

 

[obobskivich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freakmax /img/forum/go_quote.gif This one looks fake to me. There are lots of fake Sony headphones in Thailand and I think it's the same in Vietnam.I'd not buy any Sony products from unauthorized dealers.

even authorized dealers can sell fakes from time to time (sadly)

whats the running statistic on Louis Vuitton, 97% of branded products are fake, or something like that?