Having a Sony MDR-V300 for almost 15 years, I wanted to complete the V300 (still as good as the day) by a helmet best suited to mobility (the V300 has a 3m cord, very convenient to home PC or Hi-Fi but less suitable for mobile use). Unpacking, a first confirmation: the ZX610AP is beautiful, very beautiful, elegant and also gives a good impression of quality and strength. Once placed on the ears, seat firmness and comfort await you. However, once connected to a Xperia S, the first few seconds of music, sound reproduction is disappointing or even disgusting enough at times. Indeed, for the default output settings, the bass is an excessive hair as if trying to hide a record of more than midrange and treble means: whatever the loudness, midrange and treble slightly saturate and have no depth. Also, when rich musical passages combining different instruments and voices, excess bass and light saturation midrange and treble create an impression of very unpleasant hubbub. Of course, I do not stop myself to the test on smartphone and I continued the experiment on a PCHT (Home Theater PC) with a very good sound card (for better flexibility of electrical power). If ZX610AP sound quality improves significantly, defects remain indeed. By comparison, and for the same listening conditions (smartphone and PC), the V300 comes less powerful bass but more just and balanced and psychics and infinitely clearer and clear treble. I also noticed a curiosity between V300 and ZX610AP: V300 has an impedance of 24ohms and 40ohms of ZX610. So theoretically, the ZX610 should have a higher attenuation than the V300, or in practice, the opposite (on smartphone and PC).
To conclude, the ZX610AP has a very average sound quality is not bad to be in this price range, especially as most music consumers are not audiophiles with well-developed ears and / or sensitive to a "real" sound quality (the "purists" might say that listening to MP3, even 320kbps, is a heresy and only the FLAC is worthy of consideration). However, where the rub is that the V300, with over 10 years of seniority and in equivalent or even lower fare structure (you will notice that 15 years later, this model is still produced, it speaks volumes ... ) is much higher qualitatively !!
THE +: - The design (which justifies much of the note) - Comfort and robustness - The flat cord, anti-node and convenient for mobility - The smartphone compatibility (microphone and cord button) (quality of unscreened microphone)
LES -: - A really sound reproduction up to par, even for this price (see V300) - A more convenient cord than the V300, but ultimately too short for other uses as nomadic way (only 1m20, 1m60 cord was not luxury without becoming cumbersome provided), so providing an extension jack . - The jack is not gold plated (that is anecdotal for a helmet of this range, but the V300, to stay in this example, is equipped with a jack or 3,5mm and a connector 6, 5mm gold screw ...)