SONY PFR-V1 part2: General analysis

Disclaimer: Thanx to my friend, vAsurada, I am having another shot at this funky headphone. 

Wait..

..That surely rings a bell! LOL

PRO: Sony PFR-V1 has a very impressive & interesting localization characteristic. Even STAX sigma series & AKG K-1000, which utilize frontal drivers, still sound quite diffused- But this headphone is just totally different.

CON: It is extremely hard to find a comfortable fit that yields good bass. An ear guide that tightens the coupling would have been a great help. The distortion figure is gross in the lower frequency range.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #1: It is a good idea to simply avoid sources with higher output impedance, as the mechanical resonance at 550 Hz becomes very problematic otherwise.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #2: PFR-V1 comes with a pair of foam sleeves, which can be equipped on the bass reflex duct. And they definitely increase the overall level of bass, while decreasing the bandwidth. On top of that, V1's unique localization gets lost along the way as a trade-off.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #3: The headphone is also bundled with a bass booster, BAM-P1, and this quasi-amplifier effectively inverts the phase of sound coming from the bass reflex duct. However, the polarity of the treble driver gets inverted as well- so what is the point? I'll leave the detailed analysis on BAM-P1 to my good friend, Salsal.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #4: While the above diffuse-field referenced data is still valid for binaural reproduction for its directional properties, PFR-V1's frontal localization characteristic indicates that the reference is not an adequate target for representing the headphone's true orthotelephonic gain, or its localization characteristics.

Continued to part 3, in-depth analysis.