An open-back studio-reference headphone Sony built for mixing immersive and stereo audio, notable for two things nearly every reviewer agrees on: it's extraordinarily light and comfortable (~223 g, plush suede pads, barely any clamp), and it has far more bass — real, deep sub-bass — than open-backs usually manage. Beyond that it's a deliberately coloured set: a V/U-shaped tuning with boosted bass, slightly recessed mids and a lifted presence/treble region around 6 kHz, trivially easy to drive from anything and exceptionally responsive to EQ. The agreed strengths are comfort, that unusual low-end extension, precise imaging and a strong spatial presentation (its immersive-mixing calling card), plus easy drivability; the agreed weaknesses are the non-neutral tuning and the total lack of isolation. The real arguments are about how those traits land: whether the big bass is punchy and controlled or simply too much and woolly; whether the bright top end is civil, non-sibilant energy or a genuine peak that fatigues; whether the stage is open and wider than an HD 600 or intimate and forward; and whether it's a fair deal at ~$400 or outclassed there by the HD 600 and Sundara (most agree it's a steal used). Build divides opinion too — light aluminium-and-plastic that reads either cheap-for-the-price or perfectly solid and repairable — and it ships with no case and a proprietary cable.
About this product
Open-back over-ear reference monitor with a 40 mm dynamic driver (24 Ω, 100 dB/mW, 5 Hz–80 kHz), launched in 2023 as Sony's first genuinely new open-back in years and aimed at mixing immersive/spatial and stereo audio. About 223 g with suede/Alcantara pads and a detachable, threaded 2.5 m cable. Not a closed studio can like the MDR-7506/M-series, and not the wireless MDR-M1 it's often shopped against.
Sony's MDR-MV1 was the company's first genuinely new open-back headphone in years — a lightweight, open-backed studio monitor aimed squarely at engineers mixing spatial and immersive audio, where an accurate, out-of-your-head sense of space matters as much as tonal balance. At around $400 it dropped into the crowded mid-price reference tier against fixtures like the Sennheiser HD 600 and HiFiMan Sundara.
What makes it stand out — and argued about — is that Sony didn't chase flat. The MV1 pairs unusually deep bass for an open-back with a bright, lifted top end and a slightly scooped middle, wrapped in a body so light many reviewers say it disappears on the head. That combination has earned it a small cult following and an equal number of skeptics, which makes it a good candidate for reading the consensus rather than any single hot take.
