Anybody with Sony MDR-CD1700 experience?

[mattigol]

Hi there,

I read through the recent Sony F1 thread, googled around a bit and ended up on hifichoice.co.uk, a magazine which I respect highly ever since I followed some of their suggestions when assembling my home hifi system a couple of years ago. Anyway, in their tests they frequently mentioned the Sony MDR-CD1700 as their reference set. Apparently, it´s a design derived from the R-10s. But read for yourselves:

http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/archive/...rintreview.htm

These headphones dont get much attention on head-fi, if I am not mistaken. While retaining a high level of fidelity, they seem to be quite a bit cheaper then the CD3k. Should be a recipe for success, shouldn´t it?

Anybody who gave them a thorough listen?

Cheers mattigol

 

[redshifter]

the cd1700 is not as respected here, but i have a pair and love them. they are great for acoustic music, solo instruments, and have a warm sound and a wide soundstage.

 

[elnero]

Part of the reason the CD1700's don't get much respect around here is because they are a discontinued product so there aren't many people that have them. I'm one of the few that are lucky to own a pair.

I use them at work where I find they do a great job. Forgiving enough to make listening to some suspect mp3's bearable and good enough to make my CD's sound great. Overall they're a pretty decent phone that's known for it's midrange but it's bass is decent and the highs are smooth and never fatiguing.

I believe Ask Electronics in the UK still has some new pairs if your up for importing a new pair.

 

[Tyson]

I have a pair and I'm considering selling them in order to help fund an Ultimate Ears UE-5c purchase. Drop me a line, I'll let them go (relatively) cheap.

 

[nanahachi]

I used them as my headphones at work, and probably will start using them again for the same purpose this summer. [I haven't been in a work setting for a while]

I found that the 1700s did wonderfully with rock, especially guitars. I found them very easy to listen to for hours and hours, especially due to their nice soft velour pads.

I wrote up my impressions of the 1700s in a thread that is long buried, and hard to find without the search function.

I'd recommened them, but indeed they are hard to find.

 

[bangraman]

I liked them when I had them. I thought they were ideal phones for a 'prize' since they were discontinued (but I could get hold of NIB) so that's what I bought to gave away last year on Head-Fi.


They have sweet but not overemphasised highs, mellow (but not undefined) mids and fairly powerful lows. Not a huge soundstage, but effective. Not quite a baby MDR-CD3000 since they do differ quite a lot in personality, but very nice phones all the same. Very comfy if your skin doesn't mind velour.

 

[KR...]

I used to own these, you can find my review in the review section.

I'll just quote myself :

Quote:

The Sony's redefine the term comfy, they are super comfy! They felt like two fluffy pillows on your ears. The headphone headband gives you a very secure fit, they can get a bit warm, however.

Quote:

Sony MDR-CD1700 had the 3rd widest soundstage, it shock me too, but it was wider than the 600's, but not as much as the HP-2's.

Quote:

The Sony MDR-CD1700 have a way too lush mid-range to be taken as clean sounding headphones, that lush mid-range and comfort level also just so happens to be their best points!

You can read the whole thing here :

http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3400

 

[purk]

Hi,

I think the Sony is a very good cans. They don't get enough respect here, and I easily think their performance is on par with the A900. I really enjoy its grain-fee midrange, and smooth high. Thier soundstage is also very good. With proper amplification, the bass is very respectable. You will need a good source and amp in order to gets the optimum performance.

Purk

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Okay, I'll be the first to say something bad about them.

I used to own the CD1700s too, but to my ears they were okay at best. I agree with everyone here that they are very smooth sounding, non-offensive phones. They also have a nice, groovy tonal character which makes them, nice, well, nice groovilzers. But to my ears the CD1700s were absolutely horrible when it came to providing detail, were very noticably rolled off in the highs, had mediocre bass extension, had an overly dense sound (ie lacking transparency) and couldn't present the timbre of most instruments worth a darn (didn't sound anything like reality). That said, I did like the CD1700s for a while, and kept them for about a month but eventually I realized that my D66s Eggos could do everything that the CD1700s do well, only better, and they didn't have as many flaws (excepting bass prescence). So I ended up keeping the Eggos and shipping off the CD1700s. I think you'd be better off with a D66, CD780 or A900--all of these are superior to the CD1700, IMO.

Sorry to be so harsh. Like I said, I can see what others like about these phones but I just didn't care for their sound. Oh, and yes, my set of CD1700 did have the Redshifter foam removal mod performed on them as well--this helps to make them a little more detailed sounding and less stuffy. But even after the mod these phones just had too many flaws to my ears.

 

[pbirkett]

^^^^ Can you say foam mod....

To my ears, foam modded CD1700's were every bit baby CD3000's, IMHO, offering about 90% of the performance. Personally, I thought they were very good.

 

[KR...]

My review was done before the foam mod, after that it was detail city

 

[redshifter]

i'll second what purk said: a good amp and source are required for the cd1700. with the wrong combo the cd1700 can sound congested, with far too much sound thown at you at once. i usually limit my cd1700 sessions to dvd-a, jazz, solo, and dvd movies (which the cd1700 is awesome for!).

 

[pbirkett]

I have heard the CD1700 sound VERY poor indeed (I'm talking the equivalent to $20 headphones) out of equipment that didnt really suit it, but out of the right system, they were capable of throwing out some nice tunes.

 

[evil-zen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pbirkett ^^^^ Can you say foam mod.... To my ears, foam modded CD1700's were every bit baby CD3000's, IMHO, offering about 90% of the performance. Personally, I thought they were very good.

I had the cd1700s for quite sometime. They are very different sounding tonally compared to the cd3000s which I tried on many occasions. The only similar traits were the soundstage and imaging.

 

[Patrickhat2001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by evil-zen I had the cd1700s for quite sometime. They are very different sounding tonally compared to the cd3000s which I tried on many occasions. The only similar traits were the soundstage and imaging.

I totally agree with evil-zen here, too. I owned both of these phones at the same time and to my ears the CD1700 and CD3000 shared few similarities. The jist of the comparision was that the CD3000 absolutely killed the CD1700 when it came to detail, high/low-end extension, transparency and besides that the had entirely different tonal characters--the CD1700 was warm (rolled of highs) whereas the CD3000 was somewhat bright. And like I said many times before the D66 actually sounded more similar to the CD3000 than the CD1700 did (excepting size of the soundstage, of course). And, I'm going from memory right now but my current CD780s sound much more like I remember the CD3000 sounding than the 1700s ever did. IMO they are the real "baby CD3000s" (and their more comfortable than the 1700s, too boot--mmmm, pillowy softness).

It's funny that I'm hearing things differently than most of you others, but I'm just telling it like I heard it. Perhaps the CD1700 really is two-faced.

Oh, and Paul, like I said above my 1700 did have the foam removal mod performed on it.

Also, for an interesting tidbit the CD3000s also have the same foam in front of the drivers as the CD1700s do (check Doobaloo's CD3K disection thread) but no one every suggests removing the foam from the CD3000s....