Komiyama   A key feature of the XB series which has been added to the line-up of headphones is that they deliver “a deep, thumping bass line”, but they were originally developed based on “the assumption that they would recreate the sound field of a club dance floor”. Both Matsuo and I belong to the generation that grew up listening to club music, so we are familiar not only with the sound that you hear from the best seat in a concert hall, but also with the sound that washes over you from speakers that are taller than you are.

Matsuo  You think that the best place to listen to classical music is from a good seat in a concert hall, but the desired quality and standard of sound change depending on where the sound field is positioned.

Komiyama  In that sense, music is extremely versatile, so we thought the sound field of the headphones should be more versatile too. When we started developing this series, it was with a view to “really pursuing the feel of a sound field such as hip-hop or some other dance music!”

Matsuo  Sony views headphones as “sound-field simulators”. When we reviewed current music trends, we found that the present pop genre actually incorporates substantial dance music elements and such elements are widely used in pop idols’ songs and singers’ songs. We thought about what was the best sound field for listening to dance music and decided that it had to be a club dance floor. What we wanted to do with the XB series was to simulate a club dance floor as the sound field. It is a completely different sound field to that targeted by existing headphones.

Komiyama  Of course, it isn’t that we think a concert hall isn’t a good place to listen to music or that Hi-Fi is something of the past! (laughs) But we thought there should be more ways of enjoying music and more diversity of value regarding sound. You can call it the “Sony Spirit”. It’s still in the nature of the headphone design team that they will make what they want to make. We made these headphones on the theme of club music washing over you like a baby’s first bath, but in some ways they were made possible by the way the team really immersed itself in this field.

Matsuo  Probably the biggest factor is that the main target of the headphones was people like Komiyama and myself. I think we made them simply because we ourselves wanted headphones like these!

Komiyama   When we were making the headphones, the first thing we did was to come up with these king-size ear pads. When we were thinking about how to visually express the sound reproduced by the headphones, one of the engineers said he wanted to make some fun ear pads. No existing ear pads expressed the deep bass sound and beat that you feel on club dance floors by their very existence and we thought it would be fun to do that.

Matsuo  From the perspective of design, the ear pads are a very important part. To produce very low frequency sound, we needed a better airtight seal from the driver unit to the eardrum. If a lot of air leaks from here, it is difficult to reproduce deep bass tones. Everybody’s ears and skull are a different shape, so it is very difficult to design headphones that will prevent air leaking no matter who wears them. And some people have wild hairstyles like Komiyama! (laughs)

Komiyama  Mmm. It would be no good if air leaked when I wore them! (laughs)

Matsuo  So we thought about what we had to do to maintain the airtight seal no matter who was wearing the headphones and we decided we had to start with the ear pads.

Komiyama  Before any of the design team or anyone involved in the design started on the drawings or acoustic design, we made some prototype ear pads in the factory. We had the sewers sewing all these ear pads, but the only way we could convey the image we had in our heads was by using onomatopoeia. So we were saying things like “it needs more ‘boom’” or “I want more ‘oomph’”.(laughs) There were all these grown-ups constantly coming up and saying “boom!” and “oomph!”.(laughs) But there was something linking all the images and the moment that we at last reached a point where everybody was satisfied, we all said “Yes! That’s it!”

Matsuo  The designers and engineers viewed the importance of the ear pads from completely different angles, but the final goal was the same. After making the prototype, we tried to come up with a name for this part that we normally call the “ear pads” that would be more in line with the concept and Komiyama came up with a number of suggestions. One of his suggestions, “king-size ear cushions”, had a nice ring to it.