h.ear great sound!
These are the h.ear on headphones that are due to be released for sale this weekend.
Honestly, I've never had a pair of headphones that have actually fit my head before, yet these do (without falling off). The noise cancelling is literally, deaf to everything outside of them. Build quality wise, it's like Sony have corrected everything they did wrong over the past 10 years.
Now I just need to wait a little longer while some Hi-Res audio completes downloading and then I can put them through their pace. I'll be testing them on a Sony Xperia M2, along with an ASUS 6.1 Hi-Res audio sound card plugged into the PC.
I've been listening to an album I know backwards. Through a couple of devices. The album is Muse - Absolution, the devices are, my Hi-Res ready PC and my Xperia M2. Note that the phone isn't Hi-Res, and the h.ear on headphones are not supposed to work on a PC or laptop.
The headphones crashed windows when plugging them in or out (which has been happening a lot, so it might be the PC's fault rather than than the headphones). But given a restart, and a Hi-Res compatible media player, you do notice the difference between non Hi-Res speakers and the headphones. It's not a tiny difference either, it's massive!.
However, I then tried the same album on my smartphone, and I'm sad to say, there is a loss of quality due to the hardware. It does still play FLAC files through 7 Digital (the app I used to buy and play Hi-Res audio). The loss isn't as great as you might think however, it's not as bad as the non Hi-Res speakers, but you're still going t want to get a Hi-Res phone. Speaking of which, the Z5 is available in the same colours.
So I now want a phone to match, I also want to replace my entire discography to Hi-Res. The trouble is, not much of it is available, in fact there is very little available right now.
Here then is the dilemma. The sound is unbelievable, the design and build quality is everything you'd expect from Sony at their best. You really want these headphones, but they'll make you poor very quickly, and frustrated that you will be switching between MP3/CD/HiFi and Hi-Res quality until all your files are Hi-Res.
TLDR: The summary is this; these headphones are amazing, but it might be too early to make the switch. It's the DVD to Blu-Ray switch all over again.