Sony MDR-7506 Review (Headphone)

[majingotan]

I don't think we do.(at the minute) Nor do I think we measure detail. This is at the heart of my problem with headphone measurements as they sit now. Some are clear, but I don't think we get the whole picture.

Or more likely, I don't know how to translate the measurements into what I hear. But I surely value headphones that offer detail and the texture of the sounds.

THD and CSD/impulse/step plots are the answer for detail. High amounts of distortion at 1KHz - 4KHz can give a pleasing timbre and “texture” plus faux details as seen with HEDDPHONE.

 

[Jimbob54]

THD and CSD/impulse/step plots are the answer for detail. High amounts of distortion at 1KHz - 4KHz can give a pleasing timbre and “texture” plus faux details as seen with HEDDPHONE.

Cheers.

 

[doug2761]

I'm in the market for a good headphone and get excited every time there's a review on this forum. It doesn't seem that there's a been one measured yet that performs really well without EQ. I recall reading about these Sony headphones and how they performed to the Harman curve but it seems these aren't going to be a good choice. Cheering on for more reviews and hopefully some gems will emerge.

 

[Feelas]

Oh, and for me, detail first (not just boosted treble faux detail, actual detail once properly eq), then the other sonic attributes as they fall. I can forgive closed Soundstage or wobbly FR if there is true detail and texture.

Texture is proper fundamental & harmonics balance, so proper FR and lack of THD-related issues, nothing else.

 

[Jimbob54]

Texture is proper fundamental & harmonics balance, so proper FR and lack of THD-related issues, nothing else.

Although, unless I'm mistaken, yours and @majingotan replies are at odds?

 

[Feelas]

Although, unless I'm mistaken, yours and @majingotan replies are at odds?

Well, since texture can be broken between recordings (on really well headphones) and I don't think that engineer can bork more than that

IMO if anything can change massively between recordings and the changes transfer the same onto different headphones, I'd be close to saying than then the changes are FR-related. I can perceive a lot of textural variance which changes with EQ-ing, in the end resulting in real balance or not.

 

[majingotan]

Although, unless I'm mistaken, yours and @majingotan replies are at odds?

Not really, I'm referring to faux or heightened or pleasing texture similar to what people perceive using OTL tube amp distortion if FR related "texture and timbre" effect is omitted

 

[samwell7]

Yes, a TV cameraman picked this as the best headphones for monitoring sound when I worked with him on a project (I'm sure he was keeping my employer in a budget, too.). I think the best thing about them is their general durability- they just won't break, and I'm not afraid to abuse them. (I thought the same of my AKG 7XX's, but then an internal wire broke for no obvious reason.) Since they are closed, they are great for listening in bed while not waking the wife. But you can't love the sound. I've always been curious about the ATH-M40x and other similar cans from Audio Technica as alternatives. Hope you get to them at some point.

I ended up getting a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50 (pre the M50x model) after I got rid of the MDR-7506s to use for travel and at work (didn't want to break the MDR-7520s because they'd been discontinued).
The M50 is pretty inoffensive, not the best sound but it was like an improved version of the 7506 in some ways, didn't hurt my ears, built very well (been travelling/working with them for close to 10 years and no damage) and the treble doesn't hurt my ears, I'd guess the M40x or M50x have improved on the classic M50

 

[posvibes]

So I thought I would do a little change up just to refresh my ears, so I took to my Brainwavz HM5's for a listen, and then went back to the 7506's this morning. Mostly I have been listening to Alicia de Larrocha piano concertos of late and for the life of me I cannot reconcile @amirm's review with what I am listening to. The 7506's seem to have a clarity to them that seems to avoid a smooth blending of the musical landscape and an ability to pick up nuances or ambient sound of the recording space that I cannot hear on the HM5's for instance.

I have listened to some Hans Zimmer soundtracks, Bladerunner 2049 and Dark Night on the hear out for some evidence of sub and low bass distortion and I cannot hear it. Sometimes the higher frequencies sound a little forced, a little bright but I have the same in my 30 year old Stax Lambada's as well on occasion.

So my question is as the measurements show blatant distortion in the bass and harsh highs, it would seem to indicate that my hearing is way off at both ends and in urgent need of testing which I am going to get done as quickly as possible.

Could someone be kind enough to recommend a bass track that would make evident the distortion that @amirm cited and maybe a clue or two as to what I should be listening for and what I will hear if indeed I can hear it?

 

[amirm]

The 7506's seem to have a clarity to them that seems to avoid a smooth blending of the musical landscape and an ability to pick up nuances or ambient sound of the recording space that I cannot hear on the HM5's for instance.

That is precisely the exaggerated highs. It can be a captivating effect in the way it brings out so much detail. The problem is that it becomes too much although that may be person dependent. I know I am at the extreme of being bothered by it.

So my question is as the measurements show blatant distortion in the bass and harsh highs, it would seem to indicate that my hearing is way off at both ends and in urgent need of testing which I am going to get done as quickly as possible.

The distortion issue kicks in once you correct the response and it still doesn't sound good. This is very clear in deep bass tracks but also in highs.

 

[raistlin65]

So I thought I would do a little change up just to refresh my ears, so I took to my Brainwavz HM5's for a listen, and then went back to the 7506's this morning. Mostly I have been listening to Alicia de Larrocha piano concertos of late and for the life of me I cannot reconcile @amirm's review with what I am listening to. The 7506's seem to have a clarity to them that seems to avoid a smooth blending of the musical landscape and an ability to pick up nuances or ambient sound of the recording space that I cannot hear on the HM5's for instance.

I have listened to some Hans Zimmer soundtracks, Bladerunner 2049 and Dark Night on the hear out for some evidence of sub and low bass distortion and I cannot hear it. Sometimes the higher frequencies sound a little forced, a little bright but I have the same in my 30 year old Stax Lambada's as well on occasion.

So my question is as the measurements show blatant distortion in the bass and harsh highs, it would seem to indicate that my hearing is way off at both ends and in urgent need of testing which I am going to get done as quickly as possible.

Could someone be kind enough to recommend a bass track that would make evident the distortion that @amirm cited and maybe a clue or two as to what I should be listening for and what I will hear if indeed I can hear it?

Look again at the distortion measurements and look at the 94db graph. The bass has a good bit of distortion. But sub bass distortion can get pretty high before it becomes audible. Here's a piece that talks about how 10% THD is sometimes considered an audibility threshold

https://hometheaterreview.com/why-subwoofer-distortion-is-different-from-amplifier-distortion/amp/

So if you're not listening really loud, and the pieces you're listening to don't have very loud bass dynamic peaks, you might not be hearing much or any bass distortion. And certainly not any from mids and treble.

Meanwhile, the treble has a little bit extra energy over Harman Target Response, but that doesn't mean everybody is going to respond negatively to that. In fact, at lower volumes it might be a good thing due to equal loudness contours. Or, since it sounds like you have extensive experience with these headphones, your brain could be adjusted to it.

 

[YSC]

That is precisely the exaggerated highs. It can be a captivating effect in the way it brings out so much detail. The problem is that it becomes too much although that may be person dependent. I know I am at the extreme of being bothered by it.


The distortion issue kicks in once you correct the response and it still doesn't sound good. This is very clear in deep bass tracks but also in highs.

Distortion in Highs actually surprised me, as it seems like it's reduction in level in the highs which I thought would lower the distortion, but it seems not the case

 

[Rock Rabbit]

The resistance rise at 60-70 Hz is not enough to even control distortion at resonance and a catastrophic THD peak. Catastrophic in the sense that at resonance the driver requires little current for a big amplitude movement and then comes unavoidable non linear magnetic and compliance effects...so forget any eq

 

[posvibes]

So if you're not listening really loud,

Yes I think this may be my one saving grace, is that I do not tend to listen loud either on headphones or speakers and therefore tend to like most speakers and headphones I listen to. I can tell the differences in broad terms in comparison of one bit of kit compared to another and then it becomes preference of presentation.

But apart from my wallet I use @armirm's reviews as a pretty solid buying guide.

Thanks to all.

 

[YSC]

Yes I think this may be my one saving grace, is that I do not tend to listen loud either on headphones or speakers and therefore tend to like most speakers and headphones I listen to. I can tell the differences in broad terms in comparison of one bit of kit compared to another and then it becomes preference of presentation.

But apart from my wallet I use @armirm's reviews as a pretty solid buying guide.

Thanks to all.

same here, for speakers I definitely use Amirm's measurement as a purchase bible, but for speakers personally I feel like trying at shops more important as the measurement position issues or target FR still needs fine tuning, plus I am pretty sure HRTF of one differs quite a lot so more subjective than objective measurement here especially for bass region. I would definitely reference on the distortion plots though, that is no doubt that a driver that distorts badly is nothing but bad

 

[Maiky76]

This is a review and measurements of the Sony MDR-7506. I purchased this headphone last year due to reputation of getting some of the highest scores relative to Harman preference curve. It costs US $89 on Amazon including Prime shipping.

I like the look and feel of the MDR-7506:

View attachment 103798

The headphone itself is very light and compact. Alas the coiled cord is rather heavy and has a habit of falling to the floor because of it.

While this headphone is new to me, its original -- the MDR-V6 is not. When I was visiting the major music labels back in early 2000s, the MDR-V6 was one of the top three or so respected headphones (Sennheiser and Stax being the other two). So I purchased a V6 but hardly used it and unfortunately have little memory of it. I thin I gave it to one of my sons years ago.

I was surprised how uncomfortable the MDR-7506 is. It would pinch the outer areas of my ears to a point where I could not wear then for more than a few minutes. I realized then that taking my glasses off helped but I still could not tolerate them for than 15 to 20 minutes. There is a lot of headband pressure and due to the small cups, it lands on the other part of ear. Strangely, I don't remember this about the MDR-V6? Is it possible my ears have grown in ensuing years and no longer fit inside these cups? The thought is too scary to consider!

Sony MDR-7506 Measurements
Let's get right into it with the MDR-7506 frequency response and comparison to our target preference:
View attachment 103799

As you can see, there is good bit of variation between the two cups. Being a small headphone, I had a lot more trouble getting consistent fit between the two channels. Still, I think the results are pretty correct as they correlate quite well with other measurements. The one area of deviation is that peak around 11 kHz. Other measurements including that of Harman's show that shooting way up. The older couplers tended to exaggerate the response in that region which my new GRAS 45C coupler avoid. Still, hard to know what the truth is there.

Back to the measurements and just looking at the green calibrated channel, we see excellent agreement with our target curve (dashed blue) from about 100 Hz to 2 kHz. Past that we overshoot the curve and stay above up to 8 kHz or so. This naturally will make the headphone sound bright and potentially with wider soundstage.

Bass department has the usual droop but much less than some others.

Overall one can see how this headphone that can higher agreement with Harman preference curve than many other. You can see this clearly in the deviation from our target:

View attachment 103800

Notice the broad area at or around 0 dB deviation.

So far there was good news. What wasn't good news is what followed, namely distortion measurements:

View attachment 103801

Oh wow! This headphone has more distortion at 94 dB than many do at 114 dB in bass! We are also usually spoiled by headphones having very little distortion above 1 kHz or so. Not here. We have distortion where our hearing is sensitive as well. Distortion in bass was so high that it overshot the graph so I changes scales:

View attachment 103802

Nearly 20% distortion at around 55 Hz at 114 dB. Here is another view of the 94 dBSPL and its breakdown:

View attachment 103803

This will be a good test of how important distortion is relative to frequency response -- a battle we constantly have here and in context of speakers.

Group delay is rather calm as this graph goes:

View attachment 103804

We don't see the large spikes in high frequencies. Maybe smaller cups create less of these against the body of the measurement fixture?

Impedance is variable so take care in using any amplifier that has high impedance:


View attachment 103805

Sensitivity is very good so you don't need much power to drive them.

Sony MDR-7506 Listening Tests
I remember being quite disappointed when I listened to the MDR-7506 last year when I purchased it. I neither liked the sound, nor the comfort. It quickly sat on my desk collecting dust. With much more careful testing now I can tell why. You all know that I am a fan of sub-bass performance and evaluating such at higher levels. Not so here. I initially boosted the sub-bass and it became ugly. It became boomy (harmonics travel to upper bass and cause that) with the notes not being clean and sharp at all.

Then there were the highs. Oh man these are ugly highs. Sharp and uncomfortable. Yes, the mid-range tonality was good but I just could not focus on it. Every bass note sounded ugly, and every high note was a punch in the face. Overall there was this poor quality and grittiness I could not get past.

Took out the EQ tool and made some improvements:

View attachment 103806

As I said, I boosted the lows but immediately took that out and focused on the peaking between 2 and 8 kHz. That resulted in the two filters that you see. That provided good relief from the sharp highs but I still did not like the sound. Per above, it just didn't sound clean to me. Remembering a trick from my speaker optimizations, I actually filtered out some of the sub-bass and that made a nice improvement in clarity and fidelity. Ironically, even though I was cutting out the lows, the overall tonality is much warmer with better bass than no EQ at all because the highs were taken down.

Usually once I EQ a speaker or headphone, I get much better sound and am happy with it. Not here. Taking down the highs collapsed the little soundstage that was there, leaving me with a dull, middle of the head image. I am extremely sensitive to the harshness of the highs so this was the proper compromise for me but even I could not tolerate the boring spatial effect.

The loss of deep bass was a miss too. I could no longer enjoy any of my tracks with such content.

Mind you, on some tracks I thought the fidelity was better than many speakers but in the context of all music played and comparing to other headphones, the results was simply not competitive.

Conclusions
Boy, talking about getting myself in a pickle giving such low scores subjectively to a headphone that has done so well in research. There are two possibilities:

1. Something is wrong with me and my hearing and I would not feel this way in controlled testing.

2. I am far more bothered by the listeners in research by a) too much energy in treble region and b) distortion. A related factor to this is content used for testing. Without the right content a lot of the issues I found would not be audible or as bothersome.

Then there is the issue of comfort. I see there are a lot of aftermarket pads for these so maybe that can be solved. But then the cost goes up.

Overall I can't see a good reason to recommend the Sony MDR-7506. It gets some important things right (mid-range tonality) but so many things wrong that I just can't tell anyone to go and get one. If you have it, please give the above EQ a test and report what you think.

So there, we have another massively popular headphone covered so that we have a reference for other headphone reviews to come.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Great Review as usual!

Here are some thoughts about the EQ...
I used to average L/R to calculate the score.

Good L/R match.

I have generated one EQ, the APO config files are attached.
Score no EQ: 78.2
Score with EQ: 105.4

Sony MDR-7506 APO EQ 96000Hz
January062021-134856

Preamp: -2.8 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 59 Hz Gain 2.77 dB Q 1.45
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 2887 Hz Gain -2.8 dB Q 2.98
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4566 Hz Gain -3.75 dB Q 2.9
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 6287 Hz Gain -2.51 dB Q 3.77

I don't think 230Hz through should be EQed as it most probably is the front/back acoustic short circuit designed to shape the Low mid.

 

[Kyle / MrHeeHo]

Finding excess treble objectionable or even painful is a fairly common hearing issue. Some people have greater sensitivity to peaky highs than others. In extreme cases this is a hearing disorder known as hyperacusis. In milder cases it results in people being unable to listen to Sennheiser HD800's for any length of time. see https://www.webmd.com/brain/sound-sensitivity-hyperacusis#1 or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539655/

I have this, the sound of metal being scraped makes me feel physically ill and s sounds in vocals can be incredibly irritating and are impossible to ignore even when not irritating

I doubt I'd be able to handle the 7506

 

[makinao]

The test confirms my own negative assessment of the 7506. They were the in-house cans in one studio I worked on for a project. On the next project, I brought my own headphones.

 

[sweetchaos]

Great Review as usual!

Here are some thoughts about the EQ...
I used to average L/R to calculate the score.

Good L/R match.

I have generated one EQ, the APO config files are attached.
Score no EQ: 78.2
Score with EQ: 105.4

Sony MDR-7506 APO EQ 96000Hz
January062021-134856

Preamp: -2.8 dB

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 59 Hz Gain 2.77 dB Q 1.45
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 2887 Hz Gain -2.8 dB Q 2.98
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4566 Hz Gain -3.75 dB Q 2.9
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 6287 Hz Gain -2.51 dB Q 3.77

I don't think 230Hz through should be EQed as it most probably is the front/back acoustic short circuit designed to shape the Low mid.

View attachment 104076

@Maiky76 Great job creating PEQ filters using Matlab!

 

[bobbooo]

Note: 12PPO & only the 1 channel used from the deviation graph

Preference Rating
SCORE: 69

I could be wrong, but I believe this is the graph Harman got for it:
View attachment 103819

Scaling is different, but to my eye it looks better than Amir’s (bass doesn’t roll off as much and the peaks in the treble aren’t as high), though of course I believe they do 3 averages.

Here is Oratory:
View attachment 103822


Here is what RTINGS got:
View attachment 103821

Looks like a good deal more bass.

The right channel of this review's measurements look like they match better with Harman and Oratory's results, with more bass and less treble - could you calculate the preference rating for that (or better still an average of the two channels)? I reckon that might get closer to the 80/100 Oratory calculated.