AKG K702 65th Anniversary Edition - Page 89

 

nooooo~

Why can't they leave the poor k701's alone? They're a dying breed to begin with, discontinued and all.

Mine must be from the last batch. They were sealed and spanking. To be honest they sound like how people have described the Q701's (haven't heard). A little more treble friendly with a nice bass hump.  

What serial no?

Serial no. AK0002 - 84506

 

Also ref 76164504

An that makes them inferior in some kind of way?

 

No, I just happen to like the original K701's.

Yeah, to be fair I haven't heard the original K701's or if they are any different. Just know the difference to my old K702's.

 

Been listening to them now for a good few hours and my opinion above still stands, defo warmer and dare I say "nicer" all round balance. The instruments seem much more rounded than I remember with my 702's and nothing in the treble seems to be high-lighted. Playing a lot of familiar recordings both bright and warm. The bright recordings aren't causing me any probs at all. The warm recordings are still very warm. The same slightly artificial midrange is still there, but because of the added warmth it doesn't stand out as much. I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't so familiar with it from before.

 

Obviously I'm only using my memory of the K702's and that is a lot different from sitting here a/bing. But the simple fact that I'm really enjoying this nice bass means there has to be something in it.

I used to use a bass heavy amp with my 702's to balance them out. With my two current neutral amps there is no such problem.

 

I've been constantly focusing on the treble and in all honesty my veloured HE500's were brighter. What the AKG's do still have is the grainy treble. But that is inherent in most dynamics. Getting back to my DT880's, the treble on the beyers is brighter too. But the beyers have much better treble. It's as smooth as any dynamic I've heard. The 880's are also more detailed. But where the AKG's leave the beyers begind is in authority. They have great texture especially with acoustic instruments. A thicker more solid image. And then there is the soundstage which is... smaller than I remembered? But to my ears tonight, much more whole and coherent.

 

I dunno, could all just be my mind playing tricks.. But for now they are defo warmer and more solid sounding!  

And finally..

 

Been listening for a good 6 hours now (wifes gonna kill me tomorrow haha its 2 in the morning and I've polished off half a bottle of scotch.. hic) and the treble is starting to unveil itself, more to how I remember it.  BUT!! the bass is there and it is nice and warm. There is also still a more 'solid' over-all sound. I forgot how transparent these hp's are. As I mentioned earlier; warm recordings stay warm, this tells me that they aren't coloured. Only very true to the recording. Bright recordings however can be sharp, but even then they're really not that bad. Plus I'm talking about old Jazz here. Still not as bright as 880's, only more aggressive.

What is really cool with these is the way that they reproduce classical and acoustic music. Piano especially. I'd even go as far to say that piano sounds better on these than both LCD2/HE500.

However, no matter how good the soundstage and how much "fun" they provide, even with the extra warmth that they may or may not have now; The realism regarding certain timbre is not on par with the DT880's and the higher end orthos. Or indeed the 650's.

Having said all that. I'm gonna be keeping these, simply because they have to be the next best thing to the hD800's for soundstage and getting a great "big hall" experience with classical music. Oh and late night ambient is just woooohoooo.

 

Cheers

 

 

Trader........

Shouldn't all that be in the K701 thread?

LugBug, everything you said about your new K701 compared to your old AKG reminds me of when I compared my Q701 to a K702 > http://www.head-fi.org/t/594927/akg-q701-vs-akg-k702-comparison-review

 

It sounds like your K701 probably sounds very similar/the same as my Q701.  Which means AKG has probably made the new K701 and Q701 sound the same (makes sense that they would).  Not sure about the non anniversary K702....

If thats the true, which is hard to believe, then, probably, there was someone, who also polished off half a bottle of scotch.. and put Q drivers inside K701 by mistake or just for fun, in the name of a good time he had:-)

 

THX

 

Why is it hard to believe?  Because the service manuals aren't identical?

I do believe that at some point, the slight tweaks in sound found on the Q701 were added to the newer K701/2, aftwr the old 'revisions' were depleted and shipped out. As I said before, my comparison with the Q701 vs K701 was drom a much older K701 model with only 7 bumps, instead of the typical 8. I have no doubt tweaks have been made after that.

However, this is a discussion for the Annie, which further adds variation due to other parts outside of the driver and isn't completely identical to the older ones, even if the drivers were 100% the same.

You are probably joking but x70x share the same driver so there is no need to switch the divers. Any possible difference in sound comes probably from the housing, pads etc.