I am so happy with Sony MDR-Z7 phones . They are very nice looking, comfortable and superb sound Made in Japan .

I have used these earphones with my stereo system at home and they are excellent. However my main purpose of this purchase was for use with my new Walkman NW-WM1A player and the new 4.4mm balanced feature. The earphones came with two sets of earphone cables; one set has an end with two 3.5mm leads for the left and right side of the headphones and the other end has a single 3.5mm male plug to fit inside a standard 3.5mm walkman size socket. The second headphone lead consists of two male sockets at either end all of which are 3.5m in size. My walkman has two sockets , one of which is 3.5mm and the other is a 4.4mm balanced size. I bought these headphones on the basis of their apparent balanced feature , but as stated all of the leads have 3.5mm male plugs and I cannot see how they work with the new Sony 4.4mm balanced socket on the NW-WM1A Walkman. These headphones are very good ,but with the Walkman of full volume there is no real advantage in paying the high price of these headphones when compared with Sony phones at a 1/4 of the price. I hope in time that the 4.4mm feature will prove to make this purchase worthwhile , but at the moment there is no trace of any 4.4mm cables on Amazon or the Sony site , so i cannot recommend these headphones to you. Perhaps someone here can put me wise to what the 4.4mm balanced feature is all about , and steer me towards the appropriate 4.4mm cable/plug to make this purchase worthwhile.

So, i bought these 6 weeks ago, as i was looking for a pair of headphones to plug directly into my Naim Supernait 2 headphone amp. Ive previously had the Stax SRS 2050 basic system, and auditioned the Sennheiser HD800, 700 and nearly the entire Grado range - none of them, and i do mean none, sound nearly as good as these - the grado are coarse and bright in comparison, the sense analytical and bright in comparison, the sony's give you all the detail but with beautiful warmth and tonality - outstanding and thats without a standalone amp - i couldn't be happier as they compete with all comers, and sound amazing - all with Made in Japan quality.