Sony MDR-CD1700 headphones Specification Type closed back, dynamic Diaphragms 50mm diameter biocellulo eNectran fibre Frequency range 5Hz--30kHz Impedance 32 ohms Magnet system high flux neodymium Maximum power input 1,000mW Sensitivity 106dB/mW Weight 325g Cable 3.5-metre LC-OFC Litz, single-sided connection Jackplug 3.5mm plus 6.35mm adaptor Manufacturer Sony United Kingdom Limited, The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, Surrey KT13 OXW Customer Information National Operations Centre, Pipers Way, Thatcham, Berkshire RG19 4LZ Telephone 0990 111999 UK retail price £19999

What joy! Here I am only a couple of days into 1997 with this outstanding product, a seriously good pair of headphones to recommend to you. Like most of the Japanese majors Sony has always had a large range of headphones on offer, covering a wide price spectrum. Over the years a few have struck me as above average; the miniature MDR-7 and its successor MDR-CD7 have both given me sterling service out in the field with various portable receivers, recorders and players, both tape and disc. But for serious listening at home, or for professional use, one has tended to look to the products of the European specialists, Beyer, AKG or Sennheiser being the main contenders.

This £200 market area is as much warranted by stout construction and reliability as by absolute quality of sound, although of course one would expect a high standard. Expressing this opinion to a friend, he reminded me of a picture in a back-issue of Gramophone (April 1990) of my colleague John Borwick wearing what at first sight appears to be a couple of half coconut shells on his ears. As John has now forgiven me I can admit here to taking the photograph at a Sony press meeting which in fact featured the £2,700 MDR-R10 luxury headset. This incorporated several new and exotic features which JB subsequently detailed in his report.

Zoom on to early 1996 and a call from a friendly Sony staffer who lives locally bearing a package from Eric Kingdon, Sony's tall, talented and technical 'high priest'. "Eric" he said, "would like you to listen to these as he thinks they are rather good." There followed instructions to ignore the construction as they were a very early prototype, the materials used were not to be regarded as representative of any possible production — and would I please keep it to myself. That last request was difficult to maintain because they really were that good and I admit to clamping them over the enraptured ears of a couple of musical friends, one of whom had featured on the CD I was playing at the time. Both wanted to buy a pair without even asking about cost and on being told they were not yet on the market were loth to depart before a further lengthy listen.

During the week I was allowed to keep the headphones I spent many hours delving into recordings old and new to great effect and being increasingly annoyed by the lowered standards which are representative of much of modern radio. (As an aside, some television sound via NICAM was excellent.) By the end of my time I had underlined the warnings about construction and the left earpiece was falling to pieces; did I look inside? What do you think?

To coin a biblical phrase, thus it came to pass that the gross similarities between this new model to be and the £2,700 R-10 were revealed. The computer profiled rare wood half coconuts are discarded but the essential moving-coil driver appears to be close to identical. Having been told that I might expect a much more modest price in the region of £200, I awaited the arrival of a production model with growing impatience. Eventually a sample arrived in a plain brown paper parcel but it was another couple of months before properly packaged product arrived together with details and specification.

Each earpiece now takes the form of a smart two-tone grey housing made from a newly developed ABS resin material designed to control coloration in conjunction with internal damping. Their inner faces carry a groove into which slips a ring retaining the deeply padded soft velvet cloth earpads which, praise be, are completely silent in use, as opposed to the creaks generated by foam and some suede-like materials. Their overall diameter is some 120mm and they fit closely to the flesh outside the pinna, forming a good seal. The headband consists of two plasticscovered springy metal half-hoops at the ends of which are housed a pair of spring rollers. These serve to tension a textile ribbon running between them, over which is a soft plastics pad that rests on the scalp. This is a most comfortable arrange ment, completely self-adjusting and non-fatiguing. Each earpiece is suspended from the ribbon roller housings on free motion rear-facing quadrants. From the left one hangs the 3.5 metre OFC flexible lead, terminating in a goldplated 3-5mm stereo jack plug with unimatch adaptor. A nice touch is the additional left/ right identification for the blind in the form of Braille markings on the roller housings.

Each moving-coil driver, like the R-I0 before it, uses a 50mm dome diaphragm formed of natural "biocellulose", an organic fibre here sandwiched with Vectran. The actual coil is wound with copper-clad aluminium wire, combining high conductivity and low mass. It has a static resistance of 32 ohms. A high flux (30 per cent extra) neodymium alloy magnet is used with a hollow centre pole to permit unfettered diaphragm movement and the resulting sensitivity is very high. Recent work on angling the drivers and positioning them with respect to the ear canal ("auranomic" design) is claimed to optimize the acoustic and spatial performance.

So, what of the sound? A difficult question to answer, because they really haven't got one: utter transparency rules the day. Although obviously inhibited by the elevated price, JB gave high marks to the R-10s. With that somewhat daunting restriction removed — the MDR-CD1700s are a few pence below £200 — I know of nothing to equal them. Their only rivals might be in the rarefied ranks of the expensive electrostatics and even that remains to be proven. The better the source, be it radio, discs or master tape, the greater one's involvement becomes. To talk of wide frequency range and huge dynamics means little in this context. The real clincher comes in a recording situation when one plugs them into the direct feed from a pair of top grade small diaphragm capacitor microphones arranged in the ORTF mode, a close model of a binaural set-up. The sensation of being in the room with the performers is dominant because the closeness of the source lends intimacy and one's ears are sealed off from the real surroundings. A number of times I have caught myself trying to join the comments between takes only to have to remind myself that they can't hear me!

I have the feeling that not too many

Sony people realize what a gem they have here, thinking these perhaps just another pair of headphones among the many. But having read this report you will know better and if you feel the need for a supremely com fortable pair of headphones, deeply involving and above all musically satisfying, I don't think you will find better this side of the millennium. Join me; I've bought a pair a