Vertical placement of K701 matters

+1 that's absolutely correct. The further you pull them down, the thinner they sound. Ideal position is centered or such that lower tip of earlobe just touching the inner lower periphery of the earcup

Positioning is important with many headphones, but particularly of course with those that have large circumaural pads like the AKGs. Jan Meier even has a picture on his website illustrating how to position your headphones. (He advises that the driver should be slightly below the opening of your ear.)

I have always maintained that they have good bass, with the right amplification!

I may get flamed for this, but isnt this just one more variable that stands in the way of 'Average Joe' ever being able to appreciate the high-end AKGs ? Lets imagine that I walk into a store tomorrow and the owner agrees to let me audition a pair of 701s :

- would I know about the burn-in requirement ?
- would I know about the need for good source/amp ?
- would I know about the need for correct placement ?

A more pertinent question is : would your average music store/hi-fi store owner know all these things, and ensure that he only passes Joe a pair of 701s with 200+ hours on them, plugs them into the appropriate kit, then helps Joe with the correct fit ?

Guys, I'm not pushing any particular barrow here, but I didnt see any of the above on the box when I bought my 601s (harder to drive than the 701, based on the Headroom numbers), and there is nothing on AKGs website. If I test drove a new Audi, I'd like to think the dealership knew their product and were happy to give me the information I needed for a better driving experience : they wont teach me to drive (!), but they might suggest an automatic if the model I want has a temperamental manual gearbox. Conversely, if I indicate that I am looking for a sporty drive, they may well put me in that temperamental beast : either way, I should be able to get a reasonably accurate taste of the car in that first drive. How accurate would Joe's impressions of the 701 be on first listen ? Would he still want to buy them if he was told that he could add 150% to the sticker, because thats what it would cost for the amp to drive them ? All the while thinking 'Man, where's the bass on these things - my $40 Sonys have more bass'. I think we'd all like a dollar for every head-fier who seems to have abandoned the 701s after a single listen.

Its seems that headphones are a trial-and-error product - I'd like to say that head-fi and other forums remove some of the 'error', but end of the day it comes down to that first 60 seconds with a new pair of phones on your head, and thats where many come away with the 'wow - what a disappointment' impression. I accept that Joe may have been better off with a pair of 30 ohm cans from another manufacturer, at least initially, but how many of us have walked past an Audi/Porsche etc dealer and thought 'Wow - I bet *that* beauty is hard to drive ! I'd better stick with Hyundai ....'.

(Yes, I know high sensitivity cans like Grados have their own set of problems, and I accept that a good amp brings much more to your music than volume alone, but we Hyundai drivers really need to be saved from ourselves. End of rant)

Peace,
estreeter

Mike, by 'music store', I dont mean a record store : I mean a store where they sell musical instruments, and that is exactly where I bought my 601s. Sure - sour grapes, should have spent longer researching/auditioning etc, but I'm one of the masochists who is prepared to put the time and effort in to get what I want from the AKGs : many on Head-Fi simply aren't. I realise that my scenario was contrived, but how is it that so many on this forum make exactly the same mistakes that Joe made in my example ? All the stickies at the top of this page, all the feedback in forums re. the need for a good amp etc, and now you tell us that it could come down to the way we place the phones on our heads ? Someone else will tell me that I need to get my phones recabled before I can begin to enjoy them - meanwhile, folk with other high-end cans are enjoying them straight out of the box, or so I'm told.

Yes, I will experiment with placement tonight, but I dont know how many other masochists there are out there. FWIW, I think the build quality on the AKG phones is first class, and I believe it when people tell me that getting to the top of Everest is worth the pain, but I would not recommend the 601s to anyone else on the basis that I would spend the rest of my life defending that recommendation. For some bizarre reason, people will accept that you need a $2,000 amp and a good source to get a really good sound from high-end Senns, but that same acceptance doesnt seem to apply to AKG when the critics come out of the woodwork. I'm not upset so much as over it.

Anyway, glad to hear that you are enjoying your phones, and thanks for the tip.

Are you going to buy the K701 or K702?

I'm mixed on the K702: I like the color but don't like the idea of another connector in the signal path.

I actually prefer the color of the K701, but the easy recabling pushed me towards the ***2.

702 = easy single ended recabling
701 = easy termination to balanced with the stock cable

Wise word Mike, and I am an eternal n00b. We both know that one (or both) of the serial 701 bashers will be along shortly, but its clear that you have the necessary maturity to deal with those scoundrels.