K702 - Damn. - Page 2

AKG Fanboy much?

There's a heap of people including me that'll tell you they're cold and analytical. They just sound wrong to me. Sennheiser lovers like the dark warm and laid back sound of Senns and don't care for the cold analytical sound of the 701s. I don't think it's fair to say that the Sennheiser camp is pissed off that AKG made something you consider to be better and so refuse to admit they think it's better. I think you need to realise that everyone has different tastes and you can't just go making generalisations like that, because they're wildly inaccurate.

My preference is 'for the cold analytical sound of the 701s.' But my next purchase is likely to my third pair of Senns. I like being able to change about between sounds.

I hope it is possible to be a fan of both brands or else I could be in for a pasting

Lay of the rhetoric. Mr Green has no AKGs [IIRC]. Secondly this isn't really a thread for rallying the AKG army and if it was I couldn't give a toss anyway.

Having a Senn, they are different [HD650 with foams] and I like the contrast. I find it very amusing that people defoam them and yet claim the K70x is a terrible. The defoaming mod makes them very similar.

Anyways, no need to get all worked up over fricken headphones. I know we all have better things to do like listening to music

It's funny that you find the 601 to be thiner than the 702, from what I read most people feel that it's the other way around...

Congrats on your new AKG's, enjoy them!

All in all the K601 is more accurate in terms of measurements. Unfortunately many people consider neutral cans "boring and lifeless". I enjoy knowing they aren't mucking with the overall signal myself though.

K701's are not cold and analytical if amped properly. My GS Solo SRG and Woo6se drive them very well giving them body,warmth and plenty of bass to go with their inherent detail and clarity.
At the moment I would say that they are in a different class than my HD650 with SD v2 cable

I suppose one man's (woman's) cold is another's interpretative. I thoroughly enjoy my 701. I find the detail of them a delight. The AKG is not as aggressive as Grado nor as laid back as my Senn 650.

I have to disagree with the poster who said that removing the foam from the Senn makes them sound similar the the AKG. Not even close. The 650 without the foam still sounds like the 650, it just removes some of the veil.

I also find the 701/2 to be a versatile headphone that sounds great with many genres.

To my ears,I hear very little to fault the AKG and I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Ross

PS: You just must get Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue as it sounds totally amazing with the AKG 701/2.

And then there is a heap of people that will tell you, that if a recording is supposed to sound cold, then it will sound cold, but if it is supposed to sound warm, it will sound warm on just about anything.

I honestly dont understand why people cannot fathom that music is not a cold, dead place. Machines do not need to enhance it at all, simply present it. Listen to what you like, but I really loathe the term "cold" being applied to headphones when, in actuality, it should be applied to recordings.

I also don't get the sense of people describing warm cans as adding emotion either, sure, "warm" cans are slightly bassier than "cold" cans, I guess but thats just how we describe the sound; I do not think the headphone itself is adding any emotion to the music - perhaps accentuating what is there, but certainly not adding anything. It is a machine after all. It's like when people start describing an amp as being "emotive".
Furthermore, if such a thing does exist (although I am yet to encounter it), these "emotional cans", given in the way they function would homogenise my collection, which is something I want to stay away from.

I didn't know that electron flow could be emotive.

IMO YMMV etc. Maybe I just dont get 'it'.
Listen to what you like, of course.

If I could be called a fanboy of anything, it would be etymotic and posting.

I think this in particular is an album that sounds amazing on a large range of equipment. Interestingly I find the album to be one of the few that I consider "bass light" on my etymotics.

For the record, I'd much prefer 'accurate' become the in vogue term for such headphones as that is essentially what they are (in contrats to say, the HD650 which I found in a brief listen to be wildly off with the 'live sound'). Strangely the etymotics I use now are the closest thing to live I have found, but of course the quest still goes on







... and so begins my impossible quest for perfection

I would indeed be using the Marantz 7001.

See that's the thing - I love detail but that harshness you describe is what I'm afraid of. I was wondering if I would be getting a less harsh and possibly slightly more musical headphone by going with the 601 over the 70x.

I'm in the Charlotte NC area and will try to find a Guitar center near me.

Over the years while listening to speaker systems and headphones, I've discovered a few things, which for me, contribute to the emotional component of music playback. Since I've played piano my whole life, I've been accustomed to hearing a real instrument produce music and by being a musician, have learned how you must play music in order to make it sound emotional. One thing that creates emotion within music is dynamic contrast. Dynamics are what allow a musician to begin and end musical phrases, and without phrasing, a musical piece loses a lot of meaning and becomes "mechanical" sounding. The ability of each music playback system to reproduce these dynamics and dynamic contrast can vary immensely from one system to another. However, any system that I've heard that homogenizes dynamics sounds horrible to me. This is why I chose my DT770s over the HD650 in my setup, regardless of detail resolution and neutrality. To me, detail means nothing if other aspects of the music are incorrect. I am more of a "gestalt" type of listener. If the music doesn't sound right as a whole, then I won't enjoy it. I think this is why I shy away from analytical sounding cans and speakers, because to me they just do not sound right. But that simply brings me to my point in saying that everyone has their own personal tastes. No one has the right to bash another for having such tastes, because none of this equipment we listen to even comes close to real live music. Therefore we must choose the equipment that makes the music sound the most enjoyable for each one of us, and gets us as close to the "real thing" in the ways that we want.

It's interesting you bring up the DT770 and HD650. As an owner of the DT770, whilst I do enjoy it with piano music (in part due to the weight), I find that it is a very homogeneous can; everything sounds bassy with it.

It's interesting you mention that you do not like mechanical sounding music, and I agree however I do not think this is due to the headphones. Instead I think it is largely due to the recording (for example the recording of a quartet in an acoustically dry room will not sound the same as the same quartet in a concert hall with good acoustics [although IMO 'good' isnt a great word to describe it... I think acoustically wet would be better]). So you're either going to get manufactured sound with artificial reverb added or a dry recording.

Headphones simply reproduce what they are given to the best of their ability, being too slow or having a long decay time will blur the notes and create a sensation of acoustic 'wetness' and fullness, whilst something else might be very fast and produce a 'dry' sound with the same recording. That's not to say that the latter headphone is cold or dry by any means, rather that it is producing what it is given more accurately.

Headphones being "cold" as though they are out to suck the emotion out of your music is one of the biggest misconceptions in audio IMO and it probably came about through people getting acclimatised to hyped acoustics from various headphones (wont go naming anything), much like the taste acquired by some for huge bass, or rolled off highs.

Thats not to say you should avoid headphones with large decay like the plague. Go for what you like, I just hate the terms and the misconceptions they foster.


meh its late and im drunk. I need to stop posting.