[ayaflo]

Can anyone compare this to Sony's current flagship can?

 
I have compared the SA5k to the previous flagship of Sony , the Z-1000. I will provide the link if you are interested.
 
Cheers,
~A

 

[3ternalDr4gon]

Please do

 

[ayaflo]

http://www.head-fi.org/t/699891/sony-a-review-in-retrospect
 
Regards,
~A

 

[Ra97oR]

BTW always disconnect SA5000 before powerup the headamp, 1 driver was blown up from powerup spike of my Musical Fidelity X-CAN V3 even at min. volume control to be save.

Also the pleather around the front real leather disintergrated, so i just wash/peeling all pleather off.
Now they are perfect breathable cloth surround the front leather, not much warm, sweaty ears now.

Really depends on the amp itself. It is perfectly safe for my headphone to be plugged in power up or down in my amps. Amps should not blow up headphones from normal use. With 1500mW power handling on the SA5000, it isn't something you should tip toe around either. Good luck to other headphone with lower power handling, gg IEMs.

 

[ThePartyPooper]

Shameless self plug but I'm letting my SA5k go on eBay if anyone is interested. 
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-MDR-SA5000-Headband-Headphones-Silver-Black-/271662562809?
 
Recently got the new Z7 and they've dethroned my SA5k =]

 

[3ternalDr4gon]

Can you provide a comparison? Are they officially closed or open back? I know there's some open filter thingy on the bottom of the cans, but idk if that's enough to consider them open or not

 

[cdsa35000]

Shameless self plug but I'm letting my SA5k go on eBay if anyone is interested. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sony-MDR-SA5000-Headband-Headphones-Silver-Black-/271662562809?

Recently got the new Z7 and they've dethroned my SA5k =]

70mm Mercedes drivers bass heavy, sounds perfect for Gaming! hehe will save money some for the Z7!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-SONY-MDR-Z7-High-Resolution-Audio-Headphones-HD-Driver-Units-Monitoring-/161480981150?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item2599043a9e

 

[cdsa35000]

You may be right, and I may have been fooled by the white texture diaphragms of the SA3000 and SA5000, looking very much like the biocellulose membranes of the CD3000 and CD2000. "Nanocomposite" is a combined material (fibre/filler) on a microscopic level, producing a strong and stiff material. Since companies want to keep its manufaturing processes secret, Sony never told us what materials the SA3000, SA5000 and Qualia membranes were made of.

The CD1700 and CD2000 used Vectran as fibre base to the biocellulose, and Vectran is actually a liquid crystal polymer, LCP, which is the material used for the MDR-Z1000 diaphragm. The Z1000 membrane is golden transparent with no visible fibre structure. This may be due to the nanocomposite manufacturing process, melting fibre and filler together.

Enclose a few pics of the different drivers.

Sony Qualia:





Sony SA5000:



Sony CD3000:




Sony MDR-Z1000:

Sony told in the Qualia manual what material is used: Silica/PA66 Nano-composite Sheet = Silica siO2/Polymide PA66 nano composite material, so it's nano glass/plastic fibre is almost biocellulose synthetic imitation likewise.

 

[cdsa35000]

Can you provide a comparison? Are they officially closed or open back? I know there's some open filter thingy on the bottom of the cans, but idk if that's enough to consider them open or not

SA5000/3000/1000 are officially open air design, but in reality they are half open as before the back round metal grill is covered with a thin black porous round paper sheet.
It was a crappy bubbly not evenly paper that will vibrate with the bass sound, so I just replaced it with a piece of 2mm floor vinyl.
It's now quarter open as the inner housing is still breathable paperfibre material.
Beside the vinyl mod, I covered all the inner plastic frontplate and any bare driver parts with wall repair paperfibre tape and some speaker damping woll to reduce inner vibration and standing waves.
Sound are improved with more body and air/space control, even stereo sounds like (virtual) surround.
Combined with modded X-CAN V3 hybrid ss/tube headamp, I'm totally satisfied with the tonal quality and won't need any other mods or gears for now.

 

[Paul Graham]

I still own mine and would never part with them now.
They're like a good wine that keeps getting better with age.

 

[Paul Graham]

Just an idea....
How about editing the title of this thread to
Sony MDR-SA5000 Owners Club.
And maybe edit the first post with a list of current owners as a point of reference?

 

[E3E]

I still have my poor SA5000s. Humid weather does not bode well for pleather, and I was surprised to see that the earpads, which were advertised as lambskin leather, starting to peel. Well, half of them anyway. I felt quite jipped. I also had to fix my headband thanks to it snapping due to my stupidity in trying to fix a small bend in it. Can't really solder or weld aluminum/magnesium to easily, so ya know. That wasn't fun.

Those Sony MDR-Z7 look like monsters. How do they compare to the SA5000s? They look so bland and unexciting, but that price tag must mean something, aside from just being expensive. 70mm drivers? Holy cow.

 

[ayaflo]

  I still have my poor SA5000s. Humid weather does not bode well for pleather, and I was surprised to see that the earpads, which were advertised as lambskin leather, starting to peel. Well, half of them anyway. I felt quite jipped. I also had to fix my headband thanks to it snapping due to my stupidity in trying to fix a small bend in it. Can't really solder or weld aluminum/magnesium to easily, so ya know. That wasn't fun.

Those Sony MDR-Z7 look like monsters. How do they compare to the SA5000s? They look so bland and unexciting, but that price tag must mean something, aside from just being expensive. 70mm drivers? Holy cow.

 
I do not think the SA5k's can be touched a lot in speed and resolution by many cans today ...

 

[E3E]

   
I do not think the SA5k's can be touched a lot in speed and resolution by many cans today ...

Makes me quite happy to own them! They were my first pair of cans that I bought with scrounged up cash as a teenager. Well, my first REAL pair. Before that, the best I had were the Sony V700DJ phones, which were pretty nice, but certainly nothing overly remarkable. I then bought the SA5k's older brother, the CD3000 and I have to say, I use them both for different kinds of music. They're very expressive cans. The 5ks are amazing for anything that has a lot of nuances and detail. The CD3ks are a bit more colorful, I'd say? I like listening to older recordings with them.

 

[cdsa35000]

Only the front piece is real leather, I had to peel off all the surrounding disintergrading pleathers, now's good with breathable base cloth material.

All those plastic diaphragm can't compare with the "natural airly" transient tonality of the porous white paperfibre's like material.

I use my SA5000 with headamp for htpc and gaming/music.
I use my CD3000 without headamp with mp3players/nds/psp/music-midi keyboards because they low impedance/high sensitive easy to drive for portables.