Review on SONY MDR-Z1R WW2 Signature: Superior Sound Quality in Black (International Version) by Charley Martinez

I've been listening to Sony Z1R headphones for the sixth week now. Each listen gets better and better and always starts with an involuntary laugh at how ridiculously good they sound to my ears. Kudos to Sony for their decision to end their R&D efforts on these headphones. One could enumerate the innovations that have gone into the design and construction, but the only attribute that really matters is how they sound to my discerning ears. In the last 3 years I have tried almost all audiophile headphones. I've bought and sold dozens of cans, from top planar to dynamic and electrostatic. I thought I'd found perfectly closed headphones in the MrSpeaker Ether Flow C until I heard the Z1R for the first time. I couldn't listen to him and ended up throwing my Flow Cs away because I just didn't use them anymore. So now I have a pair of Senn in my collection. Open-back headphones HD800S and closed-back headphones Sony Z1R. I have to say that my Z1R gets 80% of my hearing simply because they work best with most of my amps and source material. I still take the HD800S with me to listen to music on my Woo WA8 at home, but the Z1R is always with me when I go to the coffee shop or office. The soundproofing is excellent even at low volume. And when you pair them with the Sony ZH1ES headphone amplifier, wow! I went back and listened to my collection of live recordings and heard background audio content that I had never heard before. And the soundstage transmitted from the ZH1ES to the Z1R is like nothing I've heard before from an amp or headphone combo. Even at last year's CanJam, the only thing this combo could beat was the Sennheiser Orpheus. Even after listening to the Sony combo on CanJam, I can't remember it sounding as good as what I'm currently listening to at home. Yes, it is very expensive compared to other options. My excuse for spending $4,000 on the Sony Z1R + ZH1ES combo was pretty straightforward. As soon as I received them, they became like "my jewel", my only ring that surpasses everything else. So I sold everything else and now I have a reference system that suits me so well that I don't want to buy anything else. I've found my perfect setup in the Z1R, which can travel with me and my WM1A, my Woo WA8, or be my desktop audio reference when I'm at home and paired with my ZH1ES.