Two years ago we complained of too-easy-going treble, but the MDR-1A provide detailed but smooth treble that offers plenty of higher-frequency information while sticking within a harshness-fee signature.

For that, however, there’s always the WH-1000XM2, which are more of a blend of audiophile and travel-grade headphones. The mids are nice, very clear, a little creamy sounding, and just the right "distance" for my preferences.

There’s almost nothing to say for how comfortable these are, for they simply disappear on your head. Additionally, the other ear cushion also started to lose seams, but the hole is very small at the moment. The soft finish of the earcups is immediately comfortable for long periods of wear, and we've gone for many hours at a time with the MDR-1A temporarily glued to our head. They have NFC for quick sync’ing, but you can also simply pair them up normally as you would do with any Bluetooth device. Previously, he was the Senior Editor of Home Entertainment at TechRadar, covering TVs, headphones, speakers, video games, VR and streaming devices.

Even though 1A is closed back, Isolation is quite bad and very similar to how open backs would perform. These headphones can shift from the speedy, attacking beat of Jessie J’s Bang Bang, to the slower, more measured and moody rhymes of The Weeknd’s Wicked Games without any hesitation. It's a little hard to explain, but it mostly has to do with pressure distribution on the headphones in the case of impact or bending.

Pretty good depth, enough to get a decent sense of layering and some spatial separation between many instruments and vocals. This new version gets an extended frequency range, the hi-res logo, a new 40mm, aluminium-covered driver and redesigned earpads. With these however, listening to lower-quality audio files becomes incredibly apparent and distracting. Psychoacoustics and all, but we need no mental evaluation to beam about how great these headphones sound.