Not all new things are better. A new 911 might be faster than the older model, but the newer ones have electric steering and have a longer wheelbase. Die hard 911 drivers prefer the old hydraulic steering and feel of the shorter wheelbase. And more of them are being sold with a double clutch transmission and some people just like driving with a stick even if it's slower. Just because something new is technically better on paper doesn't always mean that it's better to the person. Just like how some people prefer tube amps. Some things just have more "soul" and some prefer it over the newest and greatest.
Me too product or not. Sony needs to cater to the general public on a limited budget. That's bread and butter. You can forget about the existence of Just Ears or Z1Rs, if they aren't making enough money.
They are not a boutique outfit. They are a corporation with many mouths to feed.
From an product excellence point of view, yeah sure but how many can they sell to recoup the investment cost.
It's good they are following the trend, sprinkled with some Sony'ness in them. And I hope they are successful with the low and mid tiers, so that they are more inclined to invest in their personal audio division.
The do, they have headphones in the low and mid section of the market, if you are expecting headphones like the Z1R or just ears, it's not possible, you get what you pay for.
Me too product or not. Sony needs to cater to the general public on a limited budget. That's bread and butter. You can forget about the existence of Just Ears or Z1Rs, if they aren't making enough money.
They are not a boutique outfit. They are a corporation with many mouths to feed.
From an product excellence point of view, yeah sure but how many can they sell to recoup the investment cost.
It's good they are following the trend, sprinkled with some Sony'ness in them. And I hope they are successful with the low and mid tiers, so that they are more inclined to invest in their personal audio division.
The whole reason Just ear started or why the Signature Series was created was because Sony is finally letting their engineers do things without having to worry about maximising profit or things like selling massive quantities to chase for market share to make a big profit, and as Jude has said in his recent long CanJam preview video Sony's audio department is currently operating more like a boutique store with very adventerous but highly unique products within a giant multi-international, hundred thousand strong company. That's the nice thing about Sony right now after their internal restructuring (blame Sir Howard Stringer which brought Sony down into the mass market consumer sector in competing for low end market share) - the higher ups are actually now letting their engineers show their passion and leave their fingerprints on their products, rather than making tickbox me-too products, which were tying the engineers' hands. That is why previous generation products like the XBA BA series were so massively disappointing and failed to follow up on the EX series, they were "me too" products when dynamic driver headphones were seen as being outdated and everyone was in on the "more BA driver = better sound" phase and Sony forced its engineers to quickly make them, and it turned out as a diseaster for them because not only did they not make money they also lost their reputation, so doing the whole me-too thing actually hurted them deeply because they read the market wrong and responed in the wrong way.
As I said before the M7 and M9 are by no means bad products, and it shows that after years of making me-too BA headphones they've finally cracked it and has caught up to the market, they'll also probably sell lots of them as well, but those two products are just Sony covering the bases and showing the cooperate side in how a big company throwing enough effort time and money into it eventually succeed, but they aren't the real passion products, and that makes them fairly boring. And in the niche audiophile world, it's the passion products which wins you more reputation and followers, not more me-too products. The IER-Z1R is going to be that passion product for their universal-fit IEM product, and I think it's also going to be more polarising compared to the M7 and M9, but daring to challenge will be how they can progress and lead, rather than follow and make me-too products. And it's when they dare to be different which results in successful products (ie Just ear and WM1Z).
The do, they have headphones in the low and mid section of the market, if you are expecting headphones like the Z1R or just ears, it's not possible, you get what you pay for.
I for one am very happy the direction sony has made regarding hi res audio and equipment. Seems like they are on a great path and I will definitely be checking out these new iem..
The Sony IEMs are the only things that interest me now, apart from the Spiral Ear SE6, which I hope to get in a few weeks.
I am tired of amateur DIY brands charging 2000$ for half baked products with glaring defects, and that will get an upgrade with "breakthrough proprietary tech" within 6 months. Half of these don't even sound good, or have decent fit.
So I focus, on a much more sparse basis, on reliable brands such as Sony.
since chifi is picking up from now on i will buy those for the fun of it, as now chifi vs DIY audiophile self called companies that charge tons and tons of money became not worth it compared to chifi
To be honest no iem made by any of the self claimed audiophile companies here is worth more than 500 usd max. Once in one of threads I read it takes that DIY company 2 weeks to make that universal iem, which made me laugh
now like you I will stick to big gun companies like sony, and I am really interested in z1r
This was my first CanJam and I enjoyed it immensely. When I lived in Asia, it was easy to try new IEMs and headphones with so many hifi shops around, but now that I am in the US that has proven to be quite difficult, so I knew I was not gonna miss this.
My biases lie more to getting me into the music than extreme fidelity, though ironically a great deal of fidelity is a prerequisite to getting me into the music. The point is, I will forego extreme detail and technality if something can provide me with great coherency and timbre.
This is the best thing I have ever put in my ears. Wow and Wow! It's hard not to talk about this product without overhyping or using expletives. Actually it's impossible for me. This was by far the standout product at the show for me. I was just minding my business when I went past the Sony booth on the last day (Sunday) and thought ok let me check out their weight lifting dumbbell players, but then my eyes caught sight of the new IEMs and I went straight for the top. This Sony IEM gave me an experience that is indelibly written in my mind. 3 dimensionality in spades. Details like crazy without over boosted treble. Actual blackness and air around instruments. This certainly was unlike any IEM or headphone for that matter that I have ever heard, and to boot an inimitable coherency to the sound that makes your music come so alive! I know these are hackneyed statements in these circles, but it was true for me today in that it was like listening to my music for the first time all over again. Though cognizant of time limits to be considerate, I couldn't skip a track. I was enchanted and kept skinning my 44s. There was some serious voodoo going on in those drivers. I don't know how they did it, but I tried to go back and listen to almost everything I had listened to and couldn't stop thinking about these. I predict that this will be a product they try to out do, but will take a while to, if ever. Now for the hypocritical part, I have to get these $2400 IEMs What!
Yep, I know it appears like am over hyping these, but I wound unabashedly hold that mantle especially in comparison to the actual over hyped stuff I heard at RMAF. To be clear just because I heard these for 35 minutes at a show doesn't make me an expert in audio assessment. The usual caveats of subjectivity cannot go ignored. Before listening to the IER-Z1R I would never consider buying a headphone beyond 500 dollars. I visited this site more often back in the day when you could count the flagship universal IEMs with the fingers on one hand. The Westone W3, Sennheiser IE8, Shure SE 535, and UE Triple-fi 10. After a while I noticed the prices of IEMS skyrocketing. It became a war of driver proliferation and extortionate prices that have not relented since. I hated it, and stopped posting as much. I lurked around perhaps to pick up low priced, but valuable IEMS like the Carbo Tenore. Recently got the IMR Acoustics R1, and would not have bought them at full price. Got them B-Stock for less than $300 and view them as excellent in value. These Sony IEMs are insane. They will teach your other headphones a lesson. They are expensive, but it'd be remiss of me if I didn't urge anyone spending that kind of money to consider them. For my tastes they are the most enjoyable audio product I've heard.
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