Pros: It sounds however you want it to. Low distortion. They get LOUD
Cons: heavy; uncomfortable after prolonged use.
The Bottom Line: These are damn good headphones. I'm sure there are better professional solutions out there. Blah. These are way better than like 80% of customers need. Go ahead and splurge.
rapier21's Full Review: Sony MDR-V700DJ Professional Headphones
I bought the MDR-V700's over six months ago, and I had been reading many reviews here on epinions and other places to help make up my mind. I'm writing this to help clarify some of the misinformation/biased opinions out there.
I've read reviews that say that the bass is excellent, others that say that the bass is ok and the mids/highs are too weak, and still others that say that the highs/mids are too loud. This proves one thing: they are entirely dependent on the thing you've got them plugged into. So if you have a bad cdplayer, it'll sound bad. Likewise, if you have good cdplayer/stereo, it'll sound good. This also means that you can make them sound however you want and they will respond. For example, I like my classical rich and full. Up the mids and the bass a little and im in good shape. Rap tends to have too loud highs. So I lower the highs and leave the bass and mids at default. Sounds good. You can do this and it'll work with any headphone, but these can just about take as much bass/mids/trebs as you can throw at it and it'll distort minimally if it all. The only drawback to this is if you're plugging them into a device with no EQ sliders/presets (you can't adjust lows, mids, highs). One cool thing about the bass: the 50 millimeter neodymium drivers are so powerful that the headphones shake quite noticably when you put your hand on the earpiece. Otherwise, it just blends right into the experience.... :-)
I have a Panasonic Shockwave SL-SW850, and by giving it the bass boost, it brings the bass and mids to good levels. Of course, the bass doesn't sound as good on a cd player as it does on a stereo/computer because cd players generally only go down to 20 Hz and the V700s can do 5 Hz. In addition to being adaptable to whatever settings you throw at it, it continues to spit out great clear sound until you get into high volumes. By that I mean so loud that its not even comfortable listening to anyway. Around there is where the bass starts to distort and it crackles a little on the highs.
But then again, there's probably some "weirdos" out there who like their music extremely loud. If you think you're one of those people, you need to try out headphones that enclose your entire ear fist, THEN see how loud you like to play it. My friend was one of those people who has those ghetto cheap headphones turned up so loud that you can hear it clearly from the outside. After trying my V700's he found that playing at his old volume levels was too loud and that the headphones sound full and rich even at lower volumes, even though they're not "loud" at that point.
Another great thing about these headphones is their precision. Instead of getting homogeneous sound as you do with most headphones, you can pick out and concentrate on individual instruments or voices, even if they're way in the background. The result is like you're in the recording studio with your favorite band and they're playing around you. You can turn to face one particular member and listen to them while sorta tuning out the others. You can do the same with these headphones.
One of the effects of having headphones that enclose your entire ear is that people outside can't hear your music at all until it gets quite loud inside. These are no exception. After I was finished with my finals and sitting bored in class, I busted out my V700's and turned on the Sublime. People taking the tests couldn't hear one bar of it. Of course, I didn't have it on as loud as I'd have liked to, but it wasn't exactly low if you know what I mean.
The other effect is that you become immersed in the music. Many a night I lay on my bed with my eyes closed and my music cranked up, and even with all the traffic outside and dogs barking, I can only hear the music. It feels like my head is detatched from my body and the rest of the "real world" and is floating in this luminous, soft ether of music. You really have to experience it to know what I'm talking about.
These headphones do have their downsides, however. One of them is price. When I was looking for headphones, I didn't really want to spend more than $50. I was visiting my audiophile friend at one point and I heard his V900's and I was hooked. They sounded way better than any of the $50 Sony, Koss or Panasonic headphones I'd tried. Of course, they cost about 4 times as much, but hey, you generally get what you pay for. I was looking at the V600's but decided on the V700s because the price difference was only $30 back then and the V700s are the lowest model with the 50 mm drivers. Anyway, I thought it was worth the price, but others may not.
Another thing most people dislike is the weight. They really are fine for the first three quarters of an hour or so, then they get obnoxious. My ears start hurting and they get pretty hot. A 5 minute break fixes this.
Oh I forgot another plus. The swivel earcups are really nice for DJ/remix apps when you just want to listen for a short time or if you want to listen to house sound while cueing up the next track. I do sound for my highschool theatre and that feature is pretty useful. Anyway, back to the things wrong with them.
On the nit-picky side, the outside of the earcups looks like its in metal, and it is. However, on top where the designs and letters are is a thin finish which scratches easily when it comes into contact with other metals. It makes big unsightly scratches since the material underneath is slightly darker than that of on top. Other than that, these things are solid as a rock. I've dropped them several times, twisted them wickedly, bent the headband, shut my car door on the cord (I love how it coils up; unrelated note) and every time it comes back to how it was before.
Another downside is that it looks really cool and it sounds really good. This is a minus because these attributes make it a nice target for theft. So just make sure you don't leave them unattended or you may just find yourself short of a sound replecation device. :-)
As you can tell, I really don't think much of these downsides but others may not, and my goal is to try to give people a somewhat accurate idea of how these things are. I mean, sure there are better sounding things and there are ones that are more comfortable, and ones that cost less, but this is an incredibly balanced set of headphones. Great sound, especially for casual listening. These will satisfy most audiophiles as well because of how well they sound for how little they cost. I mean have you seen the prices of sennheisers? Like $250-$350! Im sure they're absolutely wonderful and all, but come on...even $120 is quite a pretty penny in my mind. You may be able to "get away" with getting V600's for a little less, but a 10 mm difference in diameter is significant. The area of a 40 mm driver is 1256.64 sq mm, whereas the area of a 50 mm driver is 1963.49 sq mm, which is slightly more than 56% bigger. Bigger drivers = better bass with lower distortion. Now is half again as much power worth $30-40? That's up to you. It was for me.
Anyway, I hope you've found my review useful. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, please feel free to contact me at Rapier_21@hotmail.com
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