Compared to many of its competition, the MDR-1A feels like it has a wider soundstage which is clearer, more immersive and well separated. The large ear cups also go a long way in delivering surround sound effect. All this adds up to exceptional bass and pristine mid-level frequencies.

However, the fit is fairly loose, which might be an issue for people with small heads. It does have adjustable ear cups, but they only increase in size which might not be suitable for everyone. The ear cups rotate sideways about a hinge which makes sure that your earlobes are fully covered. The bass is aided by sculpted vents which maximize airflow and a liquid crystal polymer diaphragm with an aluminum coating and works well even at loud volumes. Audio is distortion free and you will be able to make out even tiny details even when the sound is turned up. Incredibly light yet with touches of premium pleather and metal, these look a lot more expensive than they are. But enough about the build, comfort is where it’s at with these cans.

Very soft protein (ie synthetic) leather pads large enough to encompass most ears and a fairly low-tension headband make the Sony MDR-1A fit quite sumptuous. These are headphones you can wear for an 8-hour stretch without feeling any discomfort. In the trade-off, they are not perfect for exercise.

The Sony MDR-1ABT use a kind of digital processing called DSEE HX that claims to upscale non Hi-Res audio to a quality comparable to the good stuff. While we didn’t have the Sony MDR-1A for direct comparison, from memory it also seems that Sony may have toned down the bass a little this time. There is a bass emphasis here, but only a slight one. The impression they give off is of a balanced, and fairly natural-sounding headphone.A timely elevation in the 8-10kHz region of the treble cuts through the bloat in the bass, preventing the MDR-1A from being a muddy disaster of a headphone. The Sony MDR-1A is an excellent pair of over-ears and sounds top-notch no matter what your choice of genre may be. Bass is punchy and both mid and high-level frequencies are clear and crisp. Although it is not very neutral, the pomp the headphone does add serves to enhance overall experience. Given its excellent sound quality and sensible price point, the Sony MDR-1A is an excellent buy. Treble: Slightly rolled-off, but not nearly as rolled-off as with the MDR-1R. Very smooth sounding but still with decent levels of detail, much like the mids. In fact, simply refer to my description of the mids in that regard to understand how the treble sounds with regards to detail vs smoothness. The highs do also have a surpringly good amount of upper-end sparkle, extended well into the lower parts of the top octave, too! They're able to give a pretty nicely shimmery effect to things like cymbals. The sparkle is a nice surprise along with the powerful bass, giving them a somewhat v-shaped signature from the mid-bass up to around 11k or 12k (at least). Vocals don’t have as much presence as 600. Too smoothed off for my likings. As a result, less detail and clarity. This vocal recession is evident when looking at the frequency graph which shows a dip in mids with the lowest amplitude at the low-mids. Sound test is based on the cable without the control button as the cable with button sounds awful. I will talk more about the button cable later. I will be mostly comparing the 1A to the Sony mdr-zx600. Throughout this review I may refer to the mdr1A as the '1A' and the mdr-zx600 as the '600'.