[Aytug]

Hi,
 
I'm new in Head-fi forums. I was tracking this thread in order to buy one of the new Sony XBA series earphone.
 
And yesterday just got my Sony XBA-Z5 iem and MUC-M12SM1 cable from Petersburg/Russia. Earphone costs 395$ and cable 76$ and i think its pretty good deal. I can say i really impressed of sound quality, comfort.
 
As soon as i get used to earphones, i will share my impressions. I also wanted to share photos but my account doesn't have permissions for it.

 

[gerelmx1986]

  Hi,
 
I'm new in Head-fi forums. I was tracking this thread in order to buy one of the new Sony XBA series earphone.
 
And yesterday just got my Sony XBA-Z5 iem and MUC-M12SM1 cable from Petersburg/Russia. Earphone costs 395$ and cable 76$ and i think its pretty good deal. I can say i really impressed of sound quality, comfort.
 
As soon as i get used to earphones, i will share my impressions. I also wanted to share photos but my account doesn't have permissions for it.

Welcome , your permissions to upload pix will be granted after you post arround 15 posts​

 

[Aytug]

  Welcome , your permissions to upload pix will be granted after you post arround 15 posts​

Thank you, ok then i will keep commenting for now))

 

[albumnut]

I have the Sony ZX2 and listen on Sony MDR7520 and Shure 535's.  I want to upgrade to Either Sony ZBA-Z5's or Sony MDR-Z7's. Does anyone have any advise for me?
 
Thanks.

 

[obsidianshard]

In just over two hours (10:15 AM EDT) Sony will showcase new audio (and other stuff) at their IFA 2015 briefing.
 
There's a livestream here: https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/blog-news-from-sony/ifa-2015/ba-p/1999855
 
Anxiously awaiting news of new flagships and/or new plans for the US. Hopefully we'll at least continue to get high-end portable audio in the states.

 

[gerelmx1986]

  In just over two hours (10:15 AM EDT) Sony will showcase new audio (and other stuff) at their IFA 2015 briefing.
 
There's a livestream here: https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/blog-news-from-sony/ifa-2015/ba-p/1999855
 
Anxiously awaiting news of new flagships and/or new plans for the US. Hopefully we'll at least continue to get high-end portable audio in the states.

me too

 anxiously waiting for mid-fi products like a new iteration of XBA-A3

 

[meringo]

Not looking like we will get anything new... mass market on ears and NC in-ears. Not interested.
 
 
I would love for a new XBA-A3...

 

[gerelmx1986]

  Not looking like we will get anything new... mass market on ears and NC in-ears. Not interested.
 
 
I would love for a new XBA-A3...

correct, i'll sell my XBA-H3 and get those A3's

 

[obsidianshard]

  Not looking like we will get anything new... mass market on ears and NC in-ears. Not interested.
 
 
I would love for a new XBA-A3...

 
That's what I thought too, but looking at them, the over-ears are at least a sibling to the MDR-Z7s; The design is almost the same, albeit uglified with bright colors. The drivers seem to be using similar technologies just at a smaller 40mm compared to the Z7s at 70mm. And the in-ear headphones with NC seem to be decent on-paper as well. Not nearly as ridiculous as the Z5s, but they still have an incredibly grasping frequency response at 5Hz-40,000Hz. And noise cancellation on earphones is pretty awesome to boot.
 
These aren't the regular mass market 20-20k ****cans, there's something good here. I have no idea how Sony thinks they can sell well though, the biggest reason Beats sell is marketing.
 
And I don't buy fashion headphones so it looks like I'll be picking up the Z5s for sure now. But I wouldn't brush these new headphones off as trash.

 

[obsidianshard]

At least Sony is still pushing the MDR-Z7, it shows up first (!) on their new-ish electronics site under headphones.
 
However, it looks like the XBA-Z5s are dead; they're missing even when searched for. The cables for the Z7 were readily available last month, but the cables for the Z5s were out of stock seemingly permanently and I think we were all eager for a proper Z5 replacement, but it looks like—at least in the US—they're killing off the product line entirely. That's sad.

 

[axismundi]

   
...but they still have an incredibly grasping frequency response at 5Hz-40,000Hz...
 
These aren't the regular mass market 20-20k ****cans, there's something good here. I have no idea how Sony thinks they can sell well though, the biggest reason Beats sell is marketing.
 

 
I'm going off-topic here but somebody has to do it: you're chasing ghosts if you believe the manufacturer published frequency responses say anything about the actual sound quality. Without specifying the dB tolerance/attenuation at which these measurements are taken (I'm yet to see an earphones manufacturer doing this), these figures are useless. At best, the quoted frequency response may give you an idea about how two different headphones from the same manufacturer compare, assuming they even bother to be consistent in their measurements and marketing department is not the only one in charge of the show (which is more and more the case today).
 
To give you an idea, according to detailed measurements available online (for example http://www.head-fi.org/t/733404/sonys-new-2014-flagship-iem-xba-z5/405#post_11018644), XBA-Z5 has a 15-20 dB attenuation at 20kHz as compared to 1kHz. Which basically means that the reproduction of a 20kHz signal is 30 to 100 times lower than that of 1kHz. And this is far from poor performance (I for one perceive Z5 to have one of the best high frequency extensions around).
 
And this is even before going into subjects such as psychoacoustics and what frequencies can be heard by humans, ear canal resonances emphasising certain frequencies, Harman target response etc. ...

 

[obsidianshard]

   
I'm going off-topic here but somebody has to do it: you're chasing ghosts if you believe the manufacturer published frequency responses say anything about the actual sound quality. Without specifying the dB tolerance/attenuation at which these measurements are taken (I'm yet to see an earphones manufacturer doing this), these figures are useless. At best, the quoted frequency response may give you an idea about how two different headphones from the same manufacturer compare, assuming they even bother to be consistent in their measurements and marketing department is not the only one in charge of the show (which is more and more the case today).
 
To give you an idea, according to detailed measurements available online (for example http://www.head-fi.org/t/733404/sonys-new-2014-flagship-iem-xba-z5/405#post_11018644), XBA-Z5 has a 15-20 dB attenuation at 20kHz as compared to 1kHz. Which basically means that the reproduction of a 20kHz signal is 30 to 100 times lower than that of 1kHz. And this is far from poor performance (I for one perceive Z5 to have one of the best high frequency extensions around).
 
And this is even before going into subjects such as psychoacoustics and what frequencies can be heard by humans, ear canal resonances emphasising certain frequencies, Harman target response etc. ...

 
I was just stating on paper it at least looks like they're trying. Nobody here has heard what they sound like yet, I'm only suggesting not to dismiss them entirely beforehand.
 
Even though I have my reservations towards the design and very likely won't be buying them based on that alone, they might not suck completely. Especially if they're priced well. Might be good suggestions for family and friends even.

 

[axismundi]

I have no idea how they sound and was not suggesting anything about these models (hence the off-topic disclosure), was just trying to do a good deed and shed some light on the meaning(less) of manufacurer published FR.

 

[meringo]

FYI, all:
 
Z5 was discontinued about a week ago. I contacted B&H about a set, and they confirmed. 

 

[obsidianshard]

I completely understand. Thank you! I've been burned chasing specs before. It's just when some fashion headphone manufacturers don't even post most specs, (regardless of how useful or not, honestly,) these fill me with a tiny glimmer of hope.
 
Even without that, Sony's budget headphones are a decent value, and I've yet to experience a "Hi-Res" Sony headphone that I didn't at least enjoy, so with H.EAR they can maybe change the crappy fashion headphone market for the better. Which would be a good thing for us all.