Ever thought of putting a magnifying glass on the bass line of a particular track? That’s exactly what I first thought of the Sony MDR V700DJ. It makes you feel as though someone suddenly turned the lights on in the bass part of the room, which wasn’t getting enough attention all this time.
My friends a hip hop aficionado who had one simple requirement; loud, thumping and clear bass, period. So the hunt began on the internet and all the many reviews pointed to the Sony MDR V700 DJ. Yes, they are meant for use on the console, but who cares.
Build Quality
Construction wise, it feels pretty solid to hold and knocks a small bit of noise as soon as you wear it. Though it’s got nothing special in the looks department, it’s got smooth swiveling cans which fold away to aid portability (some users report that these hinges are not really built well). The padding too is soft and should not create problems even after long hours of usage. One problem though, it has a telephone style cable which, unfortunately isn’t very convenient when it comes to portability. But yes, there is an option to detach it and put your own set of cables.
Performance
With that out of the way, the audio on most fronts was very impressive. The critic in me was desperately looking for flaws and I’m happy to say that there was not one. With the MDR V700 you are always on this discovery trip where you keep discovering new bass notes that you didn’t know, exist.
I tested it on a range of tracks from Indian Classical to a variety of rock sub genres. I presumed the mids and highs would suffer thanks to the deep bass, but even they were defined well enough to show any Bose/Harmon Kardon as to who the real boss is. The real fun, however, begins when you are listening to live recorded tracks. It recreates the frequencies so perfectly, that you feel as if you are standing right there at a concert, jostling around for space and singing along.
Though pop/hip-hop sounds best on these cans, you will most certainly be happy with the way other stuff sounds. Classic rock riffs sound particularly juicy and double bass beats sound as if there is a chopper is flying by. The only disappointing part was when it came to metal. The vocals felt drowned out, though the instruments did sound just as they were meant to be. But then, that’d be totally missing the point. These cans have a specialized purpose of serving the bloke on the console and they definitely do that job to the T and then some. If deep bass is all that you crave, the Sony MDR V700 DJ is where your money should be.
And oh yeah, as a testament to its excellent performance, Metallica’s bass player Robert Trujilio, uses this to monitor his playing during jams and recordings. Need more reason?
Some of tracks the Sony MDR V700DJ was tested on
- Deep Purple – Smoke on the Water (never has this riff sounded so juicy!)
- Metallica – Battery (like I said, the vocals were a bit drowned out)
- Coldplay – Violet Hill (harmonies, keys, vocals were faithfully reproduced)
- Pink Floyd – High Hopes (bring on the Vodka!)
- Marty Friedman – Valley of Eternity (this guy, Friedman, pitches his guitar fairly high, and the Sony had no problems reproducing them)
- Iron Maiden Live at Rock in Rio (absolute fun! Felt as if I was right there in Rio de Janeiro!)
- Type O’ Negative – Love You To Death (this band uses a fair amount of weird sounding distortions. No problem for the Sony)
- Niladri Kumar and Chinmaya Dunster – Aarunvachana (Indian Classical with mild beats. Sent the nerves right to the massage room with this one!)
- Tested it on some pop tracks, the names of which I nigh well cant remember. Just remember that I was blown right to the proverbial weeds.
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