Quote:
Originally Posted by
machoboy 
The treble of my K 702s couldn't be any more different from the treble of my Ultrasones. K 702 treble is bright in all the right places but relatively mild in the extreme upper frequencies. Ultrasone treble is all over the map with a huge spike in the upper mids and a huge spike at barely-audible high frequencies and a tinny/hollow valley in between. One is bright in a powerful, airy way, the other is bright in a brittle, metallic way (honestly the only other treble I've hated as much as the Ultrasones was Grado).
I would say the Ultrasone and AKG sound as far as two headphones can sound from one another. Of all the headphones I've owned they are the greatest representatives of extreme opposites, the Ultrasones sounding like an SPL car audio system with a row of 12" subs in the trunk and badly placed component tweeters, the AKGs sounding very "tubey" and at times letting you forget you have headphones on.
K 702s have by far the most realistic bass I've ever heard in a headphone also. Realistic bass means "sounds like an actual kick drum/bass guitar/distant explosiont". NOT like a subwoofer. That's something most people don't like, because most people are far more used to listening to music through thumpy mushy speakers than playing an acoustic instrument and it sounds "weird" to them. Beyerdynamic bass is mush to me. I couldn't get over how artificially smoothed out and monotone it was. If bass the foundation of music, then most headphones have a foundation made out of jello and olive oil due to the proximity effect. The K 70x foundation is made out of granite. It doesn't shake much, and whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the listener.
No doubt they don't suit dubstep/rap, and no offense to anyone into dubstep/rap, but I would rather have my eardrums removed than listen to that stuff, so that's where my K 702 romance comes from. For "random zany sound effect/screaming jock" youth music the K 701/702s absolutely suck but for organic reproduction of classical, vocal, acoustic, prog rock, ambient electronic or pretty much any pre-mid '90s genres (when bass lost all self control and "cool" rather than high quality audio brands took over) and a huge soundstage they are amazing.
I will add that I like the K 702s for trance, but trance is kind different from other electronica and focuses more on melody and harmony rather than huge digital sounds and ridiculous bass, so that's obviously why.
The AKGs have double treble peaks in several regions of the frequency response as well. They should sound different, especially in terms of soundstage (I think they're both extremely unrealistic but in different ways). It seems difficult to reproduce a lot of bass while maintaining a level of clarity. The AKGs have very little bass... which is why it sounds clear. Beyerdynamics - at least the DT880/600 - I thought had a decent amount of bass but I agree it wasn't clearly defined. But then again, I have yet to hear a dynamic headphone that reproduces bass well. I liked the Q701 for more ambient type of music.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iamthem Ew.. it's the K701 hater again. Audiophile = person concerned/obsessed with sound quality. Idiot consumer = person who spends hundreds of dollars on headphones *cough* beats *cough* to listen to dubsteb. Big difference. Now I fail to see why people need hundreds of dollars of distortion free hi-fi headphones to listen to distortion.
@TS... really... well you already bought the stuff, I can't stop you now... I really don't know WHY ON EARTH YOU BOUGHT AN AMP, and a somewhat weak one at that. There's no way you're going to power a K701 with that, and the monoprice headphones don't need an amp. The only amp under $150 which can power the K701 properly from my experience is the E9, Matrix M stage and O2 (my favorite and the one I'm using now.) Oh well, at least the monoprice headphones are great value for money. But why not skip the amp and get the much better sounding CAL! or ATH M50? or get the TF10 with a cable upgrade? From my experience TF10's don't break, it's the cable that breaks.
Perhaps I should call you a K701 fanboy then? Let's not resort to such childish arguments. To "hate" something would be to imply I actually have some kind of feeling towards those headphones. I don't, and in fact I am completely indifferent towards them. Compared to something like the LCD-2 or a good neutral set of speakers, it's completely obvious how lacking in bass the Q701s are. Headphones in general need a slightly higher than normal boost in bass because in reality, our whole bodies - thru our cavity - absorbs the lower frequencies. Tyll at Inner Fidelity talks about this exact phenomenon. The Q701s were very lacking in bass even compared to my HD598s, which is neutral bass for headphones, but bass light in real life.
