[Mickice]

The guy who mentioned Adele 25 was on the money with these, so lovely.
She can easily sound pitchy on other gear.

I adore the naming conventions of her albums.
 

 

[Vanquished]

The deep deep sub-bass in the Z7 is freaking crazy....

All bass is crazy! OMG, listening Pain of Salvation's "Falling home" right now...Just marvelous! To be honest I didn't expected to like Z7 so much. 

 

[Whitigir]

All bass is crazy! OMG, listening Pain of Salvation's "Falling home" right now...Just marvelous! To be honest I didn't expected to like Z7 so much. 

Exactly, I have never been a bass head, but somehow the Z7 bass is very musical, pleasing . To be honest, I don't think that I can find the level of quality bass from the Z7 else where. Though the trebles may be a little..rolled....but nothing is perfect . I am glad Sony did make something with this amazing bass though.

 

[joey99]

listening to Lorde - Team ... the stereo-ness and bass is just addictive on the Z7. 

 

[Whitigir]

Man I would love Sony to come out with the top tier flag-ship headphones already....I am eagerly saving money

 

[Mickice]

Unless they used Planar or some other tech, it would be difficult for a driver to get much better than the Z7.
You'd mostly end up paying for the housing and boxing.

Z7 is cheap considering it is made in Japan. 

 

[PETEREK]

Man I would love Sony to come out with the top tier flag-ship headphones already....I am eagerly saving money

I've heard wind of this happening. Might be a year or two though.

 

[Whitigir]

Unless they used Planar or some other tech, it would be difficult for a driver to get much better than the Z7.

You'd mostly end up paying for the housing and boxing.


Z7 is cheap considering it is made in Japan. 

Sony legendary headphones technology is the bio-cell diaphragm and highly energetic magnet+voice coil.....those are in the legendary MDR r10. The later was sa5000/3000 cd3000. Sony has all the technologies they need to totally wreck the headphones market....they just don't want to lol..

 

[krayzie]

Sony legendary headphones technology is the bio-cell diaphragm and highly energetic magnet+voice coil.....those are in the legendary MDR r10. The later was sa5000/3000 cd3000. Sony has all the technologies they need to totally wreck the headphones market....they just don't want to lol..

Like many Japanese products that got re-hashed after sometime (i.e. Grand Seiko, Olympus OM-D, Toyota 86, etc) they will never go back to using old technology, but instead they will infuse tuning of old characteristics from their once glorious products of yesteryears into the new products with new technology.  The Z7 actually achieved this purpose.
 
There will be no true R10 successor until Sony turns its fortunes around.  You have to realize that in this day and age of globalization the world has been broke arse for quite some time now (I think this is why these new retro products have lower price points compare to their ancient counterparts, partially because the board will never accept a new product that is a loss leader, everything needs to make a profit these days cuz of the shareholder value).

 

[Vanquished]

Exactly, I have never been a bass head, but somehow the Z7 bass is very musical, pleasing

. To be honest, I don't think that I can find the level of quality bass from the Z7 else where. Though the trebles may be a little..rolled....but nothing is perfect

. I am glad Sony did make something with this amazing bass though.

I'm  not a bass head too, I sold M-Audio Q40 ten days after purchase. Z7 isn't bass head headphones, they have bass when the bass is in the music, not like some headphones that make violins sound like cellos. So far, so good. I was tempted to buy DT1770, but now I'm not sure I need another closed headphones. 

 

[pietcux]

I'm  not a bass head too, I sold M-Audio Q40 ten days after purchase. Z7 isn't bass head headphones, they have bass when the bass is in the music, not like some headphones that make violins sound like cellos. So far, so good. I was tempted to buy DT1770, but now I'm not sure I need another closed headphones. 

I have both and I am not sure too. Both are great, very different though.

 

[ballard3]

Would yo please make a comparison?

 

[pietcux]

I was in Berlin at the  IFA. I had seen the DT1770 on HeadFi before and was even more impressed by its look and feel when I had it in my hands. The sound was a revalation across the board. I had my Sony ZX1 player with me and could test the can directly from it with my own music. I love bass like Marcus Miller and Stanley Clarke do it, so Deep Electric Bass and the DT 1770 can do that very well , fast and exact, not sotft and boomy. It also has very good mids and treble that are there and fast but not piercing at all to me. Having owned some Ultrasones including the Edition12 I know what I don't want again. Then they are easily driven by my Sony ZX1 or Ipod / Ipad and PC soundcard / onboard sound. They are very efficient despite their 250 Ohm impedance.
but then there is my Sony Z7. I am always torn between them and the DT1770. Where the DT's bass is deep fast and exact but not overly pronounced, the Z7's bass is louder and a little less exact, but you really feel it. The mids of the Z7 are also very much to my liking and the treble is more laid back but it is all there. I think Sony did a wonderfull piece of gear with them. They can also run from all I have like the DT1770, even a little more efficient at 80 Ohm.Love them both without regrets.
The DT 1770 is built like a tank and a real workhorse. You will get spare parts from Beyer easily and quite cheap.
The Z7 is built like a very high quality item that is far more expensive than it's street price. Made to impress but I baby it more that the DT.

 

[Whitigir]

Yep. And since we've brought this back here, I think I'll provide some data on why I think the Z7's drivers have "potential".

Here's the FR of the R10 as measured by the guy who measured the Z7 graphs that I used for the ports:





And here is the frequency response of the Sony Z7 as measured by the same guy... although likely using a different compensation curves -> peaks are more/less pronounced





If you ask me, I'd say... I'm seeing the same peak at around 3KHz, and also the same peak at around 7.5KHz. There is no peak at 16KHz, and that's what I've been trying to push. Though that's probably not very necessary since most people won't notice 16KHz, and there is not a lot of recordings (IMO) that go up that high.

The key difference between the 2 lies in their decay graphs, though. Here's the R10:





And here's the Z7:




Both headphones have some resonance, but the R10 keeps it under control most of the time. No resonance at 7.5KHz on R10, but I can see resonance at 7.5KHz on one channel of the Z7 (on the decay graph, this looks like a ridge that keeps trailing in time). Both headphones seem to have some resonance at 3KHz or so, but Z7 is more extreme as you can see resonance in Z7 is "isolated", and the ridge stands out quite obviously. Then Z7 has a lot more resonance at 1KHz and below, and it keeps resonating until 5ms and beyond, whereas R10 pretty much stops short at 3ms at 1KHz.

Since both headphones have similar frequency response (save for the 16KHz peak), I'd say... if the Z7 did not have those ridges or resonance, it would sound almost the same as the R10.

So yeah, I'm of the firm belief that the Z7 is a special headphone, and in some way, it really is the successor of the R10. But alas, its original design prevented that from happening, and that's why I'm trying to push it and see if I can ever get there.

This is an excellent post, as I reduced resonances and mod the Z7. I do fall in love with it much and much more than the stock form. i do agree about the observation on resonances, it hugely improve once properly dampened

 

[pietcux]

This is an excellent post, as I reduced resonances and mod the Z7. I do fall in love with it much and much more than the stock form. i do agree about the observation on resonances, it hugely improve once properly dampened

But what if Sony made the Z7 exactly on purpose as it is today. The above diagrams clearly show, that Sony can make a can like the R10.  But in case of the Z7 they decided go take a different route. Do you guys really think that Sony needs to cut expenses by not applying dampening? Another guy even closed the vents to "better" the sound. The whole construction of the Z7 is made on purpose to create a certain sound, that I like very much. And you make it look like the Z7 is a bad construction that one can only enjoy after applying all the remedies that you found useful. This information could be exchanged in the DIY part of HeadFi and not always again and again here, please.