****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
The good...As usual, Sony makes a great sounding pair of in-ear buds, and the extra bass is strong, clear and clean. The mids and highs are very good, but not too bright like the Skullcandy Inkd buds.The flat cable is sweet at about 50" with a 90° connector on the end.Toss the silicone tips and get the Comply Foam T-200 tips instead. The memory foam tips help keep the buds snug, while the flimsy silicone tips tend to slip a bit over time, and the extra low end bass is still retained.I appreciate that Sony uses the mid-size T-200 tip size instead of the much larger T-400 tips like all the Skullcandys do. The T-200 size is smaller and way more comfortable after 8 hours of listening.The bad...They are heavy to the outboard side, causing the buds to pull out of the ear canal.Right behind the compact 9mm driver body is a large, round, vertical heavy plastic and rubber support for the flat cable.Major stupid design!This WILL NOT FIT inside a motorcycle helmet. And the extra weight continually tugs on the buds causing them to easily come loose (unless you have the foam tips).The prior XB-20 design was way better with just a very lightweight cable support.If Sony had designed the cable support to be something small, light and compact like the Inkd buds, These would be a 5 Star knockout. But due to poor design, I can only give it 3 Stars.PS: I took my Dremel Tool and carefully cut away the entire plastic and rubber support, leaving only the flat cord exposed.Then I used a small amount of black automotive silicone to glue the cable to the body of the 9mm driver.NOW it's how it should be! Very compact like the Inkd buds, and as a bonus, they now fit under my motorcycle helmet!Jeff.I bought 2 different pairs at the same time. The JVC HAFX1X Headphone Xtreme-Xplosivs, and these Sony MDRs.Sony MDRs win. The JVCs are incredible, but you need to give them burn time to wear off the treble from being too harsh. Also, in comparison to the Sony's, the JVCs are a tad muddier.Now, before I got these Sony's, the JVCs were just perfection. Until now.The Sony MDR Extra bass is flawless. Out of the box its the best sounding headphones ive ever put on. The clarity in these headphones is just unreal. Honestly, id expect to have paid 200+ for a pair of headphones that could give me this sound. Its absolute perfection. Bass is heavy as hell, and the stereo sounding clarity is...truly something to be awe inspired about, i guess is the best way to put it. Im listening to Korn right now, and I can quite literally hear the bass player slap his bass and pluck every string. Everythings so crisp and clear. I also tested it with some electronica music (skrillex, space dimension controller, and feed me) and it sounds so "full" and crisp, and the bass is just gnarly.Im sitting here as a grown man giddy and giggly over just how good these sound - for like what, 30 bucks??? Not even? BUY THESE HEADPHONES, NOW. :DThese earphones are amazing for the price! There is a deeper bass than standard earphones which makes these earphones good for electronic music which I listen a lot of. I love the flat cable design(just note that these flat cables are less wider than other earphones which means there will eventually be tangling issues, but since it is flat knots are easy to untangle) I also like the design, very modern and black with a rubberized, metal-like hard plastic cylindrical thing. My earphones came with a nice carrying zip up case which is really nice and a shirt clip(I personally don't like it because the clip seems to wear down after a while, I had these earphones for 3 months and the clip is useless because it lost all of it's tension and when you clip it to your shirt it just falls off, and then to add it's bulky. Sony in the future should just supply a small standard metal tension clip) It also came with 4 sizes of eartips, very small, small, medium and large(no hybrid tips) and all the tips are color coded which is nice so you don't get mixed up. Then finally there is an L-Shaped jack which I really like, overall really good earphones at a bargain price as with all Sony earphones/headphones!When I lost my expensive Monster earbuds that sounded great but were flimsy, it was time for a new pair. I loved the sound of my Monsters but the cords were tiny and already starting to break after a few months, so I wanted something that sounded pretty good, would hold up to workouts and travel, and not cost a small fortune. After looking at lots of reviews here I finally decided on these buds and after a few uses I'm pretty happy. I'm hardly an expert but the sound is good and the bass is impressive. The buds fit my ears well without being jammed deep inside the canal where the tip can fall off. And very importantly, the cords are substantial and look like they'll take lots of use without pulling apart. For the money I think I made a good choice.these headphones were THE GREATEST HEADPHONES ever. bass was amazing. just spectacular. i had other sony headphones that have lasted me over 8 years! so when these crapped out after 2 weeks, i was utterly disappointed. there's another reviewer to also had this happen. so while they are GREAT, there must be some problem with them failing. roll the dice people! if you get em, i dunno, be gentle? buyer beware.UPDATE, months later: i was very easily able to return the damaged ear buds in exchange for a working pair. and THEY ROCK!!!! i bought another pair in fact! and they both work great after several months. so bottom line is that they are a great product, but for some reason have a high rate of initial failure. but again, sony will replace them if they do. so all in all, i'm very happy with them.
