[jatinder]

Hi all,

Apparently, Audio Advancements have stated that the Sony MDR-R10 has been discontinued by Sony. (AA are also offering a 10% discount on their remaining stock!)

The best dynamic headphones ever made - get one while you can!

--Jatinder

 

[Keiso]

Discontinued!? I don't know about that....

It is still alive and well in Japan. Nothing about discontinuing there, although I think it's not common to find it on the streets. Need to special order it, I think.

At least Ishimaru, Laox and gang don't have them (they got Omega II in bundles, but not R-10.... I guess the Sony purposely made the R-10 much more exclusive)

 

[markl]

Wow. We should all shed a tear.

You may all be crying when you hear what jatinder has to say about R10 vs. Orpheus!

markl

 

[KShaft]

hey Jatinder

are you the guy that Hart was talking about when he said (to me) someone in England wants to order a pair from him, or maybe your friend(if you decided not to sell your phones)?

just curious...

k.s.

 

[jatinder]

Hi KShaft,

When did Hart say that?

A friend of mine offered me a huge sum for my R10s - so I suggested that he contact AA and see what they thought of them and the prices. This was yesterday (21/03/2002).

He later phoned me to say that Hart said the R10 was discontinued.

So, it wasn't me that Hart was talking about -- but probably was my friend.

--Jatinder

 

[jatinder]

I confirmed with my friend -- Sony have discontinued the R10.

Obviously, there will probably be some stock left in Japan - but as far as I know, the R10 was hand-made to special order.

So, I wouldn't expect there to be many left on shelves gathering "dust" so to speak.

--Jatinder

 

[Keiso]

I know there are definitely stock left in Japan, and the price is still high.

Too bad if Sony choosed to discontinue it.... well, maybe they are working on something else equally bad-@ss!!

 

[KShaft]

I talked to him on monday i believe. Cant remember exactly.

The R-10 has always been something to shoot for. The pinnacle of headphone(dynamic) performance. without it, we are more or less swimming in a pool of phones that are more different than "better" or "worse".

Hopefully they will replace it with something very similar, but cheaper. Seeing how the high end headphone business has really opened up, i dont see why they wouldnt. This web site and all the products that have sprung up recently(relating to headphones...) is proof of that.

Well the Big O was "discontinued" as Jatindeer said, yet they made some more just recently.

Hopefully the R10s are in a similar situation. Hell they are made to order anyway.

k.s

 

[acidtripwow]

I want one, but only if I could find it for a lot less than 4k. Maybe someone can bring one to the next Chicago meet.

 

[r3cc0s]

i personally think
that even though the r10's are perhaps the best dynamic cans

i'd be much more content buy some setup like kwkarth's 1000's w/ subwoofer

 

[Nick Dangerous]

Ditto that. 4K for a pair of headphones is too much. I don't care how good they sound. They will never be equivalent to a speaker setup anyway... even a fairly modest one.

I was VERY impressed with the AKG-K1000 and would purchase a pair TODAY (with suitable amp and sub of course) if I wasn't working on the Oris 200!

 

[markl]

So you'd buy a $1000 subwoofer to complement your bass-deficient K1000 to avoid paying for the superior all-in-one headphone? That makes no sense to me at all. Supplementing headphones with outside sub can't possibly equal the integrity and fidelity of the R10. (And no, I haven't heard the K1000 let alone one with a sub.)

Not to mention the fact that the K1000 is going to severely limit the number and quality of amps you can combine it with.

Nothing personal against the K1000 folks here who use a sub, but that seems so odd to me. Isn't the point of headphone listening supposed to be that it's a discreet activity? Why not just listen to a good pair of regular speakers? It's the low end information that upsets the neighbors anyway.

In the end, it's the K1000 that seems impractical to me. So neener neener.

markl

 

[Vertigo-1]

I agree with markl. If you consider the price of very good AKG K1000 amps, and not just the one that's made for it, combined with the price of the K1000s combined with a $1000 sub, you're WAY over the price of an R10, which is apparently not $4k now, but $2300 retail, straight from Sony Japan's website. And like markl, using a sub with a headphone is, IMO, ridiculous. Having to pair up an external speaker with a headphone pratically violates the whole point of a headphone. If you enjoy it, more power to you, but I think most people would just look at you and go

 

[Nick Dangerous]

markl sez:
Quote:

So you'd buy a $1000 subwoofer to complement your bass-deficient K1000 to avoid paying for the superior all-in-one headphone? That makes no sense to me at all.

No. I'd buy an less expensive subwoofer. Kwkarth claims that with adequate amplification, there is no bass deficiency.

In my opinion, no pair of closed cans, no matter how stupendous, can overcome that headphoney closed-in feeling. The airy nature of the K1000 with it's wide open soundstage sounds very, very good and "out of the head". It makes Dolby Headphone and crossfeed schemes totally irrelevant. That's a first.

In Nick's Ideal Headphone World, "superior" headphones would address this issue.

Quote:

Supplementing headphones with outside sub can't possibly equal the integrity and fidelity of the R10.

Can't it? Filling the lower bass with omnidirectional octaves from a fast sub should handle the low frequencies adequately. As long as it doesn't exceed about 65Hz, there should be no problems assuming proper placement.

Or, as Kwkarth has claimed, simply get a proper amp and forget about it!

Try this on for size:

$550 - Pair of Bottlehead Paramour monoblock 2A3 amps
$525 - AKG K1000
$350 - PSB sub w/crossover (if necessary)

$1425. Headphones, monoblocks, tubes, and sub. Whee.

Upgrading to full parafeed iron and a pair of AVVT meshplate 2A3's would be $1000 more... putting it $100 above a single pair of the woody closed special Sonys.

$2300 - Sony R10
$1800 - Headroom Max (crossfeed) OR
$1000 - Tweaked Melos SHA-1 (no crossfeed)

$4100 (or $3300). Would it sound better? At that price, it should.

Regardless of the R10's quality, the crossfeed issue remains. This shackles it as perhaps "The Best Sounding Headphone That Still Sounds Like A Headphone".

 

[Flumpus]

Screw the max and melos, the R10s would probably benefit most from a Holmes Powell. Probably rival the Orpheus and Omega 2 with that setup...

Anyway, I think the K1000s are good, but a sub with headphones is still ridiculous to me, even if they need it. Point is they shouldn't need it. I guess you have to think of the k1000s as speakers, not headphones. The point of headphones is to provide a personal listening experience. The R10s provide that, and every review has claimed they are very natural sounding, and I tend to believe them. Maybe I'll never have the R10, maybe I will... not sure yet.

But anyway, I probably wouldn't consider the K1000s with a sub for one reason... the sub would be in my speaker system, and if I'm sitting there listening to K1000s, why not just listen to the speakers?

Oh, and they'd need a $1000+ amp to compete with the R10s I bet. All speculation of course, but I'm gonna act like I know what I'm talkin' about