Tonight I went to put on some nice music (Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan) to listen to while doing my e-mail. Listening to music on my Sennheiser HD-455 headphones has always been a treat. I've enjoyed those cans for the past two and a half years (I reviewed them here long ago). Tonight however I put them on, turned the stereo on and . . . NOTHING!! The cat had chewed through the cord!!! VERY upset, I went downstairs to borrow my botherers pair of Sony MDR-P10's which he never uses. I now know why he never uses them . . .These Sony's are peices of JUNK! I'm listeing to Sheryl Crow's "The Globe Sessions" CD right now with them. I immediately noticed how different they sounded. The highs are flat, the midrange seems muffled, and the bass seems muddy and undefined - also there's a hump in mid-bass response. The music seems noticably louder than her voice, which seems distant. In NO WAY do these even approach my lower-to-mid-level Sennheisers!! The stereo separation seems good though, but that might be due to the fact that these are an incredibly enclosed desing, and I'm used to the open design of the Senn's.
By "incredibly" enclosed I mean that you can't hear ANYTHING from the outside world, and the phones grasp your head tightly too - incredible here is by no means a compliment!
These MDR-P10's are extremely uncomfortable - I've had them on now for maybe 45 minutes and my ears are sweating, and the hard headband is pressing the top of my head. The grip is also far too tight. This design kind of cups the area around your ears and has space inside for your ears to be free and uncompressed - an ok idea I guess, but it doesn't work. They might not press against your ears like most uncomfortable phones do, but they do press agains your jaw and your head which is just as bad. AND they're hot inside too!! My ears are sweating, I didn't think that was possible. Ah, the things I'll do to hear my music . . .
These are the worst headphones I've ever tried. Complete trash and a waste of money. You can get better headphones for ANY price ($10 Panasonics even). I can't wait to get to my local dealer tomorrow to replace the cord for my wonderful Sennheisers (I never realized just how wonderful they were until tonight!)! DO NOT BUY THESE!!! I can't imagine the rest of the Sony line would be too much different either, but I don't want to generalize. Stay away from these! Go look at Sennheiser, Grado, or even Koss or Panasonic for some good 'phones.
Later!
mike s
v7q2@unb.ca