It's always a pleasure to meet Nao Tsunoda of Sony at the Tokyo festivals as there is plenty of interesting technology being developed and on display. At first when I saw a row of colourful "
h.ear on Wireless" MDR-100ABN headphones it didn't bring up my interest (a range of colours is usually strike 1 for good sound quality) being told that they were Bluetooth (strike 2), and noise cancelling (strike 3!) didn't encourage me any more. However Nao did want me to try the new high-res LDAC Bluetooth transmission, which can send 96k-quality audio from one of their Sony NW-A25 Walkmans. So I got out a micro SD card and plugged it in, put them on to have that weird shell-cupping effect from the noise cancelling shut out most of the ambient sound. Starting up a well-listened Alexis Cole from Chesky Records I was then blown away with the sound quality.
That lead me to arrange to borrow a pair, along with a Sony Walkman to review, meet impressions being what they are. So a couple of weeks later a box arrived with one of their demo pairs and a well-worn NW-ZX2.
What hadn't been clear at the show were two main things. The first was that the headphones fold neatly inwards, though the cups don't fold flat. Secondly once folded, they fit into an included zip-up shell case. Accessories included are the requisite micro-USB cable for charging (and firmware upgrades, though I don't know at the present time whether this can be done by customers or not. The pair I demoed at the show were upgraded on the spot by the engineer with new firmware that improved the sound quality noticeably).
Design-wise, aside from the range of unusual colours, they are of a fairly straight-forward common design, plastic surrounding metal components at key points, such as in the headband and hinges. The cups rotate enough for fit and size adjustment is the usual click-y sliding arrangement on either side. The Sony logo is suitably discrete on the headband.
Clamping force is moderate and the earpads unusually slope inwards and only have a relatively narrow contact margin of 1cm. That makes them press neatly and reasonably comfortably around my ears. I'm sure people with big ears are going to have the usual issues though. It isn't clear if the earpads are easily replaceable.
In the middle is a 40mm titanium-coated driver in front of which is what looks like a small microphone, which is part of the noise-cancelling system. On the outside are microphones that are part of the noise cancelling system and also double as voice mics for use with your phone.
A micro-USB port for charging and a 3.5mm socket for input completes the picture. The problem here is that the 3.5mm socket is recessed, so the included 3.5mm cable is needed if that input is to be used, something I found out the hard way when I tried to use a regular cable. However the headphones work best in wireless mode, and the battery life is listed as 20 hours of playback over Bluetooth with noise cancelling switched on, this isn't likely to be a problem.
Of the three ways to play back music -- over Bluetooth, via the 3.5mm socket in active mode, and via the socket in passive mode (power off), surprisingly using the high-res LDAC transmission or APT-X (almost CD-quality transmission) sound best. In passive mode, the impedance goes down to 16 Ohms (from 32) and the sensitivity down to 98 dB (from 103) and the sound becomes rather bad, with the highs rolled off and the bass a mess. The MDR-100ABN were clearly intended to be used in active mode.
Between the LDAC and APT-X transmission methods, I had trouble making out any noticeable difference in the limited time I had to test them, where in the past, with other equipment, I had observed a very slight degradation in the sound quality using APT-X transmission versus USB or S/PDIF.
As I believe the analog input has to be digitised for the noise cancelling system, using a good DAC doesn't derive any benefit. That doesn't matter, as the sound quality is good enough that I reckon if you blindfolded someone and put the cans on their head while they were playing music over Bluetooth in noise-cancelling mode, they would have no idea that they weren't listening to a regular pair of $500 or better headphones.
Their sound signature was another surprise. I was expecting a warm "consumer" tuning, with more bass and less treble than neutral. However what I got was closer in balance to a pair of MrSpeakers Ether C, as they have a fairly neutral sound signature with very present treble and sufficient, but not overly strong bass. Combined with the angled earpads, I felt I was receiving a good degree of detail and instrument separation in the sound, giving an overall feeling of spaciousness. Poor recordings couldn't be glossed over, which meant that my favourite Julie Driscoll tracks from the '70s, with their less than stellar and quite bass-light mastering didn't fare so well.
On the other hand, I found great results with acoustic music. I know Sony likes their headphones to have good deep bass delivery, so I was surprised that the didgeridoo in Dead Can Dance - Song of the Stars didn't quite have the reach-down-and-touch-you deep rumble I was used to with, say the MDR-Z7s. There was a good amount of spaciousness to the delivery and an impressive degree of instrument delineation with no hint of degradation from the noise cancelling system.
Some of David Chesky's latest binaural albums have been my go-to lately, their depth of soundstage and strong drum lines being instantly addictive. While I wasn't quite hearing the shifting of clothes or the lips of performers parting with the MDR-100ABN, as I could with high-end headphones, they rendered the feeling of the music incredibly well.
I decided that I should give the noise cancelling system a proper run, so I took them with me on the train to and from the city. I've used Sony's noise cancelling on airplanes before and the experience was much the same with the MDR-100ABN. While mostly low frequency sounds are eliminated, voices and higher pitched sounds, such as the fans of the air conditioning units on top of the trains, were still audible, even when listening to music. It wasn't a major issue, as there was still sufficient noise cancellation that I could enjoy listening regardless. On the train itself, with binaural tracks making instruments seem to jump out of space, I had to remember that nobody else was hearing what I was on the train and just relax.
In my video, I put the noise cancelling to the test with a microphone, and it was still possible to hear my voice outside the cups with the noise cancelling on, but background music with a low bass rumble was readily cancelled out.
Before now, I had the idea that noise-cancelling headphones were only really useful for flights, and mainly to help relax and sleep, as I find IEMs too uncomfortable to use for long periods. With Sony's MDR-100ABN headphones, they have created a device that could very satisfactorily used as a main pair of headphones, such is the quality of sound. When everyone is talking about direct digital connections with headphones, Sony has achieved the same thing with wireless. The only downside is that, as far as I know, the high-res LDAC transmission method is exclusive to Sony, so you'll need a compatible Walkman or Experia phone, though I found APT-X to be of sufficient quality with most music.
