By Craig Anderton | Fri, 01 Jan 2010
www.sony.com/proaudio
I used Sony headphones many years
ago as my primary “cans” until they
basically wore out from extreme use.
As I like to try different products I
moved on to check out various other
phones, but always felt the Sony’s were
above average in terms of clarity.
The MDR-7509HD stereo
headphones have been around for a
while, and are well-regarded by those
into headphones, so I was interested in
checking them out. They’re ready to
go out of the box: no cord to attach,
1/4" adapter already screwed in . . .
plug ’n’ play. And, they retain the same
level of comfort as the somewhat
older, but still current MDR-7506.
Tonally, Sony headphones have a
particular character to me—high in
mid/upper mid clarity, light on bass.
Classical music sounds fine on these
phones, because they’re like putting
the midrange under a magnifying glass
(not a microscope, thankfully), and
much classical music tends not to
have a lot of low-end energy anyway.
They’re also excellent phones for tracking,
because the level of midrange
detail makes it very easy to hear what’s
going on in the mix (especially if you’re
singing your head off, or playing a guitar
solo). And, they can handle very
high power levels.
However, for bass-heavy genres like
rock and rap, I wouldn’t feel confident
that I was placing the bass accurately
until I felt I had truly “learned” the
phones. I know lots of people who love
their Sonys for listening to music, but
our task here is to examine the sound
in the context of mixing. In that
respect, I would consider the MDR-
7509HD as more of a general-purpose
set of monitoring headphones than a
set optimized specifically for mixing.
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