Customer Reviews

Sony MDR-EX71SLA Fontopia Bud-Style Headphones with Case (Black)

5 star:		(96)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(38)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

SOUND: These exist to reproduce sound. They give nice crisp highs and manage the bass so well I had to change my equalization profile. I've not heard better ear buds. The only headphones I've had that sounded better were full-sized, ear-enclosing models that cost upwards of $100.

ERGONOMICS: These fit my ears quite comfortably. They also function as earplugs when I sleep ... earplugs that play music!

CABLE: Here's the weird part - instead of a normal "Y" between ears, Sony felt compelled to make one side about 4" long and the other about a foot long. It's a little annoying, but I got used to it. The extension cable is a little bizarre, too. Excess length can be wrapped around the iPod, so it's not a problem.

CABLE ROT: I've don't remember how long I've had these. I wear them when walking and when sleeping. It's been months. No problems at all with cable deterioration.

When I bought these they were considerably more than they sell for now. If they wear out or break, I'll buy another pair. I feel I got my money's worth. Now they're a real bargain.

Sorry for the outburst, but so many of these reviews complain about the asymmetric wire or how the left ear bud pulls out while jogging. Unlike symmetric ear buds, these are designed to drape the right ear bud chord across the BACK of your neck. This configuration takes almost all the weight of the chord off the earbuds, a distinct advantage over typical symmetric-chorded ear buds. Also, if you pull your earbuds out for a moment, they will hang naturally from your neck and stay there rather than forcing you to carry them in your hands -- as you'd have to do with a front-chorded style of wear.

The short cable length is ideal for me. As some note, wearing your MP3 player on your belt would force you to use the included extension chord, which would be a bit clumsy. But if you wear your MP3 player on your upper arm or on a lanyard around your neck, the short length is absolutely ideal.

As far as sound quality goes, good sound overall, a bit weak in the bass department. Non-ported buds tend to be weak in bass. If you want better bass, tune your EQ or go with an ear bud that is ported (has an open hole). Ported buds won't reduce outside noise as much, but in addition to potentially better bass, you probably won't hear the chord noise as much. Personally, for a do-everything pair of earbuds, these are perfect for me.

One downside of the asymmetric chord is that the chord will make it harder to wear your MP3 player on your right arm (the chord will drape towards the left). So if you like to wear your MP3 player on your left arm (like me) or on a neck lanyard, these are a great set of headphones.

The design and price of these earphones may not be ideal for every person or every device, but it suits my needs almost perfectly. Here's the lowdown:

The headset itself has a very short cord, only 22.5 inches from jack to left earbud. Another 21 inches of cord passes from the left earbud, behind the neck, to the right earbud. This short length lets me clip my iPod shuffle to my shirt collar with very little extra cord. The extra 2.5 feet of extension cord will let me put my iPod into my front pants pocket, should I need to. Very versatile.

I have very small ear openings, so any hard-plastic earbuds, no matter how well molded, make my ears ache horribly within 30 minutes. The silicone gaskets come in three different sizes, and the small buds fit my ears perfectly. I have worn these headphones for hours with perfect comfort.

I'm no audiophile, but the sound quality seems to be most adequate, with clear treble and palpable bass. They're noticeably quieter than their hard plastic counterparts; that is, there is less sound amplification, meaning I have to increase my volume when I wear these. The gaskets do a great job of keeping out external sounds; the unfortunate (but acceptable, to me) downside is increased "body" noise. Not the earphones you want to wear if you're eating something crunchy or breathing very heavily (although I've worn these jogging without being bothered by my own breathing).

I just purchased these headphones and I am amazed at the sound quality for the price, the bass actually punches and the highs are crispy! To get a bit technical the frequency range on them is 6 - 25k hz, and the $100 sony earbuds are only slightly better at 5 - 26k hz. So for a third of the price you basically get the same head phones! Happy with my purchase. Though the shure ec2's sure sound incredible, just not ready to shell out $100 for them at this point in time. PLEASE NOTE!!! Since writing the above review I have had two pairs of these headphones break in a row! This is not due to use and abuse, I treated them well, both headphones went extremely quiet/dead in one of the two buds. The first pair broke in the first 30 days so I exchanged them, the second pair broke 2 months later. POOR QUALITY!!!

the previous model Sony MDR-EX71SL had a problem with the case(didnt keep the wires from getting tangled) and the cord(the insulation was too fragile). in this model, sony fixed those issues. the case has a different design that keeps the cord from getting tangled and the cord is made of a more sturdy material.

as far as i am concerned, these headphones are perfect now. good job sony!

I'll admit it, these are the best sounding bud style headphones I've ever used. What I didn't like was the fact that the wiring basically rotted on me, for lack of a better word. Before I knew it, there were entire lengths of cable that were exposed when the shielding began to deteriorate. And this wasn't even three months after I purchased them that this began to happen.

The headphones still worked but it becomes a bit of a drag when you're listening to headphones that look like something you fished out of the garbage. Not only that, I know at least three other people that this happened to as well, so I know this isn't an isolated thing.

If they haven't fixed the wire issue, I suggest you go with something else.

I've got three sets of mdr-71xx's sitting in front of me that I've bought in the last 4-5 years. One has the left wire shot (but still good for listening in mono at work, feeding a mono signal out of winamp with the other ear open to office conversation etc.). Another set has "wire insulation rot" which has left the bare wire exposed for two inches down from one of the buds (electrical taped unsuccessfully, but still functional). And the last is still in good shape and I'm using them now.

I've bought at least the three pair above, and at least one other pair I lost. And I'm planning to buy another pair in a few minutes. Fact is, they sound _great_!. And more importantly, they're also comfortable for 8hrs a day of listening at my desk.

But they are NOT built for abuse or much in the way of wear & tear. A lot of my damage (aside from the cable-rot/stripping) is a product of having them on and turning with them caught on something, or rolling over them with chair wheels -- pretty much the gamut of things that happen when you use them day in day out 52 weeks a year, while busy focusing on other things.

So I'd love to see a pair with the drivers and fit of the mdr-71* but with _much_ more heavily-constructed cabling and components. _That_ would be my ideal earbud.

***!!!DO NOT BUY THE WHITE ONES!!!*** (see last paragraph)

SOUND QUALITY:

These are fantastic little headsets. I've accumulated four pairs (2 black & 2 white) in the last few years and use them in plenty of situations, most frequently on my 5G iPod, DS-Lite and iriver T10 player. The sound clean and can go very deep.

Bass output tested on the SRS-enabled iriver T10 player is phenomenal. These headphones also perform very well on a Pioneer VSX-92TXH, Nintendo DS-Lite, iriver ifp 300T, and a Creative Zen Vision:M. The drivers crack and distort somewhat at high volume on the iPod Gen5, but I attribute that more to the low output quality of the iPod amplifier. An external headphone amp is a good idea here (look it up!).

I've purchased and returned similar plug-style headphones in the sub $50 range from Philips, Panasonic, JVC and KOSS, these SONY heaphones remain my favorite. Haven't shelled out the big bucks for the Shure e(X)c series so I can't compare.

GENERAL USE:

They're very tiny so they fit just about anywhere. It's easy to tangle them so don't wad them in your pocket. I usually wrap them around whatever portable device I'm using, and I've discovered they actually store better if I unplug them from the device and start wrapping from the headphone end rather than the stereo plug end, then plug them back into the jack to lock the wire down.

Keep the extra different sized ear plug tips even if you don't ever expect to use them. Eventually you're bound to lose one and you'll have to make do with a different size.

Experiment with the plug tip sizes, sometimes changing sizes makes sense. In my case the larger size provides a more comfortable fit, but allows for more ambient noise and wind noise. The smaller size plugs further into the ear, blocks ambient noise better and provides louder sound. However you will hear more "bone conduction" sounds (rubbing/thumping when the wires get pulled or brush against things). Also with the tighter fit they don't breathe as well so they might cause sweating and sometimes itching.

ABOUT THE ROTTING..

The WHITE rubberized sheathing has turned to sticky nasty glue on the wires of both of the white pairs I've owned in the last two years. The sheathing peels off very easily now in little sticky clumps. The white pairs gradually turned an ugly green-gray color about six months into daily use. They will still work even with the wires exposed, but will be too easly tangled and the copper sheathing will unravel. I suggest buying a can of rubber/vinyl tool handle dip at the hardware store and re-coating the wires if you have a rotted pair of these and want to keep them alive. I have two sets in the black color both over two years old now and no problems whatsoever. Get over your trendy self and buy the ones with the black wires.

...and some not-so-great things.

First, the flaws: the casing is pretty flimsy. It started to fall apart after two months, though now it seems to be in a state of headphone-purgatory: it strangely hasn't continued to rip. If I were more paranoid, I might suspect Sony of intentionally manufacturing the casing to rip along one edge after a short period of time, so that the user stresses out and immediately buys another set. Maybe I'm on to something...

The cable, with the extender, is really long, and dangles out of my back pocket. Using the case to shorten the cable makes it bulkier, but tolerable. I'm about 5'6", and maybe the cord is a good length for people who are a bit taller...maybe 7 feet or so. So if anyone out there is 7 feet tall, buy this product.

But the cable without the extender is too SHORT. Can you believe that? These sort of headphones are good for using with an ipod and armband, but it's about an inch too short. So if you move your head too far in the other direction or wear a sweater over the armband + ipod + headphones, you'll feel the tension in your ear build up uncomfortably. WHY SONY WHYYYYY.

And if you're an active person that's always on the go, count on losing the ear buds. I wore the small ones and finally lost one of them after a month. Much to my chagrin, I replaced them with the medium ones, which did not fit as well but felt better than depleting my wallet of another thirty dollars. And now I lost one of the medium ones! They especially like to get lost in my purse. Then again, I have one of those giant purses with a plethora of books, papers, various grooming supplies, a laptop, as well as other odds and ends, so things tend to disappear. However, even when not succumbed to the dangers of my Cole Haan habit, they disappear; they simply fall out of the headphones. I can't count how many people on my campus think I'm crazy for looking for the buds when they come out--yes, I *was* that weird person that frantically scoured the bathroom floor on the second floor of the library for some invisible object. But hey, found the buds after 5 minutes.

The good: the headphones are pretty comfortable...supposing you don't lose the buds. I actually find it hard to tolerate the Apple ones now. They also sound pretty good, but I'm not sure how an audiophile would feel about that. Honestly, I'll probably buy another set, because I haven't found better length-adjustable headphones. Also, the white matches the ipod, and we all know how important that is.

I am now on my third, and final pair of these headphones. The ORIGINAL pair (MDR-EX71s, no "A") were absolutely awesome. The people who said the sound is tinny, bad, etc and the people who said they were not comfortable quite obviously did not have the fit right. They come with three sets of earbuds for a reason people! :) Sound isolation is great, especially for wind noise. I used them with my iPod on my R6 motorcycle and it was phenomenal how clear they still were. Regarding comfort, I was able to wear them virtually the entire time flying from London to Chicago, and my ears weren't even remotely sore afterwards. They were durable enough to actually withstand two wash/dry cycles in a pocket too! (Whoops!) When they are fitting properly, it's like having little subwoofers hanging in your ears, but they could still manage to reproduce the treble consistently. Great sound overall.

Now, that said... The Sony quality control must be a bunch on inebriated simians now, because I've gotten TWO sets of the "A" model, and now BOTH of them have had the Right earpiece fail within a month. If I flick it, it'll sometimes come back, but it's obviously that the wiring in the right earbud is crap now.

I love these headphones, but apparently I'm going to have to find another brand/model.