[Badd99]

Anyone who worked on the R10's at Sony is probably long gone leaving me thinking they will never (for sometime) make a good pair of headphones of that caliber. 

 

[nikongod]

Although this thread has drifted to a "lets remake the R10" lovefest I'l agree with everyone else: The R10 pee on the LCD2. Not that the LCD2 are bad, the R10 are just better. Throwing sound out of the head is a nifty trick, If the LCD2 did it (ever) they would be outstanding.
 
Quote:

Anyone who worked on the R10's at Sony is probably long gone leaving me thinking they will never (for sometime) make a good pair of headphones of that caliber. 

 
Sony dosnt need to invent anything. They need to find a way to make relatively large biocelulose drivers at an affordable price. they got the price down on the E888 in a small driver, they should have kept working on 50mm drivers. They no doubt still have all the original engineering information for the R10, its just a matter of getting drivers rebuilt.
 
OTOH, It took sony 10 years to sell some 1200 R10's so why bother? To a company accustomed to selling that many of a specific TV in a day thats pathetic. The Qualia was a little faster, but thats like being proud to own a car thats slightly faster than a YUGO. Perhaps now is the right time for sony to bring a truly nice headphone back to market... I kind of want to hear the new flagship sony headphones, Sony has clearly shown that they can make reallllllllllly nice headphones when they put a little extra effort into it in the past.

 

[Skylab]

That's really the issue, completely - Sony needs to sell in VOLUME.  1200 headphones over 10 years is not sufficient volume.

 

[mobbaddict]

If Ultrasone manages to sell 2010 units of a similarly-priced headphone in a short period of time, I guess Sony can do it too Unless it's only a matter of production capacities?
I don't think a flagship has to be profitable anyway, it always has a positive impact on the rest of the range in terms of brand image. Take Ferrari, they only make 350 units for their supercar and then wait for the next decade.

 

[purk]

Oh well, then there is the housing.  It isn't exactly easy to source out several 200 year-old Zelkova tree and cut them down either to make the housing.

 

[ford2]

Quote:

Although this thread has drifted to a "lets remake the R10" lovefest I'l agree with everyone else: The R10 pee on the LCD2. Not that the LCD2 are bad, the R10 are just better. Throwing sound out of the head is a nifty trick, If the LCD2 did it (ever) they would be outstanding.
 
Quote:

Anyone who worked on the R10's at Sony is probably long gone leaving me thinking they will never (for sometime) make a good pair of headphones of that caliber. 

 
Sony dosnt need to invent anything. They need to find a way to make relatively large biocelulose drivers at an affordable price. they got the price down on the E888 in a small driver, they should have kept working on 50mm drivers. They no doubt still have all the original engineering information for the R10, its just a matter of getting drivers rebuilt.
 
OTOH, It took sony 10 years to sell some 1200 R10's so why bother? To a company accustomed to selling that many of a specific TV in a day thats pathetic. The Qualia was a little faster, but thats like being proud to own a car thats slightly faster than a YUGO. Perhaps now is the right time for sony to bring a truly nice headphone back to market... I kind of want to hear the new flagship sony headphones, Sony has clearly shown that they can make reallllllllllly nice headphones when they put a little extra effort into it in the past.

Sony had no problems producing the CD3000 driver which is 50mm and biocelulose,in fact if the build quality of the CD3000 had matched even the SA5000 it would have been a killer.
 
The CD3000 is a classic case where a great sounding phone was blighted by plastic and pleather.

 

[immtbiker]

With all of the headphones I have owned in my life, nothing beat out the R-10's when comparing in all of the categories. They were a one-of-a-kind. Don't forget that these were around during the same time that the Orpheus was around and the HP1000's . It was a good time for headphones.  
 
Sources are so much better now, though. 8X's oversampling will never hold a candle to 24/192.

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Oh well, then there is the housing.  It isn't exactly easy to source out several 200 year-old Zelkova tree and cut them down either to make the housing.

Maybe they just have a grove of trees somewhere, waiting to mature....

 

[Badd99]

Quote:

That's really the issue, completely - Sony needs to sell in VOLUME.  1200 headphones over 10 years is not sufficient volume.

This exactly. This is why I keep saying that I doubt Sony will give another go to a high price headphone...there all about making a profit and headphones doesn't come close to what they bring in on other electronics.
 


Quote:

If Ultrasone manages to sell 2010 units of a similarly-priced headphone in a short period of time, I guess Sony can do it too Unless it's only a matter of production capacities?
I don't think a flagship has to be profitable anyway, it always has a positive impact on the rest of the range in terms of brand image. Take Ferrari, they only make 350 units for their supercar and then wait for the next decade.

Remember, there on the mid 200's ish 
 
 
But back on point: What specifically in the sound trumps (and if you say all, how so) to the LCD-2's because for all the top tier headphones I have heard, I think the LCD-2 sound amazingly real. 

 

[yococo96]

Quote:

Quote:

I'm ok with the fact that sony is a mainstream company, that It's one of the the best-known electronic company in the world, and that most of it's customers don't know anything of the high end audio "world".
But I also think that this enormous company should have it's own high end line.
as said above they make billions every year, for them 10 millions is as much as a 10 grain of sand in the desert.  
i'm pretty sure that, if they want to, they could design the best audio line ever. 
and last point I have read somewhere that they recently came out with a 10k$+ speaker, so they will maybe go this way with a new headphone line.

Are you referring to this?  A single speaker that produces stereo?  This seems more like a gimmick than high-end.
 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-10249912-47.html

no i'm not. trying to find where I saw this.

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

Quote:

Quote:

I'm ok with the fact that sony is a mainstream company, that It's one of the the best-known electronic company in the world, and that most of it's customers don't know anything of the high end audio "world".
But I also think that this enormous company should have it's own high end line.
as said above they make billions every year, for them 10 millions is as much as a 10 grain of sand in the desert.  
i'm pretty sure that, if they want to, they could design the best audio line ever. 
and last point I have read somewhere that they recently came out with a 10k$+ speaker, so they will maybe go this way with a new headphone line.

Are you referring to this?  A single speaker that produces stereo?  This seems more like a gimmick than high-end.
 
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-10249912-47.html

no i'm not. trying to find where I saw this.

It has to be.  This is the only high-end speaker they've announced.  I read through all their press releases.

 

[orkney]

It has to be.  This is the only high-end speaker they've announced.  I read through all their press releases.

Great stuff. Those long winter nights must just fly by...
 
o

 

[IPodPJ]

Quote:

It has to be.  This is the only high-end speaker they've announced.  I read through all their press releases.

Great stuff. Those long winter nights must just fly by...
 
o

I'm talking about their press releases regarding products.  If you go to their main website there's a list of concept or special products they've announced in the past 5 years.  You can just click each link to see what product it is.  It took me about 15 minutes. 
 
http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/activity/product/sountina_01.html
 
Links on the left
 
http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/activity/product/index.html

 

[ford2]

Quote:

Quote:

It has to be.  This is the only high-end speaker they've announced.  I read through all their press releases.

Great stuff. Those long winter nights must just fly by...
 
o

I'm talking about their press releases regarding products.  If you go to their main website there's a list of concept or special products they've announced in the past 5 years.  You can just click each link to see what product it is.  It took me about 15 minutes. 
 
http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/activity/product/sountina_01.html
 
Links on the left
 
http://www.sony.net/Fun/design/activity/product/index.html

That Pink laptop is something to be proud of.
 
I wonder how long the design team worked on that.
 

 

[Skylab]

Sony did announce a new high end speaker at CES, for sure, it's at the bottom of this page:

http://www.stereophile.com/category/ces-2011?page=5

But since it is not done, maybe that is why no press release.

$27k per pair, so better be good!