I didn't contradict myself, because my opinions are not overly simplistic. My issue is not separating out personal opinion from absolute judgements on whether something is "good" or "bad". Let me explain.
Simplistic thinking is along the lines of:
The headphones sound good to me = The headphones are good.
The headphones sound bad to me = The headphones are bad.
or:
The headphones meet some objective criteria (target curve, distortion levels, etc.) = The headphones are good.
The headphones don't meet those criteria = The headphones are bad.
Now Tyll doesn't like how they sound, and feels that they measure poorly (relatively) so he doesn't recommend them. I totally get that. What I think he may not recognise is why many people like them, and for many people they will be a "good" pair of high-end headphones.
Why? A non-Sony example might be a good idea here.
Some time ago I had a PM conversation with someone who was fanatical in how they felt that modern headphones didn't reproduce instruments "as the artist intended". Not an unreasonable feeling considering he plays an instrument himself. A point I made to him though was this: How about V-MODA headphones? I'm sure he would absolutely not like them and think they were awful, but does that mean that they are bad? The first time Val had me listen to the M-80, I didn't like the tuning. Later on, he put the Crossfade LPs on my head, and put on some club music at a slightly high volume. Then I got it. Club music is intended to be played in a club, and the Crossfade LPs were designed to sound like "a club in your head". In that, they succeed greatly, and are now are very popular amongst DJs as they produce club music "as the artist intended". So by the logic of the person I was having the discussion with, they are "good" headphones.
So, let's take a couple of simple statements:
Crossfade LPs are good headphones.
Crossfade LPs are bad headphones.
which is it?
Let's make a couple more:
Crossfade LPs are good headphones for people who like club music.
Crossfade LPs are bad headphones for people who like classical music.
Now if we add measurements in there they are also objectively poor headphones in many respects, and we can start generating multiple statements about good and bad which are all true, but will seem to contradict each other if you only focus the "good" or "bad" without seeing the context.
That's the difference between:
These are good/bad headphones.
I think these are good/bad headphones because of X, Y and Z.
I think Tyll's summary is missing two words. I also think that only having technical fidelity as the bar for high-end headphones will result in a lot of expensive headphones that all sound the same. I know quite a few people who don't like many headphones that I (and, going by his reviews, Tyll) think are great. It is something to consider.