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AKG K518LEs + E5 = Awesome

post #1 of 41
1/22/11 at 9:32pm
Thread Starter 

So I gave in and decided to get some AKG K518LEs after a dozen hours of research. I got my iGrados over the holidays, and I totally ignored what 'open' meant... and saying that iGrados leak sound like a mofo is a big understatement :P , since I have to turn my cans up to ear-damaging levels to get through the hallway in the passing periods with good sound. And since I don't want to damage my ears, I just suck it up and takeoff my headphones while walking to my next class. From what I understand, the K518s are closed and have very good isolation, and are also darker and much bassier than the iGrados. Should I expect slightly different sound, or a totally different experience altogether? I can easily tell the difference between crappy cans and good ones, but I haven't been "blown away" by any headphones (I've never listened to any "hi-fi" cans before), just being pleased by the higher performance.

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

AKG K 518 LE Limited Edition Folding Headphones - Fuchsia
Grado iGrado Headphones
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post #2 of 41
1/22/11 at 9:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushrooshi View Post

So I gave in and decided to get some AKG K518LEs after a dozen hours of research. I got my iGrados over the holidays, and I totally ignored what 'open' meant... and saying that iGrados leak sound like a mofo is a big understatement :P , since I have to turn my cans up to ear-damaging levels to get through the hallway in the passing periods with good sound. And since I don't want to damage my ears, I just suck it up and takeoff my headphones while walking to my next class. From what I understand, the K518s are closed and have very good isolation, and are also darker and much bassier than the iGrados. Should I expect slightly different sound, or a totally different experience altogether? I can easily tell the difference between crappy cans and good ones, but I haven't been "blown away" by any headphones (I've never listened to any "hi-fi" cans before), just being pleased by the higher performance.


K518's are very bassy with a huge mid bass hump (good for rap/hip hop) but with other genre's you will probably find the bass really gets in the way because they're simply overpowering. clamping force is really strong and as a result, they isolate very well. I'd have to say they are opposites of each other. grados are light in bass attack, with emphasis on the mids but mostly the treble while the k518's are very bassy, with IMO, slightly rolled off treble but average mids

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post #3 of 41
1/22/11 at 10:07pm
Thread Starter 

So would you say that they are good complements to each other, or so different you can't comprehend someone actually keeping both?

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post #4 of 41
1/22/11 at 10:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushrooshi View Post

So would you say that they are good complements to each other, or so different you can't comprehend someone actually keeping both?



personally, I'm not a fan of the K518Le's except for the occasional rap/hiphop because IMO, they're too bassy for many applications

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post #5 of 41
1/22/11 at 10:18pm
Thread Starter 

I'm actually a fan on rap/hiphop, but its only such a chunk of my library (About 30%) , which is primarily electronic music of various spectrums (Dubstep, Drum 'N Bass, Japanese Electropop, House, IDM, and Techno) (About 60%)

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post #6 of 41
1/22/11 at 10:20pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushrooshi View Post

I'm actually a fan on rap/hiphop, but its only such a chunk of my library (About 30%) , which is primarily electronic music of various spectrums (Dubstep, Drum 'N Bass, Japanese Electropop, House, IDM, and Techno) (About 60%)



sounds like you'll enjoy the k518's greatly, grados are below average for every genre you just listed IMO

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post #7 of 41
1/23/11 at 1:50am

When you get your K518LE, remove the extra foam layer inserted into the earpads (just pull the foam out), and the sound will become much more balanced. The extra foam layer makes the K518 very bassy, and without that they sound very nice.

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post #8 of 41
1/23/11 at 8:35pm
Thread Starter 

Should I recable my K518s when they come in? Or just wait for a channel to fail?

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post #9 of 41
1/24/11 at 12:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushrooshi View Post

Should I recable my K518s when they come in? Or just wait for a channel to fail?


No need to fix what isn't broken.
 

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post #10 of 41
1/26/11 at 3:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mushrooshi View Post

Should I recable my K518s when they come in? Or just wait for a channel to fail?



cabling wouldn't do much if anything at all...leave it be

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post #11 of 41
1/28/11 at 4:05pm
Thread Starter 

I just got them, and I'm like "lol where's the highs?"... They are closer to the Sony MDR-V150s than to the iGrados in terms of SQ... which isn't a good thing, because it seems kind of muddled and stuff. The bass impact isn't much there either.

 

So, I've pinpointed it down to a few things:

 

A) It needs burn in (I listened to it "fresh" and had these reactions...)

B) They are defective

C) They are fakes

D) They just aren't in my tastes

E) My hearing is still borked.

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post #12 of 41
1/28/11 at 5:31pm

Have you pulled out the extra foam layer?

 

They might need a break-in period. But the K518 will never have Grado-like highs...

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post #13 of 41
1/28/11 at 9:20pm
Thread Starter 

I pulled out the foam, and broke it in for 5 hours (I went to a birthday party, it was fun), and they sound a lot better now.

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post #14 of 41
1/28/11 at 9:44pm

How's the comfort?

 

I really enjoyed the sound of them, but the tightness was too much of a dealbreaker for me.

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post #15 of 41
1/28/11 at 9:47pm
Thread Starter 

Honestly, comfort isn't a problem unless I have my glasses on. Infact, glasses also ruined it for me on my igrados... until I'm old enough to get lasik, I might dump headphones for IEMs :P, but honestly the clamping isn't that bad.

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

AKG K 518 LE Limited Edition Folding Headphones - Fuchsia
Grado iGrado Headphones
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