AKG K271 MKII Headphones

I originally ordered a K240, but due to them being out of stock, I was shipped a K271 MkII instead. Needless to say, I saved a lot of money on this pair. These were my daily drivers for about four years. I used them for my computer as well as for monitoring my electric guitar. I was surprised at all the accessories that were included: One pair of velour pads, one pair of pleather pads, one 3m cable, one coiled 5m cable, and the customary 3.5mm to 6.3mm jack adapter. They also have a clever feature that auto-mutes the headphones when you take them off (this can be disabled easily if needed.) Now that I have a new pair of daily drivers, I just cannot go back to the K271's unusual sound signature. Due to the noticeable lack of bass quantity, I wouldn't recommend these headphones for anything other than monitoring instruments and other situations that demand noise isolation.

Read a number of reviews on this pair of headphones before buying, and was quite surprised that no one mentioned the boxy band ( maybe somewhere around 3.5 - 5k ?? ) of upper mids.  
 
some songs are pretty effected by it, others not so much.  It sounds like someone really pumped the EQ around a band of frequencies and phased the crap out of it.  
 
However, for songs that are not effected by this the overall clarity of sound - especially for a closed-ear set of headphones - is great.  I have a pair of sr60s & Sennheiser HD598s and these are definitely still in the same ballpark of quality as those two.  
 
 
For some songs though, the boxiness can really be in the forefront of whats going on and it seriously detracts from the overall sound quality.

I wanted to love these, and I kinda did, but only for classical and jazz.  Everything else though was boring to listen to and can sometimes get a bit bright. Also still has that closed sound, but then again it's a closed can. I know I know, it's more for tracking rather than for entertainment. But there are still some stuff to love about the sound. If you only listen to jazz and classical and need isolation, these are pretty good and do deserve the praise some people give it. But if you want something more well rounded, then you should look elsewhere, like I have.