HD800 vs K701 - a bass issue - Page 8

Originally Posted by jaycalgary

Chemical Engineer so you sniff glue all day? I have to go to work but I am on this thread because it refers to the K701/2 that I have 2 of. Who knows maybe I will end up with a HD800 soon enough so I have looked up as much as I can about them on here. Not much good usually comes out of the weekly K702 vs HD800 thread mostly just a lot of K702 bashing. I don't personally attack people like so far I am a poor 6yr old with a thick skull lol.

Originally Posted by Palpatine

I don't own any of the top tier phones ( yet ) but I have spent many hours with the HD800 and drooled a lot while doing so.
I can see why some people have two or three high end cans from various manufacturers in their inventory as each must have their own strengths and slight weaknesses. I would expect that with careful consideration you could own some of these phones and appreciate how one compliments another's sound, or makes up for a slight difference in another's signature.
My ideal lineup:
HD800, T1, D7000, RS1i. one day... one day.

Originally Posted by Pepsi

I've owned both the k701 and k702, and when the 800's came to my front door, the only mid can i kept were my 650's. In my opinion there was an obvious difference in the clarity and depth the can offered when compared to the AKG's, but that just could mean they didn't sync well with my set-up. All in all, i love my set up, and i've finally found that stopping point. Yes, people will say STAX, but i think i'll keep my money.

Originally Posted by wnmnkh

I woke up a while ago as usual.

And as usual, I was listening to music with my K701 while making some coffee.

And I finally decided to bother to read this thread.



Ok, several things.



1.) Bass of K701 is nearly enough; among headphones I've heard, owned and currently own, it has perfect balance. If you think bass from K701 is lacking, then you are too used to today's muddy, boomy sound.


2.) HD800, IMO, has exact amount of bass that headphones should reproduce. Nothing more, nothing less. It indeed has stronger Bass than K701, but not much difference really.


3.) No, sadly K701 is NOT better than HD800. But it is very close... like, 85% close. Nothing really can outperform K701 in similar range. You are getting 85% performance from headphones which is at least 4 times more expensive.


4.) With current quality of mastering, sadly again, both K701 and HD800 are NOT suitable for modern rock and other pop stuffs. They shine most with any well-mastered recordings (which only few exist if you only look for modern music), and they have perfect synergy with Classical in general and Jazz. But when bricked songs go into the pipe, at worst they become torture machines, at best serious annoyance.


5.) Thus, you better go for headphones that are more forgiving and have bass boosted. In no particular order I can think of now:

HD650
T1
D2/5/7000
Kenwood KH-K1000

I strongly recommend Kenwood KH-K1000, Beyer T1 or HD650.

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero

Sorry Acix, are you an AKG employee? I mean for the last year you've extolled the K702 virtues at every opportunity. If you want to believe that they are better, cool...you just saved $1000, but the vast majority don't (including myself). The mids on the T1s are the best I've ever heard and much better than the K701s. This has also been echoed by Skylab through previous posts.

If you scroll over to the beyer T1 forum, you will notice that to both Skylab and myself, we don't hear a 8kHz spike in anyway. Have you even heard them? Skylab's point with the D7000 on the graph is based on the visual graph they were the most bass light of the three, but in reality (and I can confirm this as a former D7000 owner), they were by far the bassiest of the bunch. So you really have to take these graphs with a grain of salt. I don't think Tyll ran a full Gauge R&R on his measurement system to validate it's effectiveness.

My engineering eye (I am a licensed Professional Engineer and have looked at many, many graphs through university and 15 years in industry) looks at the Headroom graph and I see a flatter line with the T1 and HD800...sorry buddy, but I don't buy what you're selling.

I would love to have the actual data points and perform a linear regression analysis to show that the R squared values are closer to 1 on the HD800s and T1s...but I don't, but would be willing to wager that they are. Sorry for the geek talk...just a brain dump.

Originally Posted by MacedonianHero

unlike the K701/2 which takes even the most intimate sound stage and makes it sound like you're in an airplane hanger.