[goobicii]

  So, something like an SA5000(caps at 110kHz), or Z1R(caps at 120kHz) supposed to have really good transient response? Z7 caps at 100kHz.
 
Just to clarify: We're not talking about sampling rate here but the actual soundwave coming out of the cans. Many advantages DSD and high level PCM has over the CD standard like lower noise floor with higher bit depth.

 
the problem most of the time isnt so much in the driver,but in all the other things around driver,you could make HD800 drivers sound like muffled veiled dark headphone with horrible transient response if you put it in badly designed body and pads
 
also the people who tune the freqency response are many times probably mildly mentaly handicaped or high on bathsalts,for example Nighhawk driver is lowest distortion dynamic driver measured by innerfidelity and other site I should not name,yet the headphone is tuned in way that it turns this miracle of modern engineering into mudslide.
 
you are right that extended freqency range doesnt always equal  good sound quality,its merely proof of potential,potential that is so many times wasted by badly designed areas of headphone other than driver itself.Sure the driver can put out beautifuly clean transient,but if that transient is going to get reflected zillion times inside the cups and turn into reverberated mess,its going to sound bad

 

[Whitigir]

the problem most of the time isnt so much in the driver,but in all the other things around driver,you could make HD800 drivers sound like muffled veiled dark headphone with horrible transient response if you put it in badly designed body and pads

also the people who tune the freqency response are many times probably mildly mentaly handicaped or high on bathsalts,for example Nighhawk driver is lowest distortion dynamic driver measured by innerfidelity and other site I should not name,yet the headphone is tuned in way that it turns this miracle of modern engineering into mudslide.

you are right that extended freqency range doesnt always equal  good sound quality,its merely proof of potential,potential that is so many times wasted by badly designed areas of headphone other than driver itself.Sure the driver can put out beautifuly clean transient,but if that transient is going to get reflected zillion times inside the cups and turn into reverberated mess,its going to sound bad

One of the best post I have read in years. I agree totally

 

[thanatosguan]

Again, in an effort to be clear, is there evidence that these things are audible or just measureable?

If we're talking about sampling these measurements are meaningful in that it allows the engineer to manipulate the sound in more ways. There simply more data there. It's like a 16bit RAW file from cameras that have huge dynamic range so you can extract whatever you want from it and output the end result to JPG. Higher sampling rate and bit depth prevents clipping and has lower noise floor (DSD 1bit encoding suffers from this).

If we're talking about the actual sound reproduction side of things I'm not so sure, hence I'm asking if all this talk of 120kHz have anything meaningful.

 

[Sonic Defender]

If we're talking about sampling these measurements are meaningful in that it allows the engineer to manipulate the sound in more ways. There simply more data there. It's like a 16bit RAW file from cameras that have huge dynamic range so you can extract whatever you want from it and output the end result to JPG. Higher sampling rate and bit depth prevents clipping and has lower noise floor (DSD 1bit encoding suffers from this).

If we're talking about the actual sound reproduction side of things I'm not so sure, hence I'm asking if all this talk of 120kHz have anything meaningful.

You don't need higher bit-rates to eliminate clipping, 16bit files are just fine. Sound engineers use the extra bits for moving noise higher up while working with effects and filters that will be perfectly represented in the final product at 16bits. So as you were saying, for actual listening, where is the evidence that higher bit rate files sound different? Anyway, lets not get too far OT  as this isn't the sound science forum so I'll stop myself here.

 

[AnakChan]

   
Did they say something about their obsession with ultra-high frequencies? How exactly do these frequencies affect perception of sound? A lot of people would argue this is way above Nyquist-limit, so most recordings don't contain anything above 22kHz (-ish, depending anti-aliasing filters) so most headphones cap at

44100Hz​

. Did Sony conduct some internal research regarding this?

 
No they didn't say anything about it nor did I push about it but as per subsequent posts to yours, it seems it's been the trend of Sony to have their headphones to go to the 100kHz and above. The MDR-Z1R is their current flagship. 
 
[My personal thoughts]
If their new flagship were to state a lower frequency...say 44.1kHz as with most headphones as you've stated, I think they'll need to do a lot more explaining required on why they're reverting their philosophy. The conversation of why they believe in ultra high frequencies probably should have happened many moons and many models ago which probably pre-dates my involvement in Head-Fi even.
[End of my personal thoughts]
 

   
So overall, do you give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down?

 
IMHO, for treble sensitive folks, this would be a thumbs up. For me, it depends on my mood of listening. If I want to have that exciting engaging then probably not. However if I want to relax, enjoy with a laid back ambiance then I'd want to listen to these headphones. Again though, I didn't have hours and hours of listening time to these headphones, so please do take it with a large grain of salt.

 

[jibzilla]

  Sennheiser did nothing for 6 years and only made a slight modded to improvement to the HD800S.  I'm afraid that they will be lacking behind now and struggling to catch up.  Plus they didn't accomplish much from the HE-1 nonsense.

 
I think they will be lacking behind as well but you never know. I think sennheiser will be next to release a $2-4k headphone, might be a baby HE-1 stat rather than a dynamic hd800 successor. I have read rumors it might be a planar.  After that though the big kahuna Stax will have something to say. That's what I'm waiting for although the K-1000mk2 intrigues me.

 

[thatonenoob]

Just going to post a general response. I imagine that Sony, being the primary advocate of DSD, probably hopes to use the high frequency benefits of the driver in tandem with the extended audio band afforded by DSD's single-bit high sample rate process.  But I see the issue here (and with DSD in general):
 
SNR on DSD should be pretty awful, but the quantization noise is spread over a very wide audio band.  Most of the time. a higher-order noise shaping curve will be used to move the noise to supposedly inaudible high-frequencies...which leads us to the whole debate...high frequency extension is great, but it also happens to be where all the noise is on DSD.  In my mind, the advantage is thus lost, to a certain extent.  
 
DSD isn't bad imo, it's just not significantly better than PCM, at least not the extent some would have you believe it is.  Two valid methods, but DSD is definitely the more troublesome of the two when it comes to recording w/ dedicated equipment.

 

[jibzilla]

  What proof do you have for any of this?

 
Spec wars that have been going on since probably before you were born. Next thing you know someone is going to release and headphone that does 150khz with some mumbo jumbo b.s. reason you have to buy it, cause it does 150khz.

 

[purk]

Just going to post a general response. I imagine that Sony, being the primary advocate of DSD, probably hopes to use the high frequency benefits of the driver in tandem with the extended audio band afforded by DSD's single-bit high sample rate process.  But I see the issue here (and with DSD in general):

SNR on DSD should be pretty awful, but the quantization noise is spread over a very wide audio band.  Most of the time. a higher-order noise shaping curve will be used to move the noise to supposedly inaudible high-frequencies...which leads us to the whole debate...high frequency extension is great, but it also happens to be where all the noise is on DSD.  In my mind, the advantage is thus lost, to a certain extent.  

DSD isn't bad imo, it's just not significantly better than PCM, at least not the extent some would have you believe it is.  Two valid methods, but DSD is definitely the more troublesome of the two when it comes to recording w/ dedicated equipment.

I am in the hirez PCM camp as well. However. There are lot more hirez materials in the form of SACD/DSD formats.

 

[thanatosguan]

  You don't need higher bit-rates to eliminate clipping, 16bit files are just fine. Sound engineers use the extra bits for moving noise higher up while working with effects and filters that will be perfectly represented in the final product at 16bits. So as you were saying, for actual listening, where is the evidence that higher bit rate files sound different? Anyway, lets not get too far OT  as this isn't the sound science forum so I'll stop myself here.

That's exactly what I meant to say. Sorry, English is not my first language so I might be a bit confusing there. I didn't say anything about the actual listening experience because that's a whole different category, psychoacoustics and such. I'm not as deep into my major to study those things. (Still studying visual processing. The visualism of this world lol.)
 
I believe thatonenoob's post has said almost all there is to say about PCM vs DSD, at least for the consumer side. The real issue is not the medium/format but the mastering. Early SACD tests also noted that some SACDs have different master that significantly improves sound quality as opposed to their CD counterpart, making testing for SACD effectiveness very difficult at times. A similar case can be made for hi-res PCM. Given Sony is one of those few companies that own both a publishing/recording and an audio playback company... they're actually the most likely to pull this off. Sadly, I believe "Mastered for iTunes" and Tidal are beating them to it, again, while they obsess over super hi-res physical medium.
 
As to the "good driver squandered in resonance-heavy housing" part, this is why I hope @thatonenoob can ask Sony about whether it's intentional or not. I'm really looking forward to this new Singapore media event.

 

[deafdoorknob]

review from Japan

z1R v sennheiser hd800

http://www.excite-webtl.jp/world/english/web/?wb_url=http%3A%2F%2Fascii.jp%2Felem%2F000%2F001%2F228%2F1228249%2Findex-4.html&wb_lp=JAEN

 

[Joeybgood]

review from Japan

z1R v sennheiser hd800

http://www.excite-webtl.jp/world/english/web/?wb_url=http%3A%2F%2Fascii.jp%2Felem%2F000%2F001%2F228%2F1228249%2Findex-4.html&wb_lp=JAEN

hmmmm... my translation isn't particularly good. Had a tough time following it. If anyone was able to grasp the gist of this reviewers impressions better than I could, would you be kind enough to  paraphrase? tks

 

[beowulf]

hmmmm... my translation isn't particularly good. Had a tough time following it. If anyone was able to grasp the gist of this reviewers impressions better than I could, would you be kind enough to  paraphrase? tks

Some improvement with Google Translation/formatting in link below, but still a bit cryptic.

"But headphone MDR-Z1R seems to have no longer heard in the speaker!"

Anyway, interesting read, good find @deafdoorknob
It looks positive from what I understood. Build quality, comfort, sound.

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&nv=1&prev=_m&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://ascii.jp/elem/000/001/228/1228249/&usg=ALkJrhgJR94hGlxgBnUFminTbJDjtuwOxQ

 

[krayzie]

I can't believe they are going with that silver plated copper stuff again for the stock cable, it's gonna sound like crap as with the Z7. It's like Sony is trying hard to sell that Kimber Kable option.

 

[yukihasi]

  hmmmm... my translation isn't particularly good. Had a tough time following it. If anyone was able to grasp the gist of this reviewers impressions better than I could, would you be kind enough to  paraphrase? tks

Summarized:
 
Smooth and good "presentness"
Soudstage extends very well, makes you think the sound is coming from outside of the headphones.
Neutral, lots of details from instrument, easy to grasp instrument placement while listening.
Solid mid-bass range impact.
Having decent attacks with drums while not being stimulating, close to the real life drums.
Vocal is clear and full of nuance 
 
Maybe will update the HD800 comparison later...