For first, about AKG by Harman: (source Wikipedia)
AKG Acoustics (originally Akustische und Kino-Geräte Gesellschaft m.b.H., English: Acoustic and Cinema Equipment) was an acoustics engineering and manufacturing company founded in 1947 by Dr. Rudolf Görike and Ernest Plass, and headquartered in Vienna, Austria. AKG now exists as a brand owned by the South Korean firm Samsung Electronics and managed by Harman International Industries.
The products currently marketed under the AKG brand mostly consist of microphones, headphones, wireless audio systems and related accessories for professional and consumer markets.
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This is FiiO X5 III (3rd. Generation), my first DAP (Digital Audio Player), Excellent DAP & Amplifier.
I would like to test Astell&Kern SR15 A&Norma DAP.
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And coming up with review of these AKG:
First unboxing of AKG K702 with new cable
They are my first serious Headphones. The AKG K702 are a linear headphones. This means a linear sound without emphasizing any frequency. They are very neutral signature. For me this is a PRO and not a cons.
I pilot them with a FiiO X5 3rd Gen and the sound very well!
These are some specifics:
- Dynamic Driver (this means that the speakers themselves have a moving part, which corresponds to a general improvement of the sound).
- 56 Ohm, this means that to get the most out of these Headphones you will need a DAC & AMP Dedicated with minimum 150 mW of power over 60 Ohm to drive they very well (my FiiO X5III in High returns about 480 mWatt on 16 Ohm and about 225 mW on 56 Ohms on the unbalanced output with the 3.5mm Jack, so it is able to give all the potential that these AKG need!) Obviously if you have a smartphone, forget the 200mWatt!
I have an LG G4 and it can barely give >150 mW about 32 Ohm, let alone drive this type of headphones. It returns barely >90 mW of power, come on!
Then if you combine them with MP3s ... For me, now music should only be FLAC because you can not hear people who: "eh, enough that you hear"!
Music is art, my boys! And it must be heard well!. Instead of spending 200 euros for Beats these are much more realistic and enveloping than all the basses that the Beats returns!
Feel them with a good Amplifier and tell me ...
- Sound Range: 10 Hz - 39,800 kHz. They manage to give you the whole spectrum of sound in a linear and precise, the sound-stage is very broad, if not very large compared to the many headphones / earphones I tested.
THE SOUND: In classical music one can perceive the direction of every instrument, sigh, etc. I'm talking about emotions that I feel for the first time when I put them in the head...
I put Vivaldi - The Four Seasons in DSD64 (DSF) and the orchestra started! In the tracks you could hear the soloist breathing, in the violins touching the strings, the harpsichord was distinguished from all the instruments, the violets with all their splendor ... and the soloist then ... It was as if he were in front of you and you immersed in the orchestra!
Now I'm talking about James Bay's Scars (an extract in FLAC 24 bit 88 kHz from the album "Chaos and the Chalm"): James's voice in front of you, realistic and never intrusive; The guitar, the electric one, the organ of a unique naturalness! The battery is another pure realism, the detachment with the dishes and the percussion ... At one point everything mixes, but you can perceive every instrument, the voice among other things, spectacular! One reason why I banished MP3 and M4A from my life, compressed, crap that does not return nothing but compression and no realism if you hear with certain headphones (I do not speak of IEM but series headphones like these). These return any defect of the recording and the source listening, so if you consider buying these headphones: or because you are a sound engineer looking for something cheap but serious! Or because you are demanding in music like me and you know how to pilot them, because this question is important!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AKG K702 Before arrived...
AKG K702 | FiiO X5 III & Lyn Stanley - The Moonlight Session (Volume One) | DSD128 from NativeDSD
Another shot of FiiO X5 III & AKG K702
About the Sound & Soundstage:
LOWS: Very accurate, detailed, expecially percussions. Are there, but not intrusive, Because they are Reference Class Headphones: I concentrate my review on the mids and the highs.
MIDS: Neutral Tonality, Transparent and Vivid Voice, expecially of Female Voices.
For example, the voice of Lyn Stanley is powerful, vivid and transparent tonality.
HIGHS: Very accurate, precise, airy, open and transparent.
The Soundstage is wide, than you listen any instrument, separated, clean, detailed, expecially in classical, jazz, and blues music, exp. in DSD Formats.
If you have a possibility to a native support of Direct Stream Digital formats you experiment a new dimension of space and stage. My FiiO, for example, supports natively DSD 2.8 MHz & 5,6 MHz (128 times of a CD quality).
AKG Acoustics (originally Akustische und Kino-Geräte Gesellschaft m.b.H., English: Acoustic and Cinema Equipment) was an acoustics engineering and manufacturing company founded in 1947 by Dr. Rudolf Görike and Ernest Plass, and headquartered in Vienna, Austria. AKG now exists as a brand owned by the South Korean firm Samsung Electronics and managed by Harman International Industries.
The products currently marketed under the AKG brand mostly consist of microphones, headphones, wireless audio systems and related accessories for professional and consumer markets.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - F i i O E l e c t r o n i c s - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is FiiO X5 III (3rd. Generation), my first DAP (Digital Audio Player), Excellent DAP & Amplifier.
I would like to test Astell&Kern SR15 A&Norma DAP.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
And coming up with review of these AKG:
First unboxing of AKG K702 with new cable
They are my first serious Headphones. The AKG K702 are a linear headphones. This means a linear sound without emphasizing any frequency. They are very neutral signature. For me this is a PRO and not a cons.
I pilot them with a FiiO X5 3rd Gen and the sound very well!
These are some specifics:
- Dynamic Driver (this means that the speakers themselves have a moving part, which corresponds to a general improvement of the sound).
- 56 Ohm, this means that to get the most out of these Headphones you will need a DAC & AMP Dedicated with minimum 150 mW of power over 60 Ohm to drive they very well (my FiiO X5III in High returns about 480 mWatt on 16 Ohm and about 225 mW on 56 Ohms on the unbalanced output with the 3.5mm Jack, so it is able to give all the potential that these AKG need!) Obviously if you have a smartphone, forget the 200mWatt!
I have an LG G4 and it can barely give >150 mW about 32 Ohm, let alone drive this type of headphones. It returns barely >90 mW of power, come on!
Then if you combine them with MP3s ... For me, now music should only be FLAC because you can not hear people who: "eh, enough that you hear"!
Music is art, my boys! And it must be heard well!. Instead of spending 200 euros for Beats these are much more realistic and enveloping than all the basses that the Beats returns!
Feel them with a good Amplifier and tell me ...
- Sound Range: 10 Hz - 39,800 kHz. They manage to give you the whole spectrum of sound in a linear and precise, the sound-stage is very broad, if not very large compared to the many headphones / earphones I tested.
THE SOUND: In classical music one can perceive the direction of every instrument, sigh, etc. I'm talking about emotions that I feel for the first time when I put them in the head...
I put Vivaldi - The Four Seasons in DSD64 (DSF) and the orchestra started! In the tracks you could hear the soloist breathing, in the violins touching the strings, the harpsichord was distinguished from all the instruments, the violets with all their splendor ... and the soloist then ... It was as if he were in front of you and you immersed in the orchestra!
Now I'm talking about James Bay's Scars (an extract in FLAC 24 bit 88 kHz from the album "Chaos and the Chalm"): James's voice in front of you, realistic and never intrusive; The guitar, the electric one, the organ of a unique naturalness! The battery is another pure realism, the detachment with the dishes and the percussion ... At one point everything mixes, but you can perceive every instrument, the voice among other things, spectacular! One reason why I banished MP3 and M4A from my life, compressed, crap that does not return nothing but compression and no realism if you hear with certain headphones (I do not speak of IEM but series headphones like these). These return any defect of the recording and the source listening, so if you consider buying these headphones: or because you are a sound engineer looking for something cheap but serious! Or because you are demanding in music like me and you know how to pilot them, because this question is important!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
AKG K702 Before arrived...
AKG K702 | FiiO X5 III & Lyn Stanley - The Moonlight Session (Volume One) | DSD128 from NativeDSD
Another shot of FiiO X5 III & AKG K702
I'm a fan of music forever, and I own various types of headphones and earphones including: FiiO F9 Pro, 1MORE E1001 Triple Driver, these AKG K702 with the cable in place of the original, Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro, FiiO X5 III as DAP (Digital Audio Player) and FiiO A5 as a Amplifier. I have over 1000 GB of music purchased from Qobuz, HDTracks, HiResAudio, NativeDSD, Tidal MQA all in 16 bit CD quality, HiRes up to 352.8 kHz and DSD64 / 128/256 and DXD. I own over 100+ CDs and 20 Vinyls, all original. Lover of Pink Floyd (I own The Endless River & The Bell Division [REMASTER] in LP), Iron Maiden (including some LPs), AC/DC and classical in general. I mainly listen to Classical, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Metal, Folk, Soul, Pop, etc.
About the Sound & Soundstage:
LOWS: Very accurate, detailed, expecially percussions. Are there, but not intrusive, Because they are Reference Class Headphones: I concentrate my review on the mids and the highs.
MIDS: Neutral Tonality, Transparent and Vivid Voice, expecially of Female Voices.
For example, the voice of Lyn Stanley is powerful, vivid and transparent tonality.
HIGHS: Very accurate, precise, airy, open and transparent.
The Soundstage is wide, than you listen any instrument, separated, clean, detailed, expecially in classical, jazz, and blues music, exp. in DSD Formats.
If you have a possibility to a native support of Direct Stream Digital formats you experiment a new dimension of space and stage. My FiiO, for example, supports natively DSD 2.8 MHz & 5,6 MHz (128 times of a CD quality).
