I just welcomed the Sony MDR-570LP into my ever growing family of headphones and earphones. Being a sucker for sleek design and metallic stuff, I immediately fell in love with this bad boy when I was browsing the shelves of Sony Style KLCC a month or so back. Having recently purchased it over the weekend, I’ve yet to fully experience its sonic capabilities. I’m really wondering if burning in your ear/headphone would make an improvement on sound reproduction. Guess I’ll find out sooner or later. So here’s my review on the Sony MDR-570LP.
The Sony MDR-570LP comes in four colour variations; black, brown, green and orange and retails for RM189, roughly about $50 – $60 USD. I got me hands on the orange one but was seriously contemplating black and brown. Apparently the MDR-570LP is to be marketed toward to the casual male, but we’ll see how that goes. Now, it seriously looks good. The 30mm drivers are encased in a metal body, my guess is it’s anodised aluminium and capped with comfy cushions covered in a synthetic material, most likely vinyl. It has a slim head band covered in the same material as the cushion covers so it won’t mess up your 3-hour-to-achieve hairdo, much. The cans fold flat so it’s relatively easier to transport. The MDR-570LP has a cable running from each can, the result of making a slim headband and the swivel mechanism. It’s a little too thin for my liking though. I much prefer the single cord system like my Panasonic Panasonic RP-HTX7 and Technics RP-F880. I especially love the cable on the RP-F880 as it’s wrapped in fabric. The MDR-570 has a gold plated jack, which is now quite common place, but the jack itself looks sturdy so it’s all good.
Now on to sound. Sony seems to reuse their 30mm drivers, only giving them new bodies. These 30mm drivers are in essence, poor to mediocre and results in harsh-muddy sounds. After listening to the MDR-570LP for a few hours, I would say Sony has either improved (not by much) on these 30mm drivers or my ears are deceiving me. I didn’t get that WOW feeling when I first put them on, but after tweaking the EQ, it started to give me what I wanted. Listening to jazz tracks on the MDR-570LP is quite a joy, though I still feel it’s kinda muddy. Playing trance tracks… out! The bass doesn’t quite cut it. Alternative and rock tracks sounded quite good actually.
Overall, I’m quite happy to own the MDR-570LP. More for its looks than for its sound. It sound pretty alright I suppose, but for the price, the Panasonic RP-HTX7 blows this out of the water. Get these if you’re not fussy about sound and want really good looks.
i also just bought the same pair of headphones.
i completely agree with the no ‘wow’ factor.
and i was also attracted to it because it looks so sleek and good.
but as for the sound quality it’s really normal like your average earphones.
so it’s rather expensive for the quality of music.
but great look.
I agree as well. I too, bought these for the appearance. I do like the comfort, as I can wear these for long periods of time and not have them start to hurt. the folding cups are great for me as I use them in my laptop bag often. I originally wanted these to monitor my synthesizer, but the bass is definitely lacking. I use them for my laptop and sometimes my mp3 player mainly for comfort and looks.
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