AKG K240 Sextett--Grado'd AKG? - Page 3

I did in the PM you quoted above.

Ah yes, you did list them in order of preference, but anything about how the middle ones sound?

nice amp Jon. i'm not familiar with it. could you describe it. is it an el84 amp and will it pwr you k1ks?

yup, apparently you did miss something.

If you're discounting headphones do to the design being a few decades old you're doing yourself a big disservice IMO. Two of my favorite phones are 30 y.o. designs that not only compete with newer phones, but in many cases outperform them by a fair margin. I expect the sextetts to follow in those footsteps from what I've read.

Ok I just put back together one of my late production sextets, and I think it will be a tie between it and the middle production version on their technical merits, with my personal preference leaning towards the middle version. I will have to do more extensive listening to decide which one I prefer.

As stated before, the main difference between the early and middle versions is a big reduction in the amount of bass. The middle version is still a very warm headphone with a lot of bass, so please do not assume it is a "bass light" version since the early is a "bass heavy" version, as some people have incorrectly interpreted my comparison in the past. The change from the middle to late production, from what I've noticed so far, is another reduction in bass, and an increase in treble. The bass reduction is not so big as from early to middle, but does lose some of the impact in the lowest registers that the first two versions had in spades. There also seems to be a reduction in the lower midrange, making many vocals and instruments sound less full. The treble increase seems to give more clarity and detail to the sound, but also may increase the possibility of listening fatigue in long sessions or at higher levels. The late production version also seems to have a slightly more expansive soundstage compared to the middle version, but I haven't really paid much attention to this aspect yet, so I may be wrong.

Nice to hear. Now that you've got all three in front of you, would you be able to shoot a picture of the back of one of the drivers on all of them, and point out what the differences are? This would be great so everybody could then I.D. their sextett without flooding your PM box I'm crossing my fingers that I got a middle production one based on your impressions (and it seems likely due to the fact I have the headband with holes)! Also I don't remember ever asking this or seeing an answer... how did you first determine between the late and middle versions which one was which, that is, how do you know which one came in the middle and which one came later?

Oh, where does the K241 fit into this order of preference sonically?

Lastly I remember you posting that the K290 was catching up to the K240 in terms of listening time for you, how does that one sound just for kicks?

In a hurry so I will answer the rest later. The K290 is an exceptionally dark and bassy headphone with a huge soundstage, so I use it for relaxed / pre-bed listening often. Very immersive, but not detailed or accurate.

Fitz, saying that I am eagerly awaiting your next post would be an understatement.

Jon L's comments are interesting here, and make me think it's a damping issue. If between two evidently mechanically identical headphones one has heavy bass and one light, I'd bet cash that the heavy one has backwave damping and the light one doesn't.

Well if you bought that very beat up sextett that was for sale it's probable that the foam inside the earcups has disintegrated. And the ear pads as well possibly.

You need to get new foam, new earpads, new elastics and then fix the headband and listen again. It's possible that this is another variation but I just think it's a bit unlikely, I mean I don't think AKG would make so many different variations of the same headphone WITHOUT adding a different letter to the end of the model, because I don't think it would be so hot to have so many differences between the same MONITORING headphone. Of course it's entirely possible with the 3 different versions that have been identified already...

Fitz, have you ever compared, does the foam you cut out and use in the ear cups sound any different than the stock akg foam?

Before we go any further, please confirm that the following have been done on your pair:

1) Replacement of all worn out parts, including elastics, foam and pads.

2) Inspection of both sides of the passive radiators for tears or holes (easily done at the same time as cleaning out the old foam particles).

3) Usage of the phones on more than one system, preferably a very different design, such as a solid state amp.

For simplicity, I am going to call the early style driver "Driver A" and the later style driver "Driver B", and the early style passive radiators "Disc A", and the later style "Disc B".

This is a quick'n'dirty comparison I measured of the early (Driver A, Disc A) and middle (Driver A, Disc B) variants of the K240 a few months ago. I am not entirely sure what equipment I was using at the time, but I do think I was using a fairly bright solid-state preamp to power the phones for the measurements (rather than using my tube amp which would give inaccurate results when I tried).



The purple line is the early version, and the blue line is the middle version. They were each calibrated for equal loudness (75dB or so I think), rather than centering on a specific frequency. The response seems to fairly accurately represent how the K240 sounds to me overall, but I will not place much faith in the ability for my measurement jig to reliably measure the higher frequencies. The huge dip in 3KHz on the early version may also be a measurement anomaly, I have not bothered to retest it to see, since I do not use that version as much. In the midrange and treble, you can see the response is nearly identical since they use the same Driver A, with the differences being attributable to minor production variations, small differences in measurement position, and possibly the different passive radiators used. The primary difference is the much greater bass output on the one using Disc A, which seems to be using a thicker material for the passive radiators, so I think it is reasonable to conclude that Disc A blocks more of the backwave than Disc B, and thus increases the overall bass response.

The only way I have been able to get a K240 using Disc A to not have strong bass is by making the pads not seal properly, which is not easy to do with fresh pads. Maybe I will experiment by putting a Driver B into Disc A and see how that sounds, even though I doubt there is an early production K240 using Driver B.

Nice data!

I think it would be a good idea to refer to the 3 different known sextetts by the driver and radiators they use, by adding the letters of the revisions of the driver and radiators to the end of the model.

For example:

1. Early - K240 Sextett AA (Driver A/Disc A)
2. Middle - K240 Sextett AB (Driver A/Disc B)
3. Late - K240 Sextett BB (Driver B/Disc B)

To make it even simpler, they could also be referred to as K240AA, K240AB and K240BB, respectively.

Fitz, when you get some extra time, it would be extremley helpful for you to take quality pictures of the drivers and discs in each sextett revision you have so people could ID their own, and also, if they discovered a difference in theirs that you did not have, it would be a good idea to send it to you (temporarily) in order for you to gather it's data and record it for future reference.

Also, once you have posted everything you know in this thread I think it would be a good idea to post a new thread specifically documenting the differences in the sextetts. I would be willing to do that for you once you posted all your information in this thread, if you would let me. I would of course let you look over what I was intending to post via PM before I posted it. Or I could give it to you for you to post, so you would be able to edit it in the future.

you did miss something, but so did a lot of people.

when headroom had them available on their site the advert wasn't all that hot, this may have slowed sales and dampened enthusiasm for this sweet headphone...

this is weird though, usually worthless headphones achieve FOTM status the week they come out and are then recognized for what they are worth, this headphone has gone largely un-noticed by many and achieved mild FOTM status after 25 years of quality.