Sony MDR 1000X: Shut the world out

Have you ever put on a pair of headphones and felt your eyes open as wide as they can in surprise? There was more than one reason this happened to me when I first heard Sony’s MDR 1000X over-the-ear headphones. I'm no professional audiophile, but like most people, just ‘know’ when the sound of music pleases me, which is what instantly happened when I heard the sound coming out of this new set of Sony headphones.

Rich, clear, loud, and with the right amount of emphasis on the highs and lows, is what I thought. The bass does very well for itself, sounding fulsome and well-rounded. I listened to the deep resonant and incomparable voice of singer songwriter Leonard Cohen, who just passed away at 82, and to everything from peppy salsa to Indian classical to Mozart’s Requiem to a whole Apple playlist of the newest music and found the sound on all these perfectly satisfying. These headphones come with a 40 mm driver with a Liquid Crystal Polymer diaphragm for handling heavy beats and I listened to some bass-heavy pieces of music without feeling I wanted it stronger or that it was distorted, even at momentarily high volumes. These are not specifically bass-heavy headphones though, so if that's what you're looking for, you will need to explore something else.

This set of headphones is most often compared with Bose's QC noise cancelling headphones and on sound quality, I would opt for the MDR 1000X. It's also capable of reproducing high-res audio. Sony's digital sound enhancement (DSEE HX) upscales compressed digital music files (MP3, ACC, ATRAC and WMA) and takes them closer to the quality of high-resolution audio. The battery lasts for 20 hours.

But it’s Bose that has been king of noise cancellation all this while and probably still is, except that the MDR 1000X is very close indeed. All consistent noise disappears when you turn the noise cancellation switch on. And yes, you can reach out to the earcup where the buttons are subtly located on the underneath and turn the cancellation on or off as you like. If there’s someone talking at a normalish volume, you won’t hear them. I live in a fairly noisy colony and found it mercifully quiet on the inside of these headphones. I tried it out with a vacuum cleaner on and incredibly, its whine became inaudible, confusing me thoroughly.

At the same time, the MDR 1000X have a great feature to tune into the world and hear what someone is saying. Just cup your hand over the earcup and the music will recede into the background, bringing sounds on the outside to the forefront. This happens fast and accurate, so if you see someone trying to tell you something, just lift your hand up, hear him out, and later go back to listening. One press on a dedicated ambient sound button on the earcup can also bring voices and sounds into prominence despite the music — so you don’t miss any interesting conversations around you. Or flight announcements. The earcups have microphones as well and you can take calls.

The MDR 1000X is a pretty sophisticated looking headset — specially in the black that I received for review. There is also a beige option. The headphones have some subtle understated styling for the earcups and look seriously premium. They're very comfortable and solid and I didn’t have a problem wearing them for hours, except for some very slight warming up of one ear in there compelling me to take them off for a moment or two. Comparing with the Bose QC35, the MDR 1000X's closest rival, I found the QC35 decidedly more comfortable and better gripping on the head. But you can use neither for workouts as you’ll feel restricted in the range and force of movements and always worried that they'll slide off — which they do, at least for smaller heads. For working out and easy traveling, I would explore in-ear headphones. All the controls are on one of the earcups which also doubles up as a touchpad. This is a great feature. Slide your finger up or down over the earcup to increase or decrease volume, tap to switch off, change tracks and swipe sideways to move to the next track. You have to do pretty much nothing to pair with your playback device. Power on and the rest just happens.

What you get in the box with the MDR 1000X is a solid strong carrying case with a tiny strap attached to it. The case has a little pocket to put your cables into. There’s also a plug adaptor for in-flight use, a headphone cable, and gold-plated stereo mini plug USB Cable.

It’s a tough choice between the Bose QC35 and the Sony MDR 1000X. The former is slightly better for comfort, fit, and noise cancellation, while the latter is better for sound quality and features.

Price: ₹30,990

Love: Sound quality, effective noise cancelling, lots of features

Hate: Price

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