Headphone Reviews

Sound Quality
I really spent a lot of time listening to these headphones, and comparing them to two other heavy hitters in this category: the Shure SRH440 and Audio Technica ATH-M50.

I heard the ZX700 as having a moderately forward mid-range; slightly below average bass extension, but good articulation; and slightly grainy, but well-balanced, highs. For a headphone of this price, I felt the Sonys delivered a very nicely balanced sound. When compared to the M50 and SRH440, I found the ZX700 to have a better overall balance. The heftier mid-range did a lot to bring the music together into a unified whole. While it didn't have the meaty bass, it also didn't suffer from the somewhat more strident highs of the other two cans.

As I was disassembling the MDR-ZX700, I saw that it had significantly angled and fairly large (50mm) drivers. The M50 drivers are smaller (45mm) and are slightly angled; the Shure drivers are 40mm and are not angled. I would have though this might make for better imaging on the Sonys, but I didn't find that to be the case. The SRH440 seemed to image the best, and the M50 was about the same as the ZX700. But where the ZX700 did best the other two was in the naturalness of the sound balance. It might be that a more accurate entrance angle to the ear and larger diaphragm making the wavefront more planar was creating a more natural interaction with the ear. Pure speculation, but it felt like there was something to it.

In the end, I moderately preferred the Sony MDR-ZX700 to the other two cans. The M50 was close, but it's also somewhat more expensive. Bass lovers should probably go with one of the other cans, but I think the better balance of the ZX700 would win over most folks in the long run.

Measurements
I received these headphones during one of the long burn-in tests and did quite a bit of listening before getting to see the measurements. (I usually listen first anyway, but not for this long). I was quite surprised these cans measured relatively poorly as the listening tests were quite good. Measurements aren't everything, eh?

Frequency response graph shows consistent seal with changing positions, and bass roll-off starting at 80Hz, which is consistent with listening tests. Response is fairly flat from 80Hz to 2kHz, but the cans sounded a bit more mid-range emphatic. The large spike at 9kHz is unsettling, as is the leading edge of the 300Hz square wave; I would have thought from the measurements the cans would be strident, but I didn't hear them as such. Impulse response is pretty poor, and coupled with the ragged 300Hz square wave leading edge may explain the "graininess" heard.

Droopy 30Hz square wave response and elevated levels at the low end of the THD+noise graph indicate poor bass response. Though I heard the bass as a weak point on these cans, the lows didn't sound as bad as they look in the measurements.

At 27 Ohms impedance, needing only 40mVrms to reach 90dB, isolation well above average for a headphone of this type, and a low price to boot, these make for very good traveling cans driven directly from a portable player.

Summary
I'm really happy the lady from Sony took the time to reach out to me with these very nice headphones, and I'm really, really happy to hear and experience a headphone this good from Sony. I think they pretty much nailed the $100 full-size sealed headphone category with the MDR-ZX700. They look good, feel good, and sound really good for a sealed headphone at that price point.

While they'd be a perfectly fine general purpose headphone in the studio or home, I really think these shine as a portable headphone, or as a college student can. Yup, highly recommended.

Can't wait to try the similar in design, but way more expensive MDR-Z1000!

Resources after the video!

Resources
Sony pages for the MDR-ZX700 and MDR-Z1000.
Head-Fi threads on the MDR-ZX700 here, here, and here.