[Sophonax]

The King is Dead...Long Live the King?
 
I'm sure this may have been attempted before, but I thought I would take a shot at trying to prod Sony into bringing back the venerable MDR-R10. I owned a pair several years ago, but unfortunately I was just a poor college student at the time and had to sell them to help pay for school. I was immediately captivated by that legendary, magical midrange, and since that time I've been searching (in vain apparently) for any current production headphone that can offer a similar listening experience.  If I could buy a brand new R10 today, I would not hesitate!
 

 
 
Over the past decade, I've watched flagship headphone designs become more and more expensive, to the point where $1000 is pretty ordinary these days and even $4000 or $5000 is not out of the question.  And yet, the market is supporting these prices!  In aggregate, tens of thousands (maybe even a hundred thousand, who knows?) of flagship headphones in this price range have been sold, such as the Beyerdynamic T1, Sennheiser HD800 / 800S, Audeze LCD-3 and 4, Hifiman Edition X and HE-1000, Abyss AB-1266, and Stax SR-009.  It seems that now more than ever, the market could support a reintroduction of the R10, and these outstanding headphones could become more successful than ever.
 
Are there any Head-Fi members out there who would also like to see the Sony MDR-R10 resurrected?  If so, below is a link to my idea submission on Sony's Join the Inspiration forum:
 
http://community.sony.com/sony/board/message?board.id=ideas&message.id=1477#M1477
 
If you could register and post a reply, or click the "Me Too" button to help the proposal gain attention, your support would be very much appreciated!  Who knows, if enough of us push for this, maybe we can help bring this one-of-a-kind King of Dynamic Headphones back to life!
 
Thank you very much for your consideration!

 

[fhuang]

interesting, nobody cares..
 
 
i wanted to register but for time zone, sony has china only for gmt+8,  instead hong kong.  they have other countries for gmt+8. 
 
i want r10 to come back but i want even more they respect the market and the people of hong kong.
 
 
p.s.:  they do have a website of www.sony.com.hk 

 

[HoloSpice]

Still waiting.......

 

[listen4joy]

sony should bring these bad boys back to the game! their new Z1R is not in the same leauge as R10 (from what purk said). instead on invest on R&D on their new flagship they should improve or release back the R10.  anyway i am highly doubt they will release them again unless the demand will be super high.

 

[HoloSpice]

Who's responsible behind the R10 development?

 

[Naim.F.C]

  sony should bring these bad boys back to the game! their new Z1R is not in the same leauge as R10 (from what purk said). instead on invest on R&D on their new flagship they should improve or release back the R10.  anyway i am highly doubt they will release them again unless the demand will be super high.

 
As far as I can tell, he never said they were in a different league, just that they have a different type of tuning. His preference is the R10, but he still enjoys the Z1R.

The R10 is more technical, airy, faster etc, the Z1R is lusher, warmer and more weighty. Essentially the Z1R is going for a slightly more emotive and musical sort of signature.  This was always the intention too, and if you listen to the lead designer talk about the product, he makes this clear. He's not trying to replicate the precision and clinical nature of many other reference cans, but instead replicate the raw emotion and musicality of listening to music. Eg the sort of feeling you get in an atmospheric venue or club, listening to a live performance, as oppose to a studio recording. Ultimately they just have different ideals and goals, and both succeed in their own ways.

 

[ToroFiestaSol]

This is a nice try, but they'll never do that.
 
Sony has all the resources available to make a headphone 3 times better than MDR-R10 and sell it under 2000usd, but that will never happen.
 
They're a huge company but focused on TV, projectors, bluetooth speakers...you get the point, mainstream stuff, to the masses, large amounts of money due to massive sells in short periods of time, planned obsolescence, etc.
 
Also, the best Sony engineers, who made all the class leading high fidelity products went to Samsung before 1999.
 
They're not the same company.
 
27 years later, they only could make a headphone at the same level but with different tuning (that's what all reports say) to the MDR-R10...Sony died years ago, don't waste your time with them.