Sony have announced the release of ten new additions to their headphone ranges, which will be available to buy from March.

There are two new ‘ranges’ as such including the  MDR-ZX series and the MDR-EX series and they are joined by the arrival of the MDR-Z1000, which is a professional monitor headphone. The MDR-ZX range includes the ZX 700, Zx 500, ZX 300 and the ZX 100 models and are a closed-type earphone design. The MDR-EX range are an ‘in ear’ type of headphone and includes the EX510LP, EX 50 EX 40, EX12iP models. The EX12iP is designed specifically to match the ipod, iPhone and iPad range and has in-line control.

Features of the range are shown in the table below (click on image):

Research is showing that for a brief moment at least, Sony have taken the crown in Japan and have sold more Walkmans than Apple have sold iPods in the last month.

It might not seem like a big deal on the surface but, since 2001 when research company BCN began compiling their monthly sales stats, this is just the second time that Sony have come out on top (which lasted a week), with Apple and their iPod range outselling their competitors for the rest of the time. Last month the Sony Walkman held a 47.8% share of the market where as the iPod had 44%. Many expect this will all change when the new iPod models are released by Apple in Japan but, for the time being Sony can puff out it’s corporate feathers and celebrate it’s victory in the Japanese market.

Between them Sony and Apple hold around a 90% share of the market for portable music players in Japan anyway, so there is no real loser in this battle anyway.

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