Sony MDR-Z7m2 Headphones Pawn Find

 I am a discount audio shopper finding much of my budget audiophile gear at local pawn shops and on Marketplace. These Sony headphones are my latest find from a local “National Pawn” shop and purchased for $125 after a little haggling. I probably had seen these in the case and they didn’t pique my interest based on them being from Sony, but when they showed up in the clearance case, I gave them a second look. I got out my cheap Lightning to 3.5mm dongle and pulled up Subsonic and replayed my last song which turned out to be “Easy on Me” from Adele 30. After a few minutes of listening, I took them off and just said “amazing.” These were driven easily by my iPhone and I was impressed with the quality of sound from sub-bass through high treble. Once home, I spent a few days listening to them on my basic P1 tube amp from Douk Audio and things were good and the boosted bass from the MDR-Z7m2 was something I feel like I am missing when listening to my Sennheiser open backs. The set comes with two cables with one being a TRRRS 4.4mm balanced. So, I moved to my S.M.S.L. setup (SU-1 and SP200 – a Marketplace find) and used USB from my MacBook to the SU-1 with Amazon Music Unlimited to listen to some Ultra HD tracks using the balanced cable these headphones managed to get better. The sub-bass is slightly boosted and bass to mids are good while the treble and high end is clear, which is not what other reviews find and not what I expected after looking at the graphs for these. Most of the graphs I have looked at show the highs with a lot of peaks & drops, but I feel like what I am hearing is not representative of those graphs.

I find the ear pads are very comfortable and notice the tubes that contain the slider for size adjustment are noticeably less padded than the middle portion of the headband. While not a problem for me, it might be noticeable for someone with larger head. The construction of the headband, yokes and ear cups feel like metal and the screw in cable connectors are new to me and I am undecided on them. On one hand, I could see where the screwed in connector could prevent unplanned disconnects, but a cable held in only by friction of the 3.5mm connector could offer a strain relief of sorts and allow the connection to pull out versus pulling the headphones off your head. That said, I guess you are not forced to engage the screw in collars and have that as option.

I know I am very fortunate to have been able to find these at a really good deal and can tell you I would not spend the money on any headphone upwards of $300. The only headphone I have spent that much on was another pawn shop find on some “like new” Focal Bathys. I keep an inventory and have a formula to score a value proposition on retail versus what I paid as a percentage off and the Sony purchase represents my best value so far based on this formula at a score of 27.5.
Value Proposition Score=(Percentage Off Retail×0.6)+(Money Saved v. Retail×0.4)

The Bathys purchase had a score of 14.6 and the next highest score of 10.5 comes from my Audeze Maxwells I found at my local flea market for $50. Talking with manager of the pawn shop when buying the Sony’s was informative. He used to work at a high audio store and said in today’s market there were a couple of things going against the Sony’s. He says the average consumer doesn’t want a wired headphone today, they don’t understand the specs on on audiophile gear; and, in pawn shop economics, they had been in inventory too long. Hopefully these will continue to provide some great listening sessions going forward.