Hi, this is my first review of any headphones, and I'm aware that these are probably quite odd headphones to start on, but I got them at Christmas, and I think I've listened to these both with and without the mods a sufficient amount to be able to give a review. First things first, my use case is listening to a mixture of Noise Rock/Post-Hardcore, EDM and Alternative Rock, and also using these for YouTube and gaming. I'm generally a fan of a bass-boosted sound signature for all of these things, as it just makes them sound more fun to me.
As a point of comparison, my previous headphones are the original Sennheiser Momentum Over-ears, another warm set, though much smaller and lighter. Both have been driven from my Phone, and from my PC (onboard only, though I intend to get a Schiit Stack at some point in the next month or so, and it should be noted, my PCs onboard Audio is fairly good). I've also had most of the low price IEMs that get recommended on the sub, KZ ATEs, Xiaomi Piston 1/2/3 etc, but they occupy a very different product category, and have demoed other fashion/casual use headphones like the B&O H8 and the MDR 1000Xs
Build Quality, Design and Comfort
The MDR Z7 has absolutely fantastic build quality, being constructed mostly from aluminium and leather, with only some internal parts of the headband being plastic. The leather on the top of the headband is relatively thick and solid, with a heavy, visible grain, while the underside is a much softer smoother leather over a plush foam, however the edges of the leather part of the headband cover a hard part of the structure of the headband. These hard parts don't touch my head, though depending on the size and shape of your head, they might. The adjustment sliders of the headphones are aluminium, with a nice clicky action when resizing the headphones, with 10 notches on each side providing a good range for expansion. The slider housings are a high polish aluminium, while the sliders themselves are a sandblasted finish. The headband is attached to the earcups by an aluminium gimbal which encompasses half of the cup, and allow maybe 20 degrees of pivot inward and 5 degrees of pivot outward. the tilt and swivel of the cup gives them a good range of motion to help with fit. Overall, the headband is fantastically solid and well built. The earcups are definitely the part of the build I like least, as while the magnesium is probably high quality, and the mottled texture on the outside of the cups is both attractive and feels good in the hand, they feel very thin and hollow, and feel very plastic. Otherwise, the cups are nicely shaped and attractive, and feature venting at both the top and bottom of the cans to make them slightly open. (Spoiler for the Modding section) the actual construction of the headphones internally is very solid, and reassuring, but the cups are thin and undamped.
Moving on from the cups, we come to the earpads; made from a thicker version of the leather on the underside of the headband, and filled with a soft foam, these pads are frankly glorious. They're angled, along with the driver baffles, to give good internal clearance for my ears. They're insanely soft, thick and cover a large area of the head, meaning a low pressure on the sides of the head. They're also replaceable, though you need a precision screwdriver to get them off, and the size of the cup means that getting replacements may be difficult, though I'm not 100% on that, and short of changing them out for velours to try to boost treble and soundstage, I don't see any point in swapping pads. Living in Britain, I have yet to see what these cans are like in high temperatures, but I'm expecting a fair bit of sweating.
So what does all of the above mean for comfort? They're fantastic. The pads combined with the soft headband, and the good pivoting of the cups mean they shape perfectly to the head, and the clamping pressure for me is perfect; tight enough to get a good seal and for them to stay on, but not painful at all. Compared to the Momentums (which I've found very comfortable, and are over ears for me, I know some people have issues with the smallish pads), the MDR Z7 is in a whole new league. The moderate 335g weight (without cable) is well distributed. Talking of the cable, these come with two: a 3m 3.5mm terminated cable and a (I think) 2m dual 3.5mm balanced cable for use with Sony DAC/Amps. Ive only used the Single ended cable, so I can only really give feedback on that. I really like the cable, it's a good length, with nice rubberized sleeving with a slight texture. It hasn't held its shape from packaging and is very flexible, and the jacks at either end are solid, with locking connectors at the headphone end. According to some on Head-Fi, it ruins the audio quality of the headphone and must be replaced with the highest grade Silver and Snake Oil cables money can buy, but I'm gonna doubt that one for now. Moving on...
Sound (Pre-Mod)
The sound of these things straight out of the box can be described as very warm, with midbass that even I, a big fan of Bass, thought was over the top, overshadowing the rest of the range badly, whilst also being somewhat boomy due to the reverberation in the cups. That's not to say they sounded horrible, it's just that for any music other than a few EDM songs, I found the bass too overpowering and that songs ended up having large parts obscured. EQ'ing the midbass down by ~2-4dB really helped, and brought these into a much much more reasonable sound signature, whilst maintaining a nice warm sound. They also benefit from having better amping than a cell phone, with the bass being significantly more punchy and tight on my PC.
The sub-bass extension is decent but not incredible, at least as stock, but with some slight EQ it can be brought up to a much better position in the mix. The bass impact is pretty fantastic, (most impact at stock without EQ, but the boominess is not a worthwhile trade off to me) and I imagine that this is due to the relatively massive 70mm drivers. Bass Texture and speed is ok at stock, but the reverb from the cups is kind of killer in this regard, obscuring a fair amount of detail by making decay slower.
As stock, the midrange is somewhat lacking, obscured by the bass, and with a dip around 1.6khz that messes with vocals and leaves a slight hollow sound to some songs. outside of this dip, the midrange is fairly enjoyable, though the bass bloom means it can be hard to tell. EQ'd the midrange sounds pretty nice, with a warm tone but good detail, at least compared to the other audio equipment I've heard, and a good tone for the music I listen to, fitting my sonic preferences quite well.
The Treble of the Z7 is somewhat unusual, with a big dip and a peak, at 4 and 8 KHz respectively, which mean it can sound bright at times, and sound like the treble is totally lacking at others. Again, this is an area i found hard to evaluate at stock because it feels so overshadowed. Once the Bass was EQ'd down slightly, it seemed like the treble outside of the dip was enjoyable, and the peak brought some nice detail into the sound.
These are essentially closed headphones, yet the sound stage and imaging, even out of the box was very surprising, offering good width and separation, though sometimes the sound seems to only come from either side of the head, with very little in the middle of the soundscape, with some sounds which moved from one side to the other skipping across the part immediately in front of me. This was most noticeable in gaming, where it made finding enemies off of sound slightly awkward, as an enemy who was five degrees right, and one which was 30 degrees right would sound identical, with sound only coming from the front if the source was directly ahead. Away from centre stage there is a good range of separation and positioning
Modding
The biggest recommendation I can make for anyone considering a pair of these is that they buy some medical porous tape and Precision Screwdrivers. The biggest downside of these headphones, a bloated reverb-y midbass is largely due to the lack of damping in the cups, and the improvements from remedying this are surprising in the extreme. I opened up the cups, following a guide found on head fi, and applied a couple of layers of damping to the inside of the cups, and to part of the back of the drivers. I may also add some dynamat to the drivers in future as it apparently further improves the sound. The midbass is tamed and reverb reduced, meaning the rest of the range is brought up, and everything gains a great deal of clarity. The bass speed is much better, as is the texture making them better for EDM, provided you don't mid the decrease in impact. The other mod I recommend is adding some foam behind the pads to prevent them covering the drivers as much, as it boosts the treble slightly, making them slightly V shaped, and making the sound signature have more air to it, and as such, widening the sound stage slightly. The experience of modding these was interesting, as it was the only time I disliked the fantastic build quality, as all of the screws were difficult to remove, meaning i needed to apply a fair amount of pressure to turn them, and a couple of little slips have left my headband with a couple of nasty scratches. Thankfully, aside from this, the cans are easy to disassemble, with no glue or awkward clips, so reassembly was swift.
Post mod sound
So, the sound after modding can probably be guessed from a few qualifiers in the pre mod section, and from the modding section, but to give more accurate feedback, I'll say that the bass has been tamed to give a more enjoyable sound, which fits a wider range of genres, and an improved treble response which brings out the best in these headphones, adding detail and soundstage. The midrange still has the dip, so I still use some EQ to fix that and boost the sub bass slightly, but the mod really does do wonders. For a total cost of £3.50 and a couple of hours, I feel like this is essential. It was also kind of fun to dismantle something and tweak it, so this may not be my last venture into modding.
Isolation
The isolation of these headphones is odd. with sound playing, they isolate from the outside quite well for a vented can, probably due to the large pads and drivers blocking out most of the outside air, but with no sound, they isolate very poorly, letting in huge amounts of sound. Outside the headphones, leakage is fairly bad, with others being able to hear what I'm listening to from nearby if the room is quiet, or just hearing a small noise in a louder environment.
Amping
As I said, these can be driven to a high volume from a smartphone but they do appreciate a bit more power to tighten up the sound. They need more amping than my Momentums, but as a non-portable large headphone, with a massive driver, they manage to be very efficient.
Conclusion
If you need some warm headphones with a closed back, and you can get these for less than MSRP, they're probably worth considering, if you don't mind modding them. The comfort is fantastic, and the sound, while not necessarily to everyone's taste for music can be improved easily and works well for movies and gaming. All in all, well worth the ~£200 these were bought for.
As a point of comparison, my previous headphones are the original Sennheiser Momentum Over-ears, another warm set, though much smaller and lighter. Both have been driven from my Phone, and from my PC (onboard only, though I intend to get a Schiit Stack at some point in the next month or so, and it should be noted, my PCs onboard Audio is fairly good). I've also had most of the low price IEMs that get recommended on the sub, KZ ATEs, Xiaomi Piston 1/2/3 etc, but they occupy a very different product category, and have demoed other fashion/casual use headphones like the B&O H8 and the MDR 1000Xs
Build Quality, Design and Comfort
The MDR Z7 has absolutely fantastic build quality, being constructed mostly from aluminium and leather, with only some internal parts of the headband being plastic. The leather on the top of the headband is relatively thick and solid, with a heavy, visible grain, while the underside is a much softer smoother leather over a plush foam, however the edges of the leather part of the headband cover a hard part of the structure of the headband. These hard parts don't touch my head, though depending on the size and shape of your head, they might. The adjustment sliders of the headphones are aluminium, with a nice clicky action when resizing the headphones, with 10 notches on each side providing a good range for expansion. The slider housings are a high polish aluminium, while the sliders themselves are a sandblasted finish. The headband is attached to the earcups by an aluminium gimbal which encompasses half of the cup, and allow maybe 20 degrees of pivot inward and 5 degrees of pivot outward. the tilt and swivel of the cup gives them a good range of motion to help with fit. Overall, the headband is fantastically solid and well built. The earcups are definitely the part of the build I like least, as while the magnesium is probably high quality, and the mottled texture on the outside of the cups is both attractive and feels good in the hand, they feel very thin and hollow, and feel very plastic. Otherwise, the cups are nicely shaped and attractive, and feature venting at both the top and bottom of the cans to make them slightly open. (Spoiler for the Modding section) the actual construction of the headphones internally is very solid, and reassuring, but the cups are thin and undamped.
Moving on from the cups, we come to the earpads; made from a thicker version of the leather on the underside of the headband, and filled with a soft foam, these pads are frankly glorious. They're angled, along with the driver baffles, to give good internal clearance for my ears. They're insanely soft, thick and cover a large area of the head, meaning a low pressure on the sides of the head. They're also replaceable, though you need a precision screwdriver to get them off, and the size of the cup means that getting replacements may be difficult, though I'm not 100% on that, and short of changing them out for velours to try to boost treble and soundstage, I don't see any point in swapping pads. Living in Britain, I have yet to see what these cans are like in high temperatures, but I'm expecting a fair bit of sweating.
So what does all of the above mean for comfort? They're fantastic. The pads combined with the soft headband, and the good pivoting of the cups mean they shape perfectly to the head, and the clamping pressure for me is perfect; tight enough to get a good seal and for them to stay on, but not painful at all. Compared to the Momentums (which I've found very comfortable, and are over ears for me, I know some people have issues with the smallish pads), the MDR Z7 is in a whole new league. The moderate 335g weight (without cable) is well distributed. Talking of the cable, these come with two: a 3m 3.5mm terminated cable and a (I think) 2m dual 3.5mm balanced cable for use with Sony DAC/Amps. Ive only used the Single ended cable, so I can only really give feedback on that. I really like the cable, it's a good length, with nice rubberized sleeving with a slight texture. It hasn't held its shape from packaging and is very flexible, and the jacks at either end are solid, with locking connectors at the headphone end. According to some on Head-Fi, it ruins the audio quality of the headphone and must be replaced with the highest grade Silver and Snake Oil cables money can buy, but I'm gonna doubt that one for now. Moving on...
Sound (Pre-Mod)
The sound of these things straight out of the box can be described as very warm, with midbass that even I, a big fan of Bass, thought was over the top, overshadowing the rest of the range badly, whilst also being somewhat boomy due to the reverberation in the cups. That's not to say they sounded horrible, it's just that for any music other than a few EDM songs, I found the bass too overpowering and that songs ended up having large parts obscured. EQ'ing the midbass down by ~2-4dB really helped, and brought these into a much much more reasonable sound signature, whilst maintaining a nice warm sound. They also benefit from having better amping than a cell phone, with the bass being significantly more punchy and tight on my PC.
The sub-bass extension is decent but not incredible, at least as stock, but with some slight EQ it can be brought up to a much better position in the mix. The bass impact is pretty fantastic, (most impact at stock without EQ, but the boominess is not a worthwhile trade off to me) and I imagine that this is due to the relatively massive 70mm drivers. Bass Texture and speed is ok at stock, but the reverb from the cups is kind of killer in this regard, obscuring a fair amount of detail by making decay slower.
As stock, the midrange is somewhat lacking, obscured by the bass, and with a dip around 1.6khz that messes with vocals and leaves a slight hollow sound to some songs. outside of this dip, the midrange is fairly enjoyable, though the bass bloom means it can be hard to tell. EQ'd the midrange sounds pretty nice, with a warm tone but good detail, at least compared to the other audio equipment I've heard, and a good tone for the music I listen to, fitting my sonic preferences quite well.
The Treble of the Z7 is somewhat unusual, with a big dip and a peak, at 4 and 8 KHz respectively, which mean it can sound bright at times, and sound like the treble is totally lacking at others. Again, this is an area i found hard to evaluate at stock because it feels so overshadowed. Once the Bass was EQ'd down slightly, it seemed like the treble outside of the dip was enjoyable, and the peak brought some nice detail into the sound.
These are essentially closed headphones, yet the sound stage and imaging, even out of the box was very surprising, offering good width and separation, though sometimes the sound seems to only come from either side of the head, with very little in the middle of the soundscape, with some sounds which moved from one side to the other skipping across the part immediately in front of me. This was most noticeable in gaming, where it made finding enemies off of sound slightly awkward, as an enemy who was five degrees right, and one which was 30 degrees right would sound identical, with sound only coming from the front if the source was directly ahead. Away from centre stage there is a good range of separation and positioning
Modding
The biggest recommendation I can make for anyone considering a pair of these is that they buy some medical porous tape and Precision Screwdrivers. The biggest downside of these headphones, a bloated reverb-y midbass is largely due to the lack of damping in the cups, and the improvements from remedying this are surprising in the extreme. I opened up the cups, following a guide found on head fi, and applied a couple of layers of damping to the inside of the cups, and to part of the back of the drivers. I may also add some dynamat to the drivers in future as it apparently further improves the sound. The midbass is tamed and reverb reduced, meaning the rest of the range is brought up, and everything gains a great deal of clarity. The bass speed is much better, as is the texture making them better for EDM, provided you don't mid the decrease in impact. The other mod I recommend is adding some foam behind the pads to prevent them covering the drivers as much, as it boosts the treble slightly, making them slightly V shaped, and making the sound signature have more air to it, and as such, widening the sound stage slightly. The experience of modding these was interesting, as it was the only time I disliked the fantastic build quality, as all of the screws were difficult to remove, meaning i needed to apply a fair amount of pressure to turn them, and a couple of little slips have left my headband with a couple of nasty scratches. Thankfully, aside from this, the cans are easy to disassemble, with no glue or awkward clips, so reassembly was swift.
Post mod sound
So, the sound after modding can probably be guessed from a few qualifiers in the pre mod section, and from the modding section, but to give more accurate feedback, I'll say that the bass has been tamed to give a more enjoyable sound, which fits a wider range of genres, and an improved treble response which brings out the best in these headphones, adding detail and soundstage. The midrange still has the dip, so I still use some EQ to fix that and boost the sub bass slightly, but the mod really does do wonders. For a total cost of £3.50 and a couple of hours, I feel like this is essential. It was also kind of fun to dismantle something and tweak it, so this may not be my last venture into modding.
Isolation
The isolation of these headphones is odd. with sound playing, they isolate from the outside quite well for a vented can, probably due to the large pads and drivers blocking out most of the outside air, but with no sound, they isolate very poorly, letting in huge amounts of sound. Outside the headphones, leakage is fairly bad, with others being able to hear what I'm listening to from nearby if the room is quiet, or just hearing a small noise in a louder environment.
Amping
As I said, these can be driven to a high volume from a smartphone but they do appreciate a bit more power to tighten up the sound. They need more amping than my Momentums, but as a non-portable large headphone, with a massive driver, they manage to be very efficient.
Conclusion
If you need some warm headphones with a closed back, and you can get these for less than MSRP, they're probably worth considering, if you don't mind modding them. The comfort is fantastic, and the sound, while not necessarily to everyone's taste for music can be improved easily and works well for movies and gaming. All in all, well worth the ~£200 these were bought for.
