Personally the lack of air in the treble department and the benefits added using the kinda "obligatory" PHA 3 seems to break the deal...
I am still waiting for other impressions, but man so close and yet so far.
I could have finally reach the shore of appeasement for a while but it seems like my hunt for my next perfect headphone is not over.
Yea, and there's nothing wrong with a darker sounding closed back, my W1000x, after spending about 5 hours with it today, sounds great to my ears. I love it with my hm801 and iBasso Pb2, and I've having a hard time finding an upgrade to it. As I've modded my W1000x, so it's VERY aggressive and has very little warmth and decay.
I'm getting the impression that the MDR Z7 is going to have a sig simmilar to the LA DXK's do, which is tilted to darkness with a slight tilt to mids n bass
As much as I loved my Modded D2k, is was in all honesty MUCH darker than I realized, the benifit of that is it didn't really mind the some what lack of air in it until I compared it to my W1000x and HE 4, ofc in the grand scheme of things the D2k was sold and the other Two I kept
But for those who like the darker sound, the MDR Z7 might be perfection! Though I have a feeling that the Sound Stage Depth alone might push the MDR Z7 a step above the LA DXK headphones, my W1000x Angled driver offers more sound stage depth that my HE 4, now the HE 4 is PRETTY close behind and has a better spacial placement back wards, forwards, left an right over the W1000x, but my point is Angled Drivers rn't just "gimmy" or a marketing ploy, they do improve sound stage and instrument palcement, for the better!