AKG K 1000 WhitePaper/Brochure download now available

is heard of this in the other topic, should be interesting

I never came across a definitive reason for the discontinuance of the K1000. Can anyone provide the reason.

In case your hosting goes down, the manual is still hosted on the AKG USA website:

http://www.akg.com/site/products/pow...nguage,EN.html

One of the official reasons from AKG was that the machinery they used to manufacture the K-1000 was worn out. But, of course, they did not want to reinvest because sales weren't so hot and they would not have been able to recapture the investment in new machinery.

It was probably a sound business decision from the beancounters. Thing is, the K-1000 was their halo product. At the time it went out of production, it beat the snot out of everything else in current production. They should have kept it for bragging rights, and they did sell about 12,000 of them over its lifespan. If anything, they should have tweaked the driver and gave it a different housing.

Then again, the K-1000 came back from the dead once or twice before. It looks like Sennheiser is coming out with a new top-end can, and it certainly will hit K-701 sales hard. That might be a good time to bring back the proven product with the built-in fan base and considerable mystique.

You mean AKG K1000 have been discontinued and back to production before??

I wonder if one of the reasons why it lost popularity was how hard it is to drive. Especially consumer grade audio equipment these days is always skimping on amping.

Also, if it's true that the original manufacturing equipment is just too warn out to use, then maybe AKG should redesign the k1000. As it is now, it screams 80s in a big way. I'm at a point where I might wear my HD595s in public (big might!). k1000 I'd definitely not consider a fashion accessory.

So I think that if AKG were to go back to the earspeaker concept, it would be much nicer if they came out with an upgrade to the k1000 (easier to drive drivers and more contemporary design).

The biggest reason is original price of DM1500, no doubt about it.

And you can drive them out of any reasonable stereo amp and getting nice results, not the best but still...

I don't think there is a such thing like upgrading K1000 in the future or ever. What can you upgrade
These phones are very rare, they are speakers with dynamic drivers hanging in the middle of it, totally free movement which is absolutely impossible with "normal" headphones, I guess.
Maybe making another design, bit more comfortable or what ever, but I don't think so. Gone is gone, end of story.
Or they will be moving this part to China to push the production costs down. Will be a big mistake, IMO.

You mean from AKG's product line that time, right (Like the K701...)?
Cause if you mean headphones in general, from any brand, that might be up for discussion!

@fmplautus & J-Pak. Thanks for the links, cause the PDF's might come handy some time.

Yes they have been discontinued and brought back before.

Production cost, production problems and very low sales numbers. As great as they are it's hard to blame AKG for not keeping them around when they only managed to sell some 12,000 of them over a 10+ year period.

The previous discountinues also having the same reasons as worn out tools or this time the tools are really worn out?? i am just curious..

Would it? The magic in these headphones comes from the drivers, and changing them would change the sound entirely. Also, at least part of the mystique with the k1000 is that they are hard to find good amplification for.

And the styling comes entirely from a function over form position, changing the design into a user-friendly and pretty package would be a balance with the sonic characteristics, and would almost certainly not be sonically favourable. The earspeaker design sounds so good because it ignores looks, in favour of good sound.

Costs are probably a big reason for unit sales. The more expensive something is, the less units are going to be sold. However, a certain segment of the population will want to pay the extra money for the prestiege, quality, etc. I'm sure manufacturers try to take manufacturing costs and demand into account. I've noticed that around ATL, there are more and more BMWs on the road....BMW has been a status symbol, but now they've gotten fairly inexpensive to buy. I'm sure one of the reasons for the drop in price for them, is that BMW has several manufacturing plants in the US now.

The same is true for headphones: the biggest sellers are not the most expensive....don't know the biggest sellers of all time, but the Senn HD414, Sony MDR-V600, HD580, etc have got to have really beaten the snot out of k1000 from a sales standpoint.

I guess it's also the concept that may have never gotten that popular: it's so open that the k1000 is an anti-headphone. It doesn't do anything to block out outside sound, or isolate you from other people. I think it's more for apartment living: where you might not want speakers to disturb next door neighbors. Well at least it was produced for a long duration, so those k1000 fans have an opportunity to hold on to their earspeakers!

You can still change the aesthetics and not change the function of a headphone. The k1000 screams 80s design because of the red rods, black headband, and silver driver enclosures: contrasting colors that were very big in the 80s. It's also quite cubistic: a design that was very popular in the 80s. It's actually quite surprising how you can guess when something was made just from its design (though certain contemporary styles go in and out of fashion....the 80s fads really aren't though: with good reason, so much design then was BAD).

I believe that the whole concept, behind K1, was simple to produce something that make sound like it suppose to be, IMO. But like STEWTHEKING said, that's not possible with all those things that general consumer wants, comfort, isolation etc.
About the cars.
If the price of fuel will be developing like it does now, we all be buying an mule in the future

But that's different with phones, I guess. When you tried something better, you just don't care what you had before.

I think comparing cars and phones isn't that correct, in the sense of bringing you from A to B and bringing you to the NIRVANA, IMO