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Which 3 Headphones To Keep? (Decision Made!) - Page 7

post #91 of 116
6/14/08 at 2:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fitz View Post
With all the flip-flopping on trying to decide between the K401 and K501, I decided to renege on my original decision to let other people have my K400s and K500s. I had to find one to buy since I'd already sold them, but that proved easier than I expected.

With that done, I'm now able to present the final three AKGs that are going to stay: K240 Sextett, K1000, and K400.
Well done!
Some of us are envious, as you obviously have what's needed to do a major scale-down of your system. In number of units that is, not quality.
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post #92 of 116
6/14/08 at 5:59am
thanks for the updates,
what a journey
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post #93 of 116
6/14/08 at 10:29am
Hmmm so what do you use your K400 for?
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post #94 of 116
6/14/08 at 10:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by vvanrij View Post
Hmmm so what do you use your K400 for?
LOL. He wrote this in the For Sale forum, when asking for a K400:

"I think I might want to make this easy and go back on my previous decisions and go with a K400 instead, for a very, very stupid reason: it's all black, so it'll look better with the K240 and K1000 on my new stand (K1000 is middle, with the other two flanking it)."
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post #95 of 116
6/14/08 at 10:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by user18 View Post
Fitz, which version of the Sextett did you keep?
i believe it was the middle production, mentioned somewhere earlier in this thread
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post #96 of 116
6/14/08 at 11:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by user18 View Post
Fitz, which version of the Sextett did you keep?
Middle production, which has always been my preferred version.



Quote:
Originally Posted by krmathis View Post
Well done!
Some of us are envious, as you obviously have what's needed to do a major scale-down of your system. In number of units that is, not quality.
Well it wasn't just my doing; I had pretty well intended to keep the AKG collection for a number of years.



Quote:
Originally Posted by vvanrij View Post
Hmmm so what do you use your K400 for?
I use the K400 for when I want a big and airy sound, since it has more soundstage and treble to it. The K240 is the general purpose headphone for most stuff, but sometimes I want something a little different which is when the K400 will come in. The K1000 is my portable headphone so it does not really factor into the decision of the other two.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiemen View Post
LOL. He wrote this in the For Sale forum, when asking for a K400:

"I think I might want to make this easy and go back on my previous decisions and go with a K400 instead, for a very, very stupid reason: it's all black, so it'll look better with the K240 and K1000 on my new stand (K1000 is middle, with the other two flanking it)."
Hahaha yeah, that was the tie-breaker that helped me decided which one to choose. For the life of me I just couldn't decide between the K401 and K501 that I still had, but if I had a K400 that is equally matched for sonics but superior on aesthetics, then it was an obvious choice.
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post #97 of 116
6/14/08 at 8:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fitz View Post
...The K1000 is my portable headphone so it does not really factor into the decision of the other two...
Oh My
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post #98 of 116
6/14/08 at 8:42pm
So now what collect all the Grados? Kidding.. but is your head-fi journey complete?
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post #99 of 116
6/14/08 at 8:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fitz View Post
I use the K400 for when I want a big and airy sound, since it has more soundstage and treble to it.
The K1K doesn't make it redundant for that purpose? Interesting...

What "portable" amp are you using for the K1K?
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post #100 of 116
8/11/08 at 5:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyMe View Post
The K1K doesn't make it redundant for that purpose? Interesting...

What "portable" amp are you using for the K1K?
has to be a rwa sig30.2 doesn't it
for the ultimate in portability
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post #101 of 116
8/14/08 at 7:02am

Second try: K 290 in Surround mode

Thought this thread was most appropriate to put this.

I decided to test K 290 a second time in Surround mode.
I own a nice Yamaha DVD Player and AV receiver. But I didn’t want to change all settings again concerning volume, equalization and delay per channel that are meticulously measured and stored in memory. After changing those, I would have to change everything back as soon as I wanted to listen through the speakers again.


I decided to buy a Panasonic Home Cinema System second hand for 30 euro (approx. $ 45) especially for the purpose of testing/using the K 290 in Surround mode. Because of this cheap choice I only have Dolby Digital Surround to my disposal, so no DTS nor SACD multichannel.
The only issue I had to solve was the Subwoofer channel. Because a system like this usually doesn’t have any bass management (you normally hook up the speakers provided and that’s it), I had to mix the low frequencies to the two front drivers in the headphones. The switch box that is custom made for K 290 does the very same thing with the centre channel.
I loaded ‘Indiana Jones, the last crusade´ and sat back.

I am still not very impressed. We head-fiers are used to a wide soundstage. There is no real surrounding sound field. Depending on the effects used in a particular movie scene I estimate the maximum width is 270 degrees. There is no sound coming from behind. Of course, the sound is very nice. These are without doubt top cans with a genuine AKG signature.
I then asked my wife to have a listen. She’s very much into music and movies, but not at all interested in headphones. A fairly honest outsider therefore.
To my surprise, she was rather enthusiastic. She liked the moving effects and crisp dialogs. After several scenes she suggested to install the setup in the bedroom so she could have a late night private cinema experience if she felt like it without disturbing the neighbours.

There are a few binaural demos on the Web that produce a very convincing back to front and even up and down soundstage (the shaking of a matchbox comes to mind). This K 290 setup doesn´t come near that experience. I think the techniques that are developed based on virtual surround are the future.
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post #102 of 116
8/14/08 at 12:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NoPants View Post
has to be a rwa sig30.2 doesn't it
for the ultimate in portability
You asked for it.
iPod nano -> Signature 30.2 -> K1000. Completely off-grid....

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post #103 of 116
8/14/08 at 12:49pm
Going for the gold in weightlifting for that portable rig?

I can't fathom turning over my K1000s to anyone to reduce HP count. Non-sequiter...
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post #104 of 116
9/21/08 at 9:38pm
K1000, K501, K500 & K401...sorry didn't that on purpose, how to removing just one vote ?
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post #105 of 116
4/17/09 at 2:53am
Thread Starter 
A year later and I'm still happily using the same phones I decided to keep out of the AKG collection. Today I finally repaired the set of K401 drivers I had sitting around for a couple years and swapped the drivers and baffles into my K400... I think I prefer the sound this way (not as good as regular K400 for certain music, but less sensitive to bad recordings so I can use it more often). This means I technically have a K401 now, putting me back at my initial choices before I started second-guessing myself.

I still miss the other AKGs sometimes, but it seems I made the right choices for which ones to keep.

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