At the moment i only have a Plenue 1, which i use with both headphones, currently saving for a ZX300 or WM1A. Tried both with .mp3, .alac, .flac, .aiff, .ogg, .dsd file formats, and the results that i get where those. i don't use desk setups, since i listen to them mostly while i work; painting with the Z7 (most portable) or drawing with Z1R for several hours each time, and when i use the Z1R, the music experience is much more inmersive imo (more than 10%), i can really picture the music, which help me a lot in what i do. i'm new to this hobby and not an expert, just want to share my impressions of the headphones, both of them bring me joy and i'm really happy with them.
There are so many other great audio toys in the world...I haven't been listening to the Z1R as often as I'd like, but tonight I grabbed them and enjoyed the experience a lot, which reminded me to check this thread.
These are still top tier cans in sound quality if one knows what to expect, but comfort-wise, they remain my #1 regardless of personal preferences - just a really well [hand-made in Japan] built, extremely comfortable set.
Sound-wise... well... lots and lots of air for closed cans, high frequency detail, sweet mids, the nice punchy bass you get with Sony tunings... it's great, but with really great positioning and separation that is HD800 level.
Yep. Still love these. Should use them more often. After a couple of years I'm starting to think they might become the next R10 in legendary fame - yeah we know, it's not the same grade, no fancy woods, no skinned sheep that were mosquito-bite-free and so on, but time always exaggerates the good love and tends to forget the weaknesses. That's how the R10 became godlike and that's how the Z1R will become [really-good-back-then] too, in ten years... Just you wait.
I'm not even joking...
It's 2028.
Remaining Z1R units are being sold at $4500-$5000, due to both inflation and scarcity. There are plenty over leftover models due to the solid construction/materials, but many got lost due to users holding them, plus Sony cut production too early, as it always did with flagships. Bitcoin is the leading currency, equivalent to the old fiat currency [of 2018] at $150,000-250,000 and there is finally an artificial sweetener that tastes like sugar, which left most nations agreeing happily regardless of ongoing conflicts.
Always preferred black coffee, but I like using the synth sugar it in my coffee sometimes, tastes exactly the same as real sugar did ten years ago.
But it's time to call the Tesla R out of the garage. The built-in speakers are just fantastic, but I still like keeping the Z1R and the audio converter in the back seat, so I can enjoy a listen while the car drives me to the office.
Ridiculous? Definitely. But so were the price forecasts for MDR-R10 in ~1992, same for Bitcoin/BTC in 2011 and Z1R today. A good solution survives time better than we all think....
And here's a R10 and a [heavily used] CD3000 love shot... because... they were both awesome, despite being fairly common at the time (Especially the cheaper CD3000, which twenty years later (2017) was being sold used on Ebay at 3x what it cost originally). Z1R well surpasses both, in my opinion, except in lore and reputation, but only a decade will bring that.
Z1R lads... get the Z1R. Saw the R10 and CD3000 days, the Z1R might make it to legendary rep one day too too. Maybe... It's THAT good if paired with the right sources.
Edit: Jeez..is the forum software still vBulletin? What a buggy disaster editor...formatting and editing if you want to use some fonts/sizes/colors variations... tags mixed with on-screen displays, terrible rendering... almost feel like converting all to ASCII and repasting... as the other guy would put it.. SAD.
Haven't been listening to the Z1R as often as I'd like, but tonight I grabbed them and ended up enjoying the experience a lot. These are still top tier cans in sound quality if one knows what to expect, but comfort-wise, they remain my #1 regardless of personal preferences - just a really well [hand-made in Japan] built, extremely comfortable set.
Sound-wise... well... lots and lots of air for closed cans, high frequency detail, sweet mids, the nice punchy bass you get with Sony tunings... it's great, but with really great positioning and separation that is HD800 level.
Yep. Still love these. Should use them more often. After a couple of years I'm starting to think they might become the next R10 in legendary fame - yeah we know, it's not the same grade, no fancy woods, no skinned sheep that were mosquito-bite-free and so on, but time always exaggerates the good love and tends to forget the weaknesses. That's how the R10 became godlike and that's how the Z1R will become [really-good-back-then] too, in ten years... Just you wait.
I'm not even joking...
It's 2028.
Remaining Z1R units are being sold at $4500-$5000, due to both inflation and scarcity. There are plenty over leftover models due to the solid construction/materials, but many got lost due to users holding them, plus Sony cut production too early, as it always did with flagships. Bitcoin is the leading currency, equivalent to the old fiat currency [of 2018] at $150,000-250,000 and there is finally an artificial sweetener that tastes like sugar, which left most nations agreeing happily regardless of ongoing conflicts.
Always preferred black coffee, but I like using the synth sugar it in my coffee sometimes, tastes exactly the same as real sugar did ten years ago.
But it's time to call the Tesla R out of the garage. The built-in speakers are just fantastic, but I still like keeping the Z1R and the audio converter in the back seat, so I can enjoy a listen while the car drives me to the office.
Ridiculous? Definitely. But so were the price forecasts for MDR-R10 in ~1992, same for Bitcoin/BTC in 2000 and Z1R today. A good solution survives time better than we all think....
And here's a R10 and a [heavily used] CD3000 love shot... because... they were both awesome, despite being fairly common at the time (Especially the cheaper CD3000, which twenty years later (2017) was being sold used on Ebay at 3x what it cost originally)..
Z1R lads... get the Z1R. Saw the R10 and CD3000 days, the Z1R might make it to legendary rep one day too too. Maybe... It's THAT good if paired with the right sources.
That’s a bold statement but I like it! I’m finding the Z1R’s with Sony/Kimber cable and the Hugo 2 is musical bliss. I can’t get enough of this incredible pairing.
That’s a bold statement but I like it! I’m finding the Z1R’s with Sony/Kimber cable and the Hugo 2 is musical bliss. I can’t get enough of this incredible pairing.
To be fair, I always felt the R10s were a bit over-rated considering their status. The Z1R / Hugo 2 is an absolute brilliant pairing. Try the Kimber Axios cable...really improves upon the clarity and transparency over the Sony/Kimber cable. That said, both are a great step up from the stock cable.
After my audition of the HD820, I just like the Z1R even more. While the Sennheiser performed exactly as expected with his usual perfection, the Sony performes in a breathtaking nonconformist way which simply takes me away. The Sony/Kimber cable betters the sound much more than a cable agnostic like me did ever expect.
So do I. Admittedly my experience with R10 was 7-8 years ago, but I wasen’t that impressed with it compared to the Audio Technica L3000 I owned at that point
Listened to some headphone rigs at the audio show today. They included the new Woo ES/dynamic amp with the 300b tubes and the two eared rectifier.
I heard the new ZMF biocellulose model with the open design. The ZMF with a tubed Schiit amp didn't sound nearly as good as Z1R to my ears, even Z1R with modest amping. Mr. Speaker electrostat with Blue Hawaii was forward sounding and tizzy. I haven't had a Blue Hawaii that I have heard yet that I liked that much. I like EL34 tube sound, but for some reason it doesn't seem to work for me with electrostats in this model.
Surprisingly, I liked a beat up old pair of Beyer 880 with Schiit's smallest portable amp, and a very good (also old and beat up) pair of Senn HD650 with tube amp. I also liked the planar magnetic phones with the expensive Woo, but my own home setups seem better sounding in general to just about everything I heard.
The performance of Z1R is highly dependent on the source.
If you match it with a portable player having let's say some "boost" in the treble section of it's frequency response, then it is possible to give you a headache with a mediocre sonic performance.
However, if you feed these giant 70 mm drivers with some nice power from a desktop source with a somewhat linear frequency response, then Z1R will pay back what you give.
Even $100 amps like Objective2 feed Z1R more than satisfactorily.
(Btw, I'm letting go mine for 1070 Euros. Check out my threads if you're interested.)
To my ears and head the Z1R is more than 10% better. the bass is more refined and extended and does not rattle like the Z7 when it gets to sub bass frequencies (i had to exchange the first Z7 that i got due to rattling noise issues of both drivers), the Z1R is clearer and has more details. the wider soundstage also adds a very pleasant plus to the listening experience, also the Z1R is much more comfortable because of it size. summing all those factors and you get more than 10% imo. still, the price of the Z1R is way too expensive if you compare it to the Z7, but the Z1R takes you further and deeper into the music
The 10% that’s talked about in Head-Fi is in many ways a rubber number. It’s a perspective number, where depending on how much you focus on the 10% it can seem like more or it can seem like less. It’s almost like music replay is difficult to quantify?
So many things are an easy quantitative perspective. Car racing is based on small measurable items; where maybe headphone subjective listening measurements are more open for interpretation.
The Z1R is the nicest headphone I’ve ever owned and used. I don’t know what percentage it’s nicer, but it’s darn nice. The Z7 was a headphone I was not interested in due to reading so much bad PR about it. So for me it was interesting how different amplifiers made it sound. Maybe it was the whole underdog theme going in with the Z7; then finding the Sony house sound under it all with the right amp?
It seems the Z1R sounds better and is better out of the portables I’ve used with them.
I’m also curious as it seems Sony now has a developed house sound. Only they know how they arrived there. But I have a feeling we will see a Z1R MK2.
I sold off my ZH1ES and now use the Z1R with my WM1Z.
I also can run it balanced off of my Moon 430HA connected to my 2 channel system using my 2 channel sources
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