Purchased:

Price: 50 Euro
at: Karstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
on April 20th 2004

Pictures:

Have a look on the pictures I made from the headphones.

First impression:

Before buying the headphones I did a lot of research reading online reviews. Many reviewers praise this headphones very high. Thus, I had very high expectations when I bought them.
My first experience with them was a little bit disappointing. My expecatations were too high and I am not sure what I really expected. Don't get me wrong: the headphones are very good, but don't expect some kind of wonder. They are much better, than anything I had before.

wearing comfort:

The headphones come with rubber plugs in three different sizes: small, medium and large for different sizes of ears. For me the medium size is fine. They fit well into my ears and don't hurt even after using them for hours. In some reviews I read that it would be difficult to plug them into the ears, but I have absolutely no problems.

reduced enviromental sound:

One important aspect is that the headphones cancel out a lot of the environmental sound. I would say they reduce the surrounding sounds to about 30% of their original loudness, but this is only a guess of me and no acurate measurement. You can still hear cars and busses on the streets, but for talking to somebody you definetly have to remove them, mainly because your own voice also sounds very dull, when you have the headphones equipped.
I personally like that property of the headphones, because I mainly use them in public transportation. With my old headphones (3G iPod) I had to turn the volume very high to have the music louder than the engine of the bus, which was a little bit too loud for my ears. Now I can listen at a comfortable volume and even hear a lot more details of the music than before. Listening to music or audiobooks is now a lot more relaxing than with the old headphones I had.
Of course you have to be careful, when you walk through the city, while listening to music, even more with this type of headphones, but you can still hear cars or busses approaching. But better have an extra watch before you cross a street.

sound quality:

Now I want to speak of the most important aspect of the headphones: The sound quality. It is brilliant. Very clear and you can speak of a real bass, which is absulutely amazing. The intensive and precise bass is the most impressing aspect of the Sony MDR-EX71LP. It may be too strong for some people, but for me it is just perfect. I wouldn't like to have a weaker bass now. Also due to the effect, that the environmental sound is reduced very much the other frequencies are much clearer too. There are a lot of little sounds in the music that I now register for the first time, with this headphones.

accessories:

What I also like is that the cable of the headphones is very short - only about 40 cm. I use to wear the remote control of my iPod somewhere on my breast clipped to the pocket of a shirt. The cable has the perfect length to be used together with the remote control of the Apple iPod. If you need a longer cable there is a extension cable in the box, which gives you about one more meter. Also useful is the little protection case, where only the headphones itself and not their cable fits in. Have a look at the pictures. This way the headphones are protected well and the case is applicated very fast. Moreover the headphones come with a soft little bag, where you can put them in. Also a nice design feature is the fact that the cable too the left ear is much longer then the one to the right. But this is nothing special, many headphones have this feature.

conclusion:

I think the Sony MDR-EX71LP are very good headphones and can recommend them to everybody. The sound quality is very good. If you have never used headphones of the ear-bud style then you have to get used to the fact that the environmental sound is reduced very strong. But I don't think this is a problem. In the most situations it is even very comfortable. So if you want good headphones and are ready to spend the price, go ahead and buy them. I wish I had bought them earlier.