Do You Really Need Special Headphones for Binaural Audio? | Sony MDR-MV1 Review

In this video, I dive into a detailed review of the Sony MDR-MV1 headphones, which I recently acquired for use with Sony's 360 VME system. While initially hesitant due to their bright frequency response and my mild midrange hearing loss, I compare these headphones against the Ollo Audio S5X and Sennheiser HD490 Pro, evaluating them across build quality, sonic characteristics, and binaural audio performance, with the Sony MDR-MV1s surprisingly emerging as potentially my favorite headphones ever in terms of comfort and build quality.

The sonic quality analysis reveals that while the MDR-MV1s do have a noticeable brightness that can be easily corrected with EQ, the key revelation is that there's virtually no difference between these three high-end headphones when it comes to binaural audio performance. This leads to my conclusion that the concept of "binaural-optimized headphones" might be somewhat of a marketing gimmick, as any quality headphones with good imaging will work well for binaural audio, making it more important to choose based on personal comfort and sonic preferences rather than specific binaural capabilities.