This is the official thread for the Sony MDR-M1ST
This thread is for discussion and reviews.
- Type: Over Ear
- Amp needed: Yes
- Closed Back
No Reliable Link Yet[Reviews]
Z Reviews
Got the M1ST from CD JAPAN Proxy shipping from THIS shop https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/NEODAI-85496
Hart Audio got the headphone first, in 5 days for proxy Osaka to Tokyo then 5ish to Texas.
Thanks a lot to Hannah the community / email manager and James Alvarado the owner. I got the cables for free as an apology / sending the headphone for evaluation for the cables with new NDH20 cable.
The package came in well packaged for sure. The cable is a non locking 4.4mm if I am not wrong and terminates into my chosen format 4.4mm from hart into the FiiO Q5s which might be a tat too bright.
The M1ST is harsh ish but warmth is not that hidden. Is plenty loud and I need a not of testing. Bass seems to be hidden sometimes. It is just neutral and I like it.
If there is a review coming up then I need to go through my test songs with a lot of care.
Games will be Serious Sam HD Moonfall level, Cyberpunk 2077 Moxi Sex Club acoustics and GTA San Andreas PS2 car EQ changes from cheap old car to race car, all sound different. If you like neutral I can definitely recommend it but there might be better ones. Fit is good after 20 min. At first the pads were too thin. The original cable is a 6.3mm so I can’t use it xD
Edit: be careful with balanced. balanced seems to be bad at 30ish ohms and distort the headphone???
2 Likes
TLDR is down below!
Previous Experiences:
M50x, Sennheiser 25, 58x, NDH20, 1770pro, KpH30i, Sony M1ST
on: FiiO Q5s with Toslink x ASUS ROG STRIX 570e very neutral with superb bass resolution and a lot of treble quality
Specs according to Sony’s website:
MDR-M1ST
Headphone type: Sealed dynamic type
Driver: 40mm, dome type (CCAW voice coil)
Max Input: 1500mW (IEC) (* 1)
Impedance: 24Ω (at 1kHz)
Max Volume: 103dB / mW
Frequency: 5-80,000Hz (JEITA)
Cable: About 2.5m
Weight: 215g without cable
Build
The Sony MDR-M1ST is built sturdy but lacks the feel of the Audio Technica M50x which was my first headphone ever (except bargain bin) especially where the pads are attached.
The headband is much nicer than the Neumann NDH20 because it is filled with air or foam, so it is very soft until you reach the part with the hinges. The hinges / connecting part goes 2-3 cm in the headband.
Looks are great! I would never wear Sennheiser HD300pro in public but the M1ST are good. Sadly it offers somewhere like 10db of isolation, although on the positive side voices do not get changed by the pads with deeper voices like me. It does not echo at all in my skull.
The original pads are neutral but destroy the potential of the M1ST. The separation is crispy af but lack 3D sound stage in games suddenly. Rivals Tin Hifi P1 with the needle size of detail, if that metaphor makes even sense, but falls flat in every EVERY game.
So I chose Brainwavez (Large?) sheepskin pads. These extend the soundstage and make the biggest flaw go away. Oh I nearly missed it, the headphone has two vents, one per cup and leaks a lot after 83db. Lower the volume and it is like a sealed universal IEM which lower isolation. The headphone is only useable in quiet environments and live recording / singing in a studio to be used professionally.
Comfort:
The best I ever had except Sennheiser 58x. The weight moves my glasses slightly but with the right placement on my head it ended quickly. No fatigue after swapping pads. Before that It rubbed the skin of my left ear off on only one point. It is worse than the comfort of the NDH20 when having a DMS size head too. I actually maked out the headband feared it would not fit anymore but I have luck. It is like 1 or 2 clicks bigger than the NDH20 headband. You could now sleep with these. It is this good. The weight feels like ⅔ of the Sennheiser’s. No real pressure on my jaw.
Sound with balanced 4.4mm:
Firstly this headphone was awfully balanced. Every frequency goes into a blender and is muddy. Treble died and bass got boosted. The first listening was the worst I ever heard. Volume was limited at 60db if at all and balanced even distorted it more. It took 50h of burn-in to go to 80-90 db for testing. My headphone has squeaking in the left ear cup but that might be the screw-in 3.5mm headphone (balanced jack).
Original pad unbalanced use:
The bass is a mix of NDH20 and Sennheiser Jubilee. It is often quieter or on the same level. Mids are the best I ever heard by far. When You learn the headphone You will probably prefer it over Sennheiser’s way of elevated mids. Treble is the only bad thing. The spacing between your ear and speaker is so low that I got issues with exploding treble peaks (metaphor btw, less bad than Beyer’s). It was uncontrolled in many YouTube videos, games and music. Nearly every voice peaked.
There is a dip in at least 2 sounds: a UMP machine gun in Modern Warfare 3; Half Life 2, where a person was nearly muted when talking; and Forgotten Weapons video about the 50 cal. machine gun where the echo was unrealistically bad and missing. I can not say how it sounds now after the burn-in but I know for sure that real-life sounds like a bullet crack creating an echo is bad due to the lack of space in the ear cup. Only music already sounded good enough.
Brainwavez Sheepskin pads:
The sound stage changed to be more pin-point accurate even in games and is perfect now. It surpases the 58x even with natural neutral sound. NDH20 need a good amp, probably a tube amp but I do not know for sure because I dislike non accurate dac / amps. Only a tat of warmth is allowed for my preference. Treble lost the harsh peaks which always sounded more like 58x than Beyerdynamic treble, yet the treble sounds more like Moondrop Starfield with a lot more precision and realism.
Mids are so neutral I enjoy well mastered songs even more and actually hear when people have bad voices compared to Sennheiser where everything is 10% more fun to listen and hides some bad songs / singers. M1ST show everything after burn-in.
Treble gives me chills. It is so real. No unrealistic or elevated notes with my untrained ears. Every sound from bass to treble sounds flat or at least nothing seems to be louder.
General sound / General use:
Live music monitoring, live recording, live streaming, enjoying neutral yet fun sound with swapped pads. It is not a dead headphone keeping people on alert at work.
The bass is on the realistic but accurate side. Sennheisers are more realistic I think but the precision of the bass reminds me of NDH20, so that I had to try the James Bond HDR trailer 1 and what turned out to be just a guess is real. The M1ST is a headphone that offers sparkle when needed, mids are life-like and bass is neutral but has the slam of a subwoofer on low volume. Burn-in increased the volume a lot. No distortion anymore. Hardbass, Idol synthesiser metal / rock sounds so accurate and Beastie Boys, Ying Yang Forever Album and Mick Gordon’s Doom 2016 sound as fast as imagined. The quality of all sounds and bass is impressive. Without burn-in and original pads only Japanese music sounds great.
Gaming: Medal of Honor Allied Assault has the most special, high quality sounds ever, that I still play often. Every headphone can change everything. NDH20 has no bass with FiiO Q5s and Toslink from my ASUS ROG STRIX 570e and is badly bright. Sennheiser 58x are offering bass but are generally bright. Repeating a Springfield Armory 1901 Long Rifle sounded very realistic but too bright and all sounds are great but tinted in treble I think. It is not bad and I like it but with the M1ST the bass came back, separation and right treble. Then I tired Halo1. I never knew grenades had subwoofer bass or at least movie quality one. It was like I need to play every game including Half Life 2 again. Next will game after 2077 is Silent Hill 1-3. I will be even more scared.
My first game I have tried is Phasmaphobia for the great 3D HiRes microphone quality and step sounds of the ghost. I can hear it everywhere. I hear more than most people so that people politely ask to use the radio to talk to them. I can hear most of the player talk from far away but my 58x experience is of course different because it is open back.
The HIT Cyberpunk 2077. The game was bloated but with swapped bads the game started to be the best experience ever. Bass from clubs is well defined and changes when entering. Car radio has the right volumen now and explosions are great.
TL;DR
The M1ST is great for anyone who replaces the pads with Sheepskin. DJs and people doing music with programs like FL Studio have a harder time without new pads. Drummers can not use these because there is no real isolation. Bassists are happy because the bass will not be a subwoofer and is audible, ALWAYS in my experience listening to music and games and watching the Hunt on Amazon.
Mids are so neutral, you will hear every mistake or bad actor / singer. Instruments are most of the time well separated. The added space in the headphone did not decrease the sound separation but can be a bit harder to distinguish if at all.
Treble lost maybe some detail but can also be the lacking resolution of the songs so I will give it a pass. Without sheepskin DJs and FL Studio user should stay away because some sounds can be off compared to what consumers will hear. NDH20 has no detail compared to M1ST.
3 Likes
EDIT. You can read the 2 TLDRs in the beginning and End.
Sony MDR M1ST final review / impressions. I takes me about 7-12 months to fully comprehend headphones with quirks, compared to KPH30i which I fully understood after 2 months. My ears are playing games with me like Pink-glasses trick. I do write again about these because there are only a few talking about the M1ST. TLDR here is DO NOT GET THESE if you are not wanting to toss money to try out weird headphones or YOU are not already in the later stages of the endgame-meme.
About myself (again). I am a retro gamer focusing on PC gaming from XP to present and PS1-3. I care about mostly neutral audio presentation. If the original intention is missing I gets on my nerves but I do understand and like fun headphones.
Started with Beyer, few tests and refunds, Neumann NDH20, Fiio Q5S DAC/AMP, Sony MDR M1ST and Koss KPH30i. The newest upgrade is to the Topping A90. Strangely the NDH20 pads were out of specs and were of timbre from the get-go. I have no clue why,
which made my patch back to my favourite sound, the NDH20 with Harman tuning, exponentially hard.
The Sony MDR M1ST are live-recording headphones with no value in mastering for anyone who has no knowledge on who to do music.
Professionals might like these especially in Asia when other brands might be a lot more expensive due to import tax / shipping. Got HartAudio Cables for free because the previous NDH20 proprietary cable was too big. Brainwavez pads to remove explosive treble spikes and add soundstage.
I keep it it quick and easy because I had enough time with my Topping A90 to notice that power was the big part holding back my Neumann NDH20.
Along the way I also got the Koss KPH30i which confirms the ideas I have since December (getting the M1ST).
The headphone is a really bright headphone. I only had the 1770pro for few days but that was nowhere this bright.
I assume there is some airy trickery with way too much brightness.
Bass is defined and narrow. Every resolvable note can be heard like it is separated from the rest of the songs. No big stage for the bass, mainly centre
and does not bleed into other regions I think but that is mainly because of the airiness which I find dangerous.
Mids are really great. Especially for classical and game OSTs. Not much to say. Depending on the music voices can be elevated more than with the NDH20.
Voices can be really peaky. S sounds are the worst. I think I can also remember E-sounds in Japanese songs being really loud. I do not hear any real difference
between male and female voice quality.
Treble on the other hand is the downfall for me. I in theory still love the headphone but the insane sensitivity can mean some games and media jump from normal
playing volume to up to 30db according to my iPhone. A good example is Phasmophobia where the switch-sounds of any handheld device is just pure treble to
begin with and in the original Thief trilogy normal foot sounds made by your character are just loud.
I am bad distinguishing volumes since ever but that is not the problem. The problem for me lies in the airiness. The airiness hides ear fatigue when not focusing on it when not focused on it.
After 30 minutes max, I already feel the effects of unprotected noise levels. NDH20 or any other headphone I’ve tried including 58x do make the ears protect itself and are more intimate so that you just hear quieter
when the music is too loud to begin with and I can adjust to the volume more easily and keep on a quieter volume.
Gaming-wise the bass is kinda like a sub-woofer like in 007 films or Edge of Tomorrow but it is no real bass like most headphones and all real speakers do. It lacks depth and is separated.
Guns in games can sound real nice with the bass, noticed in DaysGone. It reminds me of the fake iPhone XS bass. It can not replicate the full bass range or normal sound of bass I don’t know
Soundstage and imaging is great. Audio is not necessary inside your head all the time and can be 2-3x of the size of the 58x. The soundstage is somewhat faked. I prefer proper soundstage
with no tricks like the Senn’s and NDH20 (beyers, Koss etc. too). If I want to listen to music. I mainly try to keep myself in the 12o’clock area. Compare that with the Sony’s it sounds like the 3o’clock volume if I want to match the NDH’s volume to the M1ST but the airiness hides it.
Simple volume changes in-game on first startup are impossible to match for me.
Games with good audio like Squad and Escape from Tarkov which I do not play btw. but know offer a good advantage with the M1ST over other headphones but the hidden volume really makes tinnitus jump temporary up to a week which is why I do not use the M1ST at all.
PS I missed the balanced part. It just narrows the whole frequencies and to be bassy and no sound stage, no imaging.
TLDR The headphone is only good for live recording, no editing and are useless when headphones like DT770 pro for some reason do the job already (or Senn HD300pro or AKG371). If I would have known that I need brainwavez pads to make it sound properly I would have said no. Explosive Treble without pad swap for my preference. Too sensitive volume wise and V-shaped / Treble boosted. Volume gets hidden behind faked airiness. Games give an advantage but hearing damage from voice chat or extremely loud sounds can occur in theory. I do no EQ because I am lazy.
Some songs work well with M1ST, some do not. It is not a neutral headphone but for non critical work like just play an instrument and wanting to hear the full mix it has good separation. Games are fine same as movies but music really shows this is no normal sounding headphone with it’s strange presentation. I clearly lack the words.