Digital Trends

Sony Altus MDR-D777LP December 26th, 2006 | by Brandon King

What Makes These Headphones Special?

The Sony Altus headphones (MDR-D777LP series) are the much-hyped, high-end option marketed toward the discerning consumer. While Sony does offer higher priced (and arguably better performing) headphones, the Altus offers mass appeal with just enough innovation to stick out in a crowd.

It is obvious to us that Sony is gunning for the same niche as Bose with these cans, and having experience with both, we will be comparing the two throughout our review. After all, if the retail shelf is going to have only two $100+ headphone options, we might as well throw them into the cage and see which comes out alive! (Still, it should be noted that we were not very impressed with the Bose Triport headphones. We have reviewed plenty of cheaper, but hard-to-find options that could run circles around the Triports at half the price.)

The main claim to fame of the Altus headphones is the 8 Hz to 80 kHz frequency response range. Most headphones — and by most, we mean every headphone on the planet — are listed as being able to reproduce frequencies between 20 Hz and 24 kHz; the lower frequency corresponds to deep sounds (bass), and the higher frequency produces the high-pitched sounds (treble). The lower the low frequency, the deeper the tone of bass it can pump out, and vice versa for the high frequency rating. So, pumping out more frequencies means better-sounding music, right? Not necessarily. The human ear can only hear frequencies between around 15 Hz to 25 kHz (and far fewer as you age, around 30 Hz-17 kHz).

So then, this incredible frequency response hype is nothing more than a gimmick? Not exactly. You’ve probably heard that audiophiles will tweak their systems to reproduce the clearest possible sounds at the widest possible range, even those outside what are audible. This is because the sounds that you cannot hear acoustically distort the sounds you do hear by interfering in those audible sound waves. The real world outside of your iPod and CDs can produce any frequency, so the idea is that the more frequencies you can reproduce, the more natural the sound being produced is.

Ah, so this extended frequency spectrum does mean better sound? Again, not really. The reason lies in the source material used. CDs are recorded at 44.1 kHz, the maximum frequency that can be reproduced from a CD, meaning there are 44,100 points to the sound waveform, with each point’s value being 16 bits long. These discrete measurements are why analog radio buffs still swear by analog recordings like vinyl records. Recently, high definition audio formats have been introduced, most notably DVD-Audio and SACD, that offer bit rates of 96 kHz and have been aimed at converting those with high-end analog stereo equipment to the digital age.

So, we are left with a couple of questions: “Do the Sony Altus headphones improve sound quality for common audio formats, like MP3s? Do these headphones accurately distinguish between regular definition and high definition recordings?” But first, the basics…