BenKatz
100+ Head-Fier
Hello fellow head-fiers
So today I got very lucky. A local tech journalist, working for a tech TV show in the country I currently reside in - Romania - just sold me a brand new pair of MDR 1000x that she got for free from Sony at IFA. Why she would sell it instead of keeping them or at least review them for her publication, I dunno, but I bought them at a very bargain 340 Euros.
Anyway, first impressions are incredibly solid. I'm using them with my Xperia Z5 phone, so there's an LDAC (990kb/s tranfer rate) connection, which basically means that most of my music, which is 320kbs Google Play Music mp3s, is compression-free.
I only have my trusty old MDR 1A at hand for comparison, and that's great, considering they both share the same driver. But here's a breakdown of my first 10 hours of use:
Built quality is really really good. They feel much more solid than the 1As. The plastic is of a better quality, the aluminium band is very rugged, and the cups feel very premium with their faux leather texture. They are in no way as comfortable as the 1As due to smaller and more shallow earpads, but they seem comfortable enough, and didn't strain my big head after well over 2 hours of listening. The pressure on the ears is moderate and secure, making them feel much more stable on the head than the 1As.
As for sound, well, firstly I must say that the NC is pretty phenomenal. First thing I did was put them on my head, power them, pair them through NFC with my Z5, and initiated the NC optimization process by long-pressing the NC button. It takes about 10 seconds (a bunch of noises are played) and then you get a female voice prompt telling you the process is done. With them optimized, you can hardly hear anything. Everything in the lower half of the spectrum - low-end noises, humming, etc, are virtually (almost) completely gone, and the second half of the spectrum (voices and so on) are hardly noticable even with the volume at 10-25%. Curiosly, the most noticeable noise was me typing on my keyboard for some reason. They also feature an "Ambient Sound" NC mode, which is quite neat. Basically, turn it on, and you can hear all the voices around you quite clearly, even with the music turned all the way up, without any other types of sound coming through.
Through an LDAC bt connection with NC on, I can tell you that compared to the 1As (wired, connected to the same phone), they sound louder, livelier, the bass has more body, however the soundstage suffers quite a bit, I'd say it's 25% narrower than the 1As. That's not half bad, considering that the 1As have really good soundstage.
I spent a lot of time turning the NC on and off, and I was surprised I could barely tell the difference in sound quality, which is very noticeable at other rival headphones I've tried. Basically, the mids and highs seem to stay pretty much intact, however when the NC is on, the bass has a bit more body to it, and when it's off, the soundstage seems to be marginally improved. Listening to them in wired mode, but turned on, and connected to my Xperia Z5, the sound was similar to its wireless counterpart, but lost a bit in volume, probably due to the more powerful S-Master HX amp found in the headphones, compared to the one the Z5 has. Listening to them wired while turned off (passive) however was suprisingly similar to the 1As. They sound just as loud, but just a tad more veiled and with a slightly more narrow soundstage. And that is impressive, because I'd reckon you can safely use them with a dedicated amp/dac and have a hi fidelity experience, considering the 1As are a complete blast to listen to on a good amp/dac combo.
Ease of use is quite good as well. Besides the On/Off/Pairing, NC/NC Optimization and Ambient Sound, there are no physical buttons on the device. You control it through touch controls on the right cup. Swipe up/down for volume, left/right for track skipping, and double tap for either play/pausing or answering your phone. Which leads to call quality which is above satisfying, as the voices are more than clear enough, and people heard me just as good as if I were talking through my phone (they are HD Voice compatible). They also have this really neat feature, where if you put your palm on the right cup, the sound goes down to about 10%, and the external mics basically send you all the audio from outside your headphones, making it very easy to have a conversation with people around you.
All in all I'm extremely satisfied with these. I tried out the Sony MDR 100ABNs, QC 35s and the Sennheiser Momentum 2 Wireless about a month ago. As far as sound quality, from the aforementioned headphones, the Sennheiser seemed to have a slight edge over the Sony, with the Bose last. Unfortunately can't comment on the NC abilities, since I tested them in a High End audio store and it was quite quiet.
I'm planning on performing an A/B test for comparison the following week versus the 100ABNs, QC35, Senn Momentum 2 Wireless and whatever other wireless NC headphones I'll find at my local High End audio store, and I'll update you on the results. However, first impressions are really solid, and I wouldn't be surprised if these end up being one of, if not the best wireless NC headphones on the market right now.
So today I got very lucky. A local tech journalist, working for a tech TV show in the country I currently reside in - Romania - just sold me a brand new pair of MDR 1000x that she got for free from Sony at IFA. Why she would sell it instead of keeping them or at least review them for her publication, I dunno, but I bought them at a very bargain 340 Euros.
Anyway, first impressions are incredibly solid. I'm using them with my Xperia Z5 phone, so there's an LDAC (990kb/s tranfer rate) connection, which basically means that most of my music, which is 320kbs Google Play Music mp3s, is compression-free.
I only have my trusty old MDR 1A at hand for comparison, and that's great, considering they both share the same driver. But here's a breakdown of my first 10 hours of use:
Built quality is really really good. They feel much more solid than the 1As. The plastic is of a better quality, the aluminium band is very rugged, and the cups feel very premium with their faux leather texture. They are in no way as comfortable as the 1As due to smaller and more shallow earpads, but they seem comfortable enough, and didn't strain my big head after well over 2 hours of listening. The pressure on the ears is moderate and secure, making them feel much more stable on the head than the 1As.
As for sound, well, firstly I must say that the NC is pretty phenomenal. First thing I did was put them on my head, power them, pair them through NFC with my Z5, and initiated the NC optimization process by long-pressing the NC button. It takes about 10 seconds (a bunch of noises are played) and then you get a female voice prompt telling you the process is done. With them optimized, you can hardly hear anything. Everything in the lower half of the spectrum - low-end noises, humming, etc, are virtually (almost) completely gone, and the second half of the spectrum (voices and so on) are hardly noticable even with the volume at 10-25%. Curiosly, the most noticeable noise was me typing on my keyboard for some reason. They also feature an "Ambient Sound" NC mode, which is quite neat. Basically, turn it on, and you can hear all the voices around you quite clearly, even with the music turned all the way up, without any other types of sound coming through.
Through an LDAC bt connection with NC on, I can tell you that compared to the 1As (wired, connected to the same phone), they sound louder, livelier, the bass has more body, however the soundstage suffers quite a bit, I'd say it's 25% narrower than the 1As. That's not half bad, considering that the 1As have really good soundstage.
I spent a lot of time turning the NC on and off, and I was surprised I could barely tell the difference in sound quality, which is very noticeable at other rival headphones I've tried. Basically, the mids and highs seem to stay pretty much intact, however when the NC is on, the bass has a bit more body to it, and when it's off, the soundstage seems to be marginally improved. Listening to them in wired mode, but turned on, and connected to my Xperia Z5, the sound was similar to its wireless counterpart, but lost a bit in volume, probably due to the more powerful S-Master HX amp found in the headphones, compared to the one the Z5 has. Listening to them wired while turned off (passive) however was suprisingly similar to the 1As. They sound just as loud, but just a tad more veiled and with a slightly more narrow soundstage. And that is impressive, because I'd reckon you can safely use them with a dedicated amp/dac and have a hi fidelity experience, considering the 1As are a complete blast to listen to on a good amp/dac combo.
Ease of use is quite good as well. Besides the On/Off/Pairing, NC/NC Optimization and Ambient Sound, there are no physical buttons on the device. You control it through touch controls on the right cup. Swipe up/down for volume, left/right for track skipping, and double tap for either play/pausing or answering your phone. Which leads to call quality which is above satisfying, as the voices are more than clear enough, and people heard me just as good as if I were talking through my phone (they are HD Voice compatible). They also have this really neat feature, where if you put your palm on the right cup, the sound goes down to about 10%, and the external mics basically send you all the audio from outside your headphones, making it very easy to have a conversation with people around you.
All in all I'm extremely satisfied with these. I tried out the Sony MDR 100ABNs, QC 35s and the Sennheiser Momentum 2 Wireless about a month ago. As far as sound quality, from the aforementioned headphones, the Sennheiser seemed to have a slight edge over the Sony, with the Bose last. Unfortunately can't comment on the NC abilities, since I tested them in a High End audio store and it was quite quiet.
I'm planning on performing an A/B test for comparison the following week versus the 100ABNs, QC35, Senn Momentum 2 Wireless and whatever other wireless NC headphones I'll find at my local High End audio store, and I'll update you on the results. However, first impressions are really solid, and I wouldn't be surprised if these end up being one of, if not the best wireless NC headphones on the market right now.