Runs off normal headphone gear.
And … that’s pretty much it.
I will say the build/finish has a more high-end/luxury consumer goods finish/polish to it, where the SR1a is more like a high-end/high-tech tool.
But sonically? The SR1a is, for me, stronger across the board than the MySphere.
The SR1a can be “too much” after a very long day where all I want is some background tunes while I work on other things. Not because it is in anyway unpleasant, but because it is so good that invariably I wind up tuning out what I was trying to do and just getting drawn into highly-active listening … paying rapt attention to the music, and not getting anything else done.
If the SR1a would run directly off a DAP, a Hugo TT 2 or DAVE or my big Woo amp, I would have bought at least two pairs, and sold literally every other headphone I have except for the ZMF Vérité, the Focal Stellia, and one pair of flagship planar cans.
So, as @TylersEclectic says, it is more that the MySphere are as close as I can get to the desirable traits of the SR1a as possible, while still using normal gear, including portable stuff like DAPs.
And that’s actually why I started looking into them. They seemed like the best available option to get some of the unique aspects of the SR1a’s performance without needing a speaker amplifier (or even other desktop amplifier). And the MySphere do fulfill that desire so far …
One of those things is their ability to provide an image/stage with actual depth, like a good near-field speaker setup. Most other headphones project an image that only has width and then everything sits on a plane, or curve, at a fixed distance from the listener. Both the MySphere and the SR1a project a very vivid image that not only has width, and sounds like it is coming from speakers a few feet in front of you, but also has depth delineation and projection. Though the SR1a lets you adjust this more and can project a much deeper and wider stage (due to having more adjustment on the drivers and them being further from the ears in the first place).
Another is the essentially complete lack of coloration and/or resonance/cup-driver/baffle interactions. Both of these headphones deliver sound with a degree of clarity, purity and tonal neutrality that I’ve not heard with any other can. Not even flagship electrostatics and TOTL amplification.
The MySphere (at least the 3.2) do have a subtle element of “moistness” (it’s not “wet”, nor really “lush”) in the mids … where the SR1a don’t.
Speed, transient response, and raw resolution are also in a class of their own with the SR1a. Most planar cans sound flat out slow in comparison, and even dynamic headphone renowned for their speed, like the Utopia or the HD800S, don’t quite keep up. The SR1a literally resolve and expose things that get smoothed-over with some other cans.
The MySphere are the next-fastest, most resolving, headphone I’ve heard that doesn’t require specialty amplification. A high-end electrostatic can and a proper amplifier (one of the KG line, solid-state or tube, for example), is a bit faster, and maybe more resolving, than the MySphere. But I can’t name another conventional dynamic that is quite as fast.
I do think the MySphere are outright excellent.
And I can easily use them with my existing tube-amplifier.
So I am buying myself a pair - for all those times when I can’t use the SR1a.
Because as good as the MySphere (and some other flagships I have are) … the SR1a are just the best headphone I’ve heard - and their biggest, perhaps only, drawback is simply that they need a sturdy speaker amplifier to work.