Hello all, this is my first post but I've followed this forum closely for some time now.

I thought I would give a review of the AKG K450 and Audio technica es7, especially seeing as the AKG k450 has had little coverage.

The AKG k450 was a pair of headphones that I was initially very excited in getting. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't there (i really tried to like them). This might explain why they can now be purchased for 65 US oppose to their original 200 dollar price tag. I burnt these puppies in and gave them time to come through but the sound is very muddy and flat; this simply doesn't go away no matter what EQ you try and give it. The higher frequencies i found to be the bane of these hadphones. Terrible. The best way i can describe the highs is that they have no "life" to them, and are hard to distinguish giving some songs a very boring and mushy sound. The mids come through okay but the lows seem too intense and usually overtake the sound entirely. I suppose the one feature that makes up for the lack of quality is that they are easily driven, and can probably blow your ear drum. Some songs i've listened to that have a range of different lows sound pretty good, I found the K450 to have relatively tight bass and usually controlled, but that is their best attribute. They are very portable and comfy so in that regard they are nice. If you can pick them up for 60 dollars I'd certainly recommend them because they are much better than senn HD 228 (not sure about 238) and other small portables in the 60 dollar range. They however do NOT compete with 150 dollar portables.

The Audio technica es7's in all aspects are a much better headphone. I've read somewhere that the AKG k450 can go toe-to-toe with the es7's but this simply is not true. The es7's are very nice sounding, and have bright highs with clean mids and lows (I do admit maybe some recession in the mids for some and these aren't bass junky headphones) giving an overall beautiful sound reproduction. Guitar solos sound fabulous and if you enjoy listening to strings these headphones do it great justice. For the size i found the soundstage, though limited, to be pretty darn impressive. The really require no EQ, in some instance depending on what you are using, using an EQ can make the headphones sound very out of proportion. They can be driven very well also. All music i listen to is generally played at 320 kbps or FLAC. Once you modify them by reducing the clamp effect of the es7's they are certainly tolerable to wear for extended periods of time. They look nice, and can be found on ebay at a price as low as 80. There are a ton of fakes though, anything under 50 dollars is almost certainly illegit.

So if considering one of these for portable use, I would say the es7's are hard to match and are out of the k450's league entirely.

Where can I get the K450's for $65?

I feel that when buying supraaurals, comfort plays a big part.
As such, es7 scored a low -10 out of 100 for me and so, it's SQ played no part at all for me.
The k450, on the other hand, is so very comfy, so i'm willing to pay attention at all to its SQ, which aint all the bad, just very bass-heavy, pretty nice for dance tracks.

Well, different strokes for different heads.

There have been reports of fake K450s, so the price tag of $65 may be for those and not the real one.