Es-r10 vs Sony Z1r
Ok so the time has come to compare the es-r10 replica to Sony's current flagship. While I wanted to do a 4 way shootout, I changed my mind as I thought I could better formulate my thoughts comparing each one individually to the es-r10. What took so long was putting 200 hours on everything.
To start I'll begin with the Z1R. Though my journey as an audiophile has been short (so since 2018) when I came across sites like head fi I began to become aware of headphones that cost way more than I would've ever imagined thanks to threads like David Mahler's battle of the flagships and had really no idea Sony made expensive headphones. Me and my relatives have enjoyed Sony products over the years but for some reason Sony headphones were never on my mind till I discovered head fi. I mainly used the battle of the flagship thread to decide what headphones to start collecting, but the Sony r10 and qualia 010 on the second hand market were way too expensive. I thought I could make do with the Z1R, but after seeing review videos and reading threads which were quite heated and polarized I decided that I could not make up my mind about it and decided to pass on buying it.
I came across so many comments saying the z1r is a let down and that it is not a true successor to the r10 and since I finally bought one after being so impressed by the es-r10, I gotta say that I completely disagree with almost everything I have read about this headphone.
In fact I would say the z1r is a true spiritual successor to the r10, because it follows the design philosophy of previous Sony flagships. From what I've read about headphones like the r10, qualia 010, and the z1r, each one is made up of very creative innovations and carefully picked components to reach the goal of its engineer's intentions. Sony released each of these headphones as kind of a statement piece and at times reflecting changes and innovations in the headphone and music industries. What makes the z1r different for me is that I think this was Sony's way of trying to release a headphone that would not have its production output be held back by the difficulty of obtaining rare materials like 200 year old zelkova wood. To make something that could be released without a quantity limit at an affordable price (relative to the fact that there was and still are a growing number of flagship headphones costing way more than the z1r). Sure I could go into a list of all the creative stuff that went into the z1r but if you want to read about it you can check out this interview from a website called e-earphone. It goes into what I believe all the innovations and decisions that went into this headphone (use a translator as it is in japanese).
https://e-earphone.blog/?p=1250715
To keep things simple the manual states the following for the goals of the z1r:
Providing atmospheric musical nuances- Atmospheric musical nuances are the three-dimensional experience in the space where music is playing.
Pursuing excellent wearability- Providing comfortable and stable wearability to enjoy high quality sound for long hours of listening.
To summarize, I think this headphone is essentially a studio monitor that has been repurposed for casual listening pleasure for the consumer. That by trying to create a sound that typically is aiming to be flat and realistic (looking for information to aid a recording engineer), to instead be changed into a realistic sound with plenty of additional bass that is easy to listen to (more about enjoyment). This leads me to what I think is a headphone trying to be a closed back all rounder. Like taking a workhorse headphone and making it a funhorse (if I can even say it like that).
To expand on my perception of its presentation, if the es-r10 is like a floor-standing speaker with the drivers that would produce the highs, mids, and bass all built into this imaginary loudspeaker placed within a pretty large room, then the z1r consists of 2 studio monitors (with only drivers for the mids and highs) placed closer to each other in a somewhat smaller room but with the assistance of a separate subwoofer.
The es-r10 room would have more air, have a more forward sound to it with a more present mid and highs section. Sounds resonate naturally and are realistic, creating the feeling that the room is big.
The z1r room sounds like all the air has been sucked out creating a feeling of pressure on my ears (so a pressurized room with a pretty black background) with the bass being the most forward and present, and the mids and highs actually sounding pretty even but much less forward than the es-r10. So the z1r sound kind of does a tightrope walk for me of sometimes coming off as dark but a lot of the time as a laid back neutral.
I've come across comments that the z1r is a dark headphone and that is pretty tricky for me to describe because after listening to the z1r-for majority of tracks-I can hear plenty of treble, but due to this aiming for flat type of sound Sony describes in interviews, its like if what could be interpreted as flat and somewhat boring is actually engaging and somewhat easy to listen to.
To make things more interesting despite the large bass presence of the z1r, when I checked the z1r threads, it turns out a lot music other users were playing-of all things-classical music. I mean with this much bass you would think this would he a basshead type of headphone, and while it is very enjoyable for edm music, this headphone was actually very impressive to listen to with classical and live music.
From my time with the z1r, to me there is a catch about this sound. When I played the z1r from my Klipsch heritage amp, the bass was overpowering the mids and a bit of the highs almost creating a v-shape sound. Imaging was also pretty muddy. The es-r10 on the same amp/dac was on the other hand very good, being punchy, lively and the presentation had better clarity. Now when I got the z1r I also bought the kimber axios copper cable which is a more expensive cable upgrade than the sony branded kimber cable. With the stock cable and before burn, the sound at times had a grating effect and while it wasn't bad exactly, the copper cable upgrade adds a much needed refinement. However, that alone does not make this headphone impressive yet. I also bought sony's amp/dac that was made for this headphone the ta-zh1es. I decided to burn in for 200 hours the z1r using the kimber cable on the taz system together and when it was all done it sparked something in my mind. This amp was the beginning of realizing the z1r is actually an impressive sounding headphone. The ta-zh1es system adds warmth and so it tries to cancel out the grating effect that the stock cable brought, and with all its features on added some sort of dsp correction that cleaned up the sound for the better. Instruments could be better understood in their separation and soundstage and depth also improved.
So what does this all mean when listening to music with the es-r10? Well after burn in I finally started doing AB sessions with the es-r10 and what surprised me was that on the ta-zh1es system, both headphones benefited from these features. If you felt the es-r10 was a bit congested (which becomes less of an issue after you burn it in), then the taz adds better distinction between instruments just like it did on the z1r. In-fact they kind of sounded evenly matched on a lot of tracks involving classical music. The taz system was very addicting to listen to music with, so much so that I even looked into and almost bought the Sony daps to see what other flavors they would bring to the z1r and es-r10 (maybe at some point in the future I will go ahead and buy one). In other words I was a having a fun time with this set up. The added warmth of the ta-zh1es also improved the bass on the es-r10, adding a bit more weight to the notes but was not overly done.
On classical tracks like "Rigoletto, air and quartet from act III" by Verdi, "Spring, from the four seasons, first movement" by Vivaldi, and "Don Giovanni, Act 1, scene 2, Nos 3-5" by Mozart the z1r essentially matched the es-r10 and was more an apples to oranges comparison. That is they both have a different take on sound. For string instruments the es-r10 conveyed more air and resonance to strings that is a serene and exciting experience, but the z1r brought almost similar levels of treble presence without resonance and brought an added amount of weight to the notes and bass presence that makes the presentation very moving and correct sounding in its own right. For rigolleto and Don Giovanni vocals on the es-r10 have a bit more of a romantic closeness to the vocalists that makes it sound very lifelike, but with that said the z1r is very close in sounding lifelike but is a bit more distant than the es-r10. In a way, the es-r10 captures a more beautified sound vs the z1r which sounds like a realistic attempt at how the recording might of been intended to sound without any additional coloration's.
When it came to live recordings like "Mediterranean sundance/Rio Ancho: from the album Friday night in San Francisco the es-r10 has a more detail forward sound and a brighter signature that led to me thinking that I'm at a live venue performance as a spectator. The z1r on the same track sounded realistic and exciting, but was more like I was part of the team trying to record this music instead. The es-r10 has a bit more width to the sound but depth is about the same on both headphones.
For jazz pieces like "Cachaca" and "Foxtrot" by Spyro Gyra, both headphones again were pretty much evenly matched and both are very engaging and exciting for different reasons. Bass was impactful on both of them containing a wonderful amount of density with the z1r having a bigger thumping bass and the es-r10 rendering the same drums as super punchy and tighter/focused.
So after playing both of them on the ta-zh1es system I decided to replay the tracks listed above and add a few more tracks I did not list on my burson 3xp amp with my berkely alpha dac and a few things happened that changed things up significantly. First off the burson is more neutral, raw, and a slightly faster amp than the amp section alone on the ta-zh1es, but with the berkley dac that's when I realized the z1r is capable of scaling with higher end setups. On this more reference sounding setup the z1r has transformed into less of a funhorse and it realized its potential as a workhorse (it became a high end studio monitor). This reminded me of a Steven Gutenberg review of the Luxman 750u where he said on that amp for the z1r compared to other headphones he used "Its sound was the most neutral -- it's the best monitor headphone of the bunch."
Both headphones did begin to show a bit of difference that I did not realize with the ta-zh1es in isolation. For one thing the notes for both headphones have more weight, are more punchy and the soundstage was more 3d like. On the ta-zh1es system while both headphones imaged very well, had good width, and with the features on, it resulted in a more left right experience vs the burson/berkley combo that did no such dsp corrections but allowed a better stage-connecting the left center right images that improved how sounds can seemlessly travel from left to right without any hiccups. The setup while impressive did show that while the z1r scales well with it, the es-r10 on this setup had scaled a bit higher pulling at the very least a touch more texture on some micro details despite the z1r having a cleaner better separated image partly due to its control of resonances. Over using this system I began to miss the warmth of the ta-zh1es system and decided to try one more thing.
I hooked up the berkely dac and used the single ended line in on the ta-zh1es. By combining the warm sony amp flavor to the berkley references technical advantages resulted in a best of both worlds experience. The note weight improved even further and the es-r10's bass was actually respectably great with edm, but still not necessarily ideal. The z1r still had the scalling benefits from the berkley dac and kept the musical warmth from the ta-zh1es to give it an even more fuller sound without losing out on any significant amounts of detail (some tiny micro details were smootherd over just a smidge). On tracks like "fashion monster" by kyary pamyu pamyu the z1r still presented bass with a better representation of these fast somewhat wobbly like bass effects. While the es-r10 no longer sounded too weak in the subass, it was still less than ideal for me.
In the end the es-r10 being brighter/detail forward can lead to an impression that it is a more capable headphone and when played with more budget friendly amp/dacs like my Klipsch heritage amp, the es-r10 sounded superior to the z1r because it maintains its composure better. However, since the z1r is a studio monitor, it is more system dependent than the es-r10 and unless you're using a Sony branded amp or some kind of higher end setup in general you might not realize that the z1r has the potential to be a lot closer to the es-r10 and at times match it in general capabilites while also being able to bring the kind of bass that I would ultimately prefer over the es-r10.
So what have I learned from all this?
Well for started the z1r is no where near as bad as I believed it to be and that the attacks on this headphone were IMHO a bit misleading. However, when using a less than optimized setup, while I can understand where some of these critics are coming from, when I made decisions to use the z1r as sony advertised or connected the z1r to higher end system, the z1r can in its own way match up brilliantly with the es-r10 while bringing a very different perspective to the sound. Another thing I remember from a lot of comments about the z1r was that this headphone is evidence of sony falling from some sort of Olympus level of respect in the audio community. To this I would argue that for as impressed as I am with the es-r10, what I think amplified its importance and reputation back then was not just its unique presentation, but also the fact that I can't really think of any headphones that could compete against this headphone in detail except maybe stax. I also can't think of any closed backs that could remotely come close to the capabilities of the es-r10 as far headphones released back then are concerned. In other words not having anything at its original time of release to really compete with only amplified how much people where impressed by it and if you have read through my comparisons between the es-r10 and the verite closed and stellia, the competition has become much more fierce as opposed to back then in the 80s and 90s. While the es-r10 holds it own very well in its current price it was never meant to topple summit fi headphones like my stax 009S.
Sony's efforts to release a flagship like the z1r at a pretty affordable price is-to me-much appreciated, albeit one should take more careful consideration about choices in system matching that would result in a respectable sound, while also being priced in a way that has gone down over time. Sony did a good job keeping this headphones price within reach of its customers as opposed to some other more expensive summit fi headphones. There are some flasgships that have been around for quite a few years now and have for whatever reason gone up in price. In some cases by a couple hundred to a whole thousand extra dollars. I think from the perspective of someone who was not a sony fanboy but over this experience is becoming more and more like one, I think its nice and convenient to know that if I want the best of what sony has to currently offer and if I was someone who always bought sony headphones, would be pretty happy knowing that as far as prices are concerned the sony z1r and es labs es-r10 are in a far more affordable price range than where sony could've been had they designed a headphone for a customer with much deeper pockets.
Is it really worth it for sony to release a more expensive headphone with higher technical capabilities, resulting in less people being able to buy and enjoy it; as opposed to its current price and know that with sonys own ecosystem of audio gear, you can find yourself content, satisfied, and pretty complete with it. I think if we lived in a world where sony could afford and be able to produce r10's in an unlimited capacity like the z1r and they were to have both headphones in a store, both hooked up to their ta-zh1es system that customers would not only be having a pretty good time, but also wondering if they could get a dealer discount and take the r10, z1r, and ta-zh1es amp/dac all home together to bring the listener a straight forward 2 headphone-1 amp/dac setup for a pretty complete experience. Both headphones together would generally cover all genres. I'm not saying other users here should rush out and replicate what I've done, but I am saying the z1r is more capable than what I had previously thought it to be and any advantage in detail, resolution, and stage the es-r10 has on an optimized setup is very small. By splitting hairs and doing many mental gymnastics the es-r10 is slightly better than the z1r in a very few areas, but the z1r is quite the opposite of a disappointment.
