The Z1R is much bassier than the EX1000, but I do like it a lot, enough that it’s shaped my preferences towards something that apparently doesn’t exist in headphones. It’s “V-shaped” in a way that recesses lower mids so that the bass and upper mids are a bit more apparent, but the bass on it is absolutely addicting in how subbassy it is and how it slams, and the way the upper mids is tuned lends it an incredibly amount of technicality. And the treble has this subtle mid treble recession so that the lower treble and upper treble stick out slightly more, which gives it this really nice stick impact and decay with cymbals. Definitely worth trying if you’re looking for a TOTL IEM, though I know Sony can be a real pain to demo outside of Asia.I think that’s fair; I really, really want to hear the IER-Z1R because I’ve heard so many good things about it and I’d take the EX1000 over the limited >$1000 IEMs I’ve heard. But as far as over ear headphones go, it’s so disappointing to hear systems cost more than a new car still sound so awful to me. I’ve turned to speakers because the annoyances are less obvious and I’m lucky enough to be able to use them and I’m exponentially happier with my incredibly average sounding speakers than my old multi-thousand dollar SR-007 system.
I would consider speakers if it wasn’t for the fact that my audio room is messy enough as-is and that I’m going to college next year. Speakers would obviously give me a way better experience than headphones but the headphone market does exist for a reason I suppose.
Curious you mentioned the 007, since for a time it was something that I liked enough to almost buy. However something about a headphone requiring an amp that costs between 2-3x of its price to have any sort of optimal performance seems a bit rough. And of course now my preferences have drifted too far away from that.