I tried out some super-cheap wired headphones – they put the bass in ‘bargain basement’
The Sony MDR-ZX110 are an absurdly cheap pair of wired headphones from the audio giant. Sitting at the absolute opposite end of the spectrum to its premium, cutting-edge WH-1000XM6 wireless headphones, these are seriously old school, coming with few features, an undeniably economy build and wired, analog sound. But given they cost just $12.99 / £15, I couldn’t resist giving them a test and seeing whether they’re worth your time.
$20 challenge
This is the latest in a regular series of articles in which we test really cheap gadgets to see if they’re worth even the small price you’ll pay for them. Read them all here.
There’s something deeply nostalgic about the MDR-ZX110. Honestly, they take me back to my youth, when music came from scratched CDs or hilariously low-quality 32kbps MP3s, and headphones were something you spent less money on than going to the pub. Buying cheap cans and replacing them every few months when I inevitably broke them felt way more economical than the hundreds of dollars many of us spend nowadays.
But when I first tried these out, it certainly cracked the lenses of my rose-tinted glasses. If I was relying on my non-aural senses, my impression of the Sony MDR-ZX110 would be pretty poor. They absolutely feel and look like a $12.99 / £15 pair of headphones. Not only does the plastic they’re made from feel cheap and flimsy but they rattle a lot as you handle them, suggesting they’re not the sturdiest cans ever made.
Additionally, I’m not a huge fan of their ear cups: they’re a bit stingy in terms of padding, while their leatherette covers are a wrinkled, puckered circle that I’m too polite to provide an analogy for.
My feelings around their fit are more equivocal. On the one hand, they’re surprisingly comfortable for on-ear headphones. I usually hate anything that might squish my ear cartilage – something even some of the best headphones can do – and yet I was able to wear these for quite a while without discomfort. But their sizing is still a little odd: despite the fact I have a fairly large head, I had to wear the earcups on their shortest setting, meaning these headphones will likely feel very loose for anyone with a more elfin noggin.
Listing the features of these headphones might be the easiest job of my career. Essentially, their only feature is ‘they’re wired headphones’. You’re not getting ANC, EQ, wireless connectivity or any of the scores of smart features you might get on a pair of wireless headphones – they don’t even offer an inline remote.
But there is one clear benefit to this lack of functionality: fewer points of failure. As I’ve written elsewhere, as headphones have gotten more technologically sophisticated, they’ve also gotten more vulnerable to developing faults, from ANC mics to Bluetooth modules. Sony’s cans can really only break in one of two areas: their drivers and their wiring. And while this isn’t necessarily preferable to owning a pair of feature-packed modern headphones, it does mean you don’t have to worry as much about how you treat (or mistreat) them.
Bold, bassy but not too bright
When it comes to their sound, however, the Sony MDR-ZX110 upturned my expectations. I usually associate budget-price headphones with truant bass and pronounced, over-aggressive treble. These do almost the opposite, dishing out ample bass and warm mids, while skimping on the high-ends.
The low end is about as deft as you have a right to expect for $12.99 / £15. While listening to York by Christian Löffler, I was genuinely impressed with how smoothly the MDR-ZX110 handled those clean slabs of melodic synth, giving them plenty of body and competently balancing the bass and harmonic tones. Admittedly, the kick felt a little more distant in the mix but I put this more down to the lack of pop in the higher ranges than insufficient bass punch.
Mids are also adequate for such a bargain-basement price. The dulcet brass instruments in Paradox by Riot Jazz Brass Band were deliciously honeyed, while the thickly textured timbre of the horns was communicated well. And the headphones do solid work with vocal-heavy tracks as well: playing Hunger by Florence + the Machine, I was struck by how much body her vocals, the piano and strings had. However, they did seem to perform a shade better at the warmer end of the spectrum – occasionally I experienced that cotton wool stuffiness in my ears that suggested I was missing some frequencies higher up.
This was confirmed when I stuck on Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac. The MDR-ZX110 sidesteps the trap some cheap speakers and headphones fall into, which is overdriving the treble until it limits or distorts – elements like those thumping toms and thrumming guitars avoid sounding overly bright. In fact, I’d say Sony’s cans go too far the other way: in some tracks, it becomes impossible to ignore there is a definite pinch in the lower high-end, causing certain elements to feel more muffled, like they’re being smothered for the sake of boosting other elements in the track.
Ultimately, these are about as cheap as I ever see headphones go for these days – for $12.99 / £15, you’ll definitely need to moderate your expectations of what you’re going to get. You’re not going to get a good-looking, robustly built pair of cans, nor will you get a product that’s jam packed full of features. But Sony has put together something that sounds pretty reasonable and done it for the fraction of the cost of your typical affordable headphones. So if you only have a few notes to spare, this should be the pair you pick up.
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