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mikiphile said:

 
My point is that the flagship of a company like this needs to be a serious circumaural headphone, not a headset for jogging regardless of how good it is. For some reason I just cant take it seriously. Even if it has a better performance than JHA or Westone or UE, I still cant take it seriously.
 

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That is absolute ..................
 
Sennheiser are set to announce the ie10 not soon, but it is set. Check out the ie80 thread. This will be a £1000 universal iem similar to the k3003 that will in sennheiser's own words 'rival the hd800' in terms of sound. 

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mikiphile said:

[...]  
Will you take Sennheiser seriously if they come up with a universal IEM and say that it is better than the HD800 and the Orpheus?

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Too bad the Orpheus is no longer manufactured. And so rare... It would be nice to see more beautiful and quality pieces of audio equipment that has such vaunted performance, that isn't simply audio jewelery, or trendy. It would be great if Sennheiser brought back the Orpheus, or improved upon it...
 
Moving on, I say bring Statement type audio back. Getting bored of the SQ "Arms Race" where the equipment doesn't always seem to have much of a focused design goal, let alone aesthetic or design effort put into it.
 
As for AKG's next "TOP END/Reference/Flagship" I'd hope it would be a full sized can designed for acoustic principles, and not be made out of plastic. The K550 is a nice step forward in design for them. Well, in my personal opinion. Although I feel it would be nice if they had a version with detachable cable (mini-XLR or a socket in each cup or x-type socket), and REAL leather headband/pad options. I also like what Aude'ze has done with it's so-called "Vegan Edition" pads...
 
 

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ananalogspirit said:

 
As for AKG's next "TOP END/Reference/Flagship" I'd hope it would be a full sized can designed for acoustic principles, and not be made out of plastic. The K550 is a nice step forward in design for them. Well, in my personal opinion. Although I feel it would be nice if they had a version with detachable cable (mini-XLR or a socket in each cup or x-type socket), and REAL leather headband/pad options. I also like what Aude'ze has done with it's so-called "Vegan Edition" pads...
 
 

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I personally could care less about what material the "flagship" AKG is made out of as long as it has decent build quality, comfort and above all, SOUNDS GOOD. Although it may not be as appealing, the plastic used in the HD800 is much more suited for audio reproduction purposes than the wood on the Orpheus is. I'm sure the Orpheus would use the same material if it was made in the present (perhaps with some wooden accents).
 
 

I think AKG (Harman) made the wrong decision on making a flagship in ear vs a headphone. AKG has the budget to make something that would rival the HD800's (or surpass it); but they went on and decided to make a universal earbud that trumps all others in prices. Sorry, but I think that's stupid as Headphones> Customs> Universals.
 
The Harman rep told me the k3003 is really having a hard time selling on the market so far (still early though). But if this fails, Harman won't have any stronger motives to invest in their AKG branch... which would really be unfortunate.
 
tl;dr  AKG made the mistake of making a TOTL earbud instead of what they used to do best: Headphones.

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juantendo8 said:

 
I personally could care less about what material the "flagship" AKG is made out of as long as it has decent build quality, comfort and above all, SOUNDS GOOD. Although it may not be as appealing, the plastic used in the HD800 is much more suited for audio reproduction purposes than the wood on the Orpheus is. I'm sure the Orpheus would use the same material if it was made in the present (perhaps with some wooden accents).
 
 

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Having heard many different IEM made of plastic and a few with wood housings, including a Victor with a wood housing and wood cone diaphragm, and several cans with plastic cups, metal cups, and wooden cups... Plastic is by far the worst sounding enclosure material. It is generally used because it is inexpensive for the manufacturer and easy for them to mold into various shapes... Metal has attractive "neutral tone" properties, esp. Aluminum, and I'd still like to hear some Titanium cups such as the ATH-ES10. Wood and metal have noted acoustic timbre properties, hello that's why musical instuments are woodwind, brass, aluminum, etc, guitars are made of various tonewoods, as are violins and cellos, oboes etc. The Orpheus was made with some of the finest materials period, and even plastic that is "of nicer quality" than that used 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago, or just because it was included in the construction of a headphone that has a very high MSRP doesn't qualify the material as superior for its acoustic properties, sir.

Musical instruments are supposed to resonate.  Headphone's frames are not.  You want to hear the instrument's resonating characteristics not the cups. 
 
And plastic is just fine for a headphone's shell there are much bigger problems going on in all headphones than the general difference between plastic and metal.  And actually plastic may be superior.  The HD800 uses a special plastic chosen for it's deadening qualities and lack of resonating.  The only major plus of wood IMO is that it is heavy, which deadens vibrations.  But so does heavy plastic of the right kind.  Either way, there are huge problems with most headphones for which plastic/metal/wood would make 0 difference. 

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rhythmdevils said:

Musical instruments are supposed to resonate.  Headphone's frames are not.  You want to hear the instrument's resonating characteristics not the cups. 
 
And plastic is just fine for a headphone's shell there are much bigger problems going on in all headphones than the general difference between plastic and metal.  And actually plastic may be superior.  The HD800 uses a special plastic chosen for it's deadening qualities and lack of resonating.  The only major plus of wood IMO is that it is heavy, which deadens vibrations.  But so does heavy plastic of the right kind.  Either way, there are huge problems with most headphones for which plastic/metal/wood would make 0 difference. 

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You make very good points. Do you happen to know what varieties of (dense/heavy/resonance-deadening) plastics varieties are out there these days then? I suppose it is true that if the headphone frames/cups/housing was vibrating/resonating on its own in response to air movement of the diaphragm it would disturb the purity of the music's audio signal then? I'm trying to understand the point here, perhaps I shouldn't be muddying the K550 thread with this, and should go ask in the appropriate forum, or via PM. I didn't intend to take the conversation off topic.

 
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ananalogspirit said:

I suppose it is true that if the headphone frames/cups/housing was vibrating/resonating on its own in response to air movement of the diaphragm it would disturb the purity of the music's audio signal then?

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Yeah exactly.  You don't want to hear random resonances in the headphone frame.  I have no idea what kinds of plastics.  But I can tell you that the material of the frame is much less important than other things that are currently extremely problematic in almost all headphones.  Like problems with the driver itself. 

 
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dleblanc343 said:

I think AKG (Harman) made the wrong decision on making a flagship in ear vs a headphone. AKG has the budget to make something that would rival the HD800's (or surpass it); but they went on and decided to make a universal earbud that trumps all others in prices. Sorry, but I think that's stupid as Headphones> Customs> Universals.
 
The Harman rep told me the k3003 is really having a hard time selling on the market so far (still early though). But if this fails, Harman won't have any stronger motives to invest in their AKG branch... which would really be unfortunate.
 
tl;dr  AKG made the mistake of making a TOTL earbud instead of what they used to do best: Headphones.

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[size=10pt]I believe they did the right thing by making a TOTL earbud. By pulling out all the stops with the design of product that is aimed at what is by far the largest commercial head-fi arena, they will have made what is essentially unobtainium to 90% of the market. This doesn’t make sense until you factor in the k3003’s glowing reveiws, the quality/style, and a price that is beyond the reach of most people; now factor in that people what they can’t have. At this point they've sparked interest (based on internet hearsay and price) in their brand and can start marketing a family of lower end iem's using "same technology" as their flagship model, which is where they will make the bulk of their profits. The k3003 was never meant to be a commercial success; it's just a launch pad for the brand. [/size]
[size=10pt]On the audiophile side of the house you've got snobs, like myself, who would have no interest in AKG it wasn't for the k3003 being so damn good (They've wiped the floor with all of my customs barring the Hidition NT-6 Pros). I never took their products seriously until I sampled the k3003 (I have four sets of them at this point) and now I'm absolutely tickled at the prospect of a reference phone from them. So again, they’re in essence doing what all flagships are designed to do; draw attention to the brand.[/size]

Quote:

dleblanc343 said:

I think AKG (Harman) made the wrong decision on making a flagship in ear vs a headphone. AKG has the budget to make something that would rival the HD800's (or surpass it); but they went on and decided to make a universal earbud that trumps all others in prices. Sorry, but I think that's stupid as Headphones> Customs> Universals.
 
The Harman rep told me the k3003 is really having a hard time selling on the market so far (still early though). But if this fails, Harman won't have any stronger motives to invest in their AKG branch... which would really be unfortunate.
 
tl;dr  AKG made the mistake of making a TOTL earbud instead of what they used to do best: Headphones.

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+1
 
i think their best move would of been to re-release the k1000 along with maybe an amp of sorts.

It wasn't selling well while it was in production, why would they re-release it?  It still wouldn't sell well if they did...
 
edit:  well, the Grado HP1000 didn't sell well either and I think it would sell great in today's market if it was re-released.  But I think they didn't sell well for pretty different reasons, it was more marketing problems for Grado, which wasn't a problem for AKG. 

Holy smokes

you have FOUR pairs of k3003's ?


Or did i misread......

Quote:

rhythmdevils said:

It wasn't selling well while it was in production, why would they re-release it?

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If AKG will sale the new K-1000 with a price tag of 600-$700, this will break the 1K hps market, no to mention the silly price of $1.300 on the FS forum. 
 

Didn't the K1000 get rather terrible reviews when it was still in production? (Not sure if that's because they were being underpowered though) Headroom had to blow out some pairs at 40% off retail at the end of production. They only really got popular when they were discontinued and people wanted to try the nearfield speaker thing. If they went back into production, there'd probably be an initial surge of people that had always wanted a pair but never could afford/justify the insane used prices, but after that, I doubt there'd be many buyers at all since they're so incredibly impractical. Not to say I wouldn't want a pair myself; I'd be part of the initial surge since actual speakers aren't really something I can use in my current living situation.
 
And I seriously doubt AKG would/could ever sell a K1000 for $700. If anything, they'd sell them for $1500.

.