The SMH-1000 is a headphone that not only looks almost exactly like the MDR-V6/MDR-7506, its physical design has been improved in a few subtle ways. The sound signature of the SMH-1000 is in fact rather different to my ears than the Sony offerings and I think that for casual music listening it's a better choice.
Earlier this year I accidentally broke my Sony MDR-V6 by allowing the cable to be repeatedly pinched by the seat of my office chair. Sound became intermittent to the right ear; I tried repairing the frayed wire with electric tape to no avail and only made things worse (needless to say I'm not as handy with electronics as I'd like to be). Anyways, this holiday season I decided to fork out the money for a replacement pair. While searching for the best price online I came upon the Senal SMH-1000, which I saw described as sounding really similar to the MDR-7506. http://www.amazon.com/review/RWN22BUL9IC4Z/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00ASWZO6U&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag= In addition to looking like a replica of the MDR-V6/MDR-7506, the SMH-1000 also happened to be cheaper than the MDR-V6 and MDR-7506 everywhere I looked, so it got my attention. After reading a few more glowing reviews I finally bought it from B&H and it arrived three days ago on Christmas Eve.
My eagerness to replace the MDR-V6 was due to its relatively flat sound signature unlike any headphone I had ever heard. Where it really shone to me was on albums like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne; on tracks with complex instrumentation, bumping bass and sparkling highs it seemed to reveal every detail without bias. Indeed, the equal representation of higher frequencies in relation to lower ones was such that I could easily become fatigued after a half an hour or so of listening at a time. And while the direction of a lot of good-sounding headphones seem to be to try and produce as wide of a soundstage as possible despite the inherent limitations of headphones versus loudspeakers, I was charmed by the way everything in a record simply seemed "right there". Though I had purchased the MDR-V6 solely for listening enjoyment, its sound signature seemed perfectly justifiable to me for a studio environment and I really appreciated its auditory qualities for my own taste in music.