[Arctia]

I started out with the AD700. Initial impression wasn't that amazing. I absolutely loved the huge soundstage, but the bass was horrible. I could barely hear it after getting used to my $5 phones that had boomy and highly exaggerated bass. But being able to hear sounds everywhere as oppose to a blob between my ears made me ditched my $5 phones in a heartbeat.

After a while, I got discontent after spending several months here (my wallet says thanks, hi-fi

). I got an AKG-K701. Soundstage is slightly wider, vocal range gave my ears eargasms, my shanling amp makes the bass pound with an authority that I've never heard on the AD700. Now if I put my AD700 back on, I immediately notice that everything is slightly veiled. Another plus for the K701.


However, something was missing. I couldn't tell why until yesterday. I was re-listening to the Virtual Barbershop. Then I noticed. You know the part where Luigi walks around from right to left, I felt with my K701 on, there were parts during his speech where I had to focus really hard to be able to tell where he was. Then it hit me. I plugged my AD700 in, listen again. OMG PINPOINT ACCURACY. Sure, everything sounded more real on the K701 (especially the last part where Luigi whispers into your ears, gave me shivers on the K701, you could FEEL his breathe. An effect I've never got on the AD700), but AD700's positional system is so superior, I still have a hard time believing that I got them for 80 bucks.

Now when I want to play my games, I put the AD700 back on. Yeah compare to $200-300 phones, they are slightly veiled, lifeless midrange, no bass, blah blah blah. But there's one thing that it's good for and it does such a stellar job at it, I don't even know what to say. They're 80 bucks and they blow every single $150 5.1/7.1 "gaming" headphones out of the water.


There may be a time in the far future when I decide to replace my AKG. But I don't think I'll be able to replace the AD700. It most definitely is THE gaming headphone.

Signed,
A gamer and now a new AD700 fan

 

[Anonanimal]

Great to hear you found a new love for them and thank you for your great impressions!

 

[Katun]

You listened to Virtual Barber Shop with your AD700's? Lucky! Ever since I first heard it with my PortaPros, I've been wanting to try it with my AD700's I'm getting in a couple months. I bet it sounded amazing!

...and I was impressed with that recording with the PortaPros...

Nice comparison too by the way!

 

[coredump]

I mostly game with the AD900 but I do think there is one headphone that is better and that is the K701. I'd say they are the same for detecting direction but the K701 goes a step further and really creates a sense of an environment. For example if two people are walking in tandem and an object comes between them, the K701 would more accurately portray sound flowing around the object.

I just listened to the virtual barbershop with the AD900 and K701. Between the two I would have to say that the AD900 sounded better. It's not a total surprise since the AD900 has such forward vocals, however I'm not sure if a binaural recording should be compared to the sound in games.

 

[Rainbow Randy]

The K701 is sometime criticized for having an artificially large soundstage. I've wondered why might that entail--perhaps this reduction of spatial precision you refer to? I've love to read an in-depth soundstage comparisons of AD700/AD900 to K701. These seem to be the soundstage champs for under-$500 headphones.

 

[Junliang]

I tried to game with the akg k701.. with my creative sound blaster Go!.

I don't know, it felt weird and I cant seem to get use to it even after 2-3 days..
went back to my pc160 for convenience sake..

 

[coredump]

In my opinion the K701 is big but not artificially big. The AD900 is much bigger.

 

[Rainbow Randy]

From what I've read, it seems when people say the K701 has an artificially large soundstage, it is because there is too much air around vocals and instruments, like they're far apart from each other or excessively distant. On the other hand, there are quite a few who love the K701 and its soundstage; some call it the best.

Coredump, that's interesting. Have you compared their soundstages much?

 

[coredump]

I haven't used the AKG K701 in a while but I've compared the two pretty extensively for gaming. I really like the K701 but I can't stand wearing them for very long.

 

[AudioHi]

I own both. Both are great for the price. I will keep them both since I use k701 for music and ad700 for movies.. Oh.. Yes ad700 is way more comfortable than k701.

 

[Astropin]

I purchased the AD700's specifically for gaming.....and watching Netflix movies through my ROKU.

They are OUTSTANDING for directional positioning!.......and not to shabby for movies either. Best bang for the buck full sized headphones out there.

They are the most comfortable headphones I've ever worn.

 

[fjrabon]

If it didn't go so much against the aesthetic of head-fi, you could just EQ up 30Hz-500Hz gradually, cut 1kHz, bump 3kHz-6kHz a bit and cut 8 kHz a touch and your main complaints would be gone. Although that somewhat makes the soundstage smaller, the positional accuracy is still there and the soundstage sounds much more natural.

 

[Trysaeder]

Wow, now that I read this I don't want to get K701s anymore.