Quote:

wildstar said:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/202122/the-headphone-driver-pics-thread/120#post_7232813
http://www.thomann.de/
Post on AKG forums claiming they're all made in China: http://www.akg.com/forum/index.php/topic,3098.msg7691.html#msg7691
 
This is complete hearsay, so it should be taken with an enormous grain of salt, of course.

Click to expand...

According to those links, no one has really heard or seen a pair of made in China K701.
 
I know K240mkII and K271mkII (and many low end phones) are made in China now, I've directly compared made in China version and made in Austria version and found no sonic difference between them. I'll probably do the same comparison if there are any made in China K701s.

I think the damaged drivers are alot more troubling than the place where they were manufactured.
Although I can't say that I like where AKG is going, by lowering prices they can't make better products. I was hoping that the iPod boom would infuse some vitality in the HP market, maybe AKG would finally make a statement 'phone again, but it seems they're going the opposite route. K701 for 160€ less VAT, have they ever had a TOTL so cheap? Not a good sign.

Well supposedly in another thread someone has a K601 made in China, so I wouldn't put it past them to do the K701 there too. I'd be interested to see where the Q701 is made since I've never seen mention of that yet, and if they've switched to China for production, you can bet they started the Q701 there.

Quote:

cankin said:

According to those links, no one has really heard or seen a pair of made in China K701.
 
I know K240mkII and K271mkII (and many low end phones) are made in China now, I've directly compared made in China version and made in Austria version and found no sonic difference between them. I'll probably do the same comparison if there are any made in China K701s.

Click to expand...

    So I called three places back home I know have K701 demo stations & then one that just started stocking them 6 months ago & asked if any of the models of the 701 had the "made in china" print on the inside of the band or anywhere visible & everyone said No. about the Q701 though... hmm I  would imagine its still made in Austria. though It is a slightly improved K701, in all honestly... when I demo'd them it was slightly better to me then the K701 but not enough to make the switch.
 
Aslong as they sound the same to their Austrian partners, the location of were the unit was built should matter though right? If there was a sudden drop in sound quality to the previous models, then thats a problem.
 
something we should also consider: Fake's & idiots both exsist & pair those together, one could confuse a fake for the real thing if they did not know any better.
 
edit: Sennheiser uses nearly the same driver in their low-end models....wow

Last night I was tearing apart and modding some headphones and I was surprised that the AKG K44 and Beyer Dynamic DT-235 have almost identical drivers. Same design, same number of holes and same labels. The K44 is the 425AW while the DT-235 is the 425A. Both 32 ohm. Both cost around $50.
 
I imagine a LOT of companies all use the same drivers from one single supplier for SOME of their budget headphones.
 
I also noticed the SR-80 and Koss DJ100 drivers are similar. The ONLY difference is that the SR-80 driver has two vent holes on the back and a different colored dot. Both have the same number of holes and can fit in each other's shells. The DJ100 does have a hole in the middle of the front of the driver though. I highly doubt Grado makes it's own drivers for it's budget headphones. Both have forward sounding mids.
 
BTW the DT-235 is quite impressive when DHP-II pads are added and it's modded with blu-tack. If you cover up 1 vent hole and 1 other round hole around the driver it reduces the bass and makes the sound more clear and brings forward the mids. Took me about 4 attempts to tweak the sound to my liking. I tried covering 3 holes, but it made them too bright and "shouty" and reduced the bass to almost nothing! Somehow when adding circumaural pads the DT-235 suddenly becomes too bass heavy.

Nice find tdockweiler . From my experience in speakers  building I know that the type and quality of an speaker enclosure is as important as the driver ( a good quality speaker in poorly designed an/or build enclosure will sound bad most of the times ), so even if the drivers are almost identical it's very important how the manufacturer of the headphones implemented the drivers. As for the ear-pads, in the case of headphones, they are part of the enclosure and determine how much load there is on the front of the drivers - larger ear-pads = less load = more bass. 

Right now, AKG still has the know-how and solid processes from the Austrian production, it takes some time till the Chinese-made headphhones drop in quality.
Sennheiser doesn't even develop the consumer-stuff in Germany, it's designed in Singapore and made in China because the Chinese wanted to copy their technology in the early 90s when they tried to offshore microphone-production, huge fail.
 
The only current (>90%) German-made Headphone is the HD800 and their other professional stuff - everything else is just a brand you pay for - worthless. AKG is dying because Harman wants to gain profit even further, they fired many employees last year in their profitable Austrian site with many experienced, highly-trained craftsmen! Beyerdynamic is the only one pushing "Made in Germany"-headphones with their older 770/880/990 and new Tesla-models.

All the individual components could be manufactured in China, then shipped to Austria for final assembly - this is adequate to ensure a made in Austria claim.  This is still hearsay and I see no evidence of this, but I would probably feel "meh" if it turns out to be the case...everybody else does it.

Hi all, I am sorry to look for answers in your detailed post, I am a complete rookie with an AKG K44 and I don't know how to open it to change/repair cable, could any of you help me? thank you in advance for any guidance you can share with me. 

Quote:

lejosdelsol said:

Hi all, I am sorry to look for answers in your detailed post, I am a complete rookie with an AKG K44 and I don't know how to open it to change/repair cable, could any of you help me? thank you in advance for any guidance you can share with me. 

Click to expand...

You should probably ask in getting help started section or diy section.

Hi folks!

I have the AKG K44 and it uses the 425AW.

But... i discovered this because the Right side stops working... tested everything and is only the driver/speaker.

Do one of you know where i can purchase a replacement, if this is possible? I search web for hours, and nothing...