AKG K 450 Premium Foldable Headphone

Come on guys, why so mean about this headphone? It worth every penny of its price, isn't that makes it a great product?
I actually own one, yeah yeah its voice isn't that good, its function is very simple, it looks grey, it just not good enough to compare with the high class headphone.
But it's cheap, and it's acting great at it's price.
I mean listen to it, you only pay 76 bucks and you get a HIFI headphone, isn't that great?
It is literally immortal you know what I mean?
It just keeps working and 3 years straight, mine is still new!
For christ sake, don't tell the fresh guys to spend more money for a expensive HIFI headpone, they are not ready.
Instead, try this one, the AKG K450, a [size=small]down to earth HIFI head phone.[/size]

Useful for fast in-between work.
Initially bought for mobile and night use with a Yamaha P120 digital stage piano.
Could have better impulse and high-end spread for the money, but the overall sound appears musical enough for extended use (in hours).
Still good enough to listen to mobile phone / mobile player audio or in-game audio for more than an hour in a row.
 
My personal result:
No fair comparison possible regarding any high-res earphones like K-6xx / K7xx / K8xx, or any other serious product for regular studio use by any other leading company.
Nowadays, I mostly use the beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (250 Ohms) for all the subtle work during mixing and pre-mastering live recordings.
The K450 proves to be useful for the necessary "upper mid fidelity" comparison of pro mixes achieved by using higher quality earphones and high quality studio monitors (ADAM).
Light build, good wearability, solid craftmanship, as one might want to expect it from AKG.
 
[edited]

I am really desapointed with these cans. I have a Koss Porta Pro and I was waiting at least a closer quality compared to this.
 
These cans are bassy and have an extremely recessed mids and highs. The sound is extremely muffled. You, absolutely, can not hear to any detail on the music with these cans.
 
For the same price or even cheaper, with a better quality, go with Philips Citiscape Downtown or Sennheiser PX200.

Sound quality:
- with FLAC music:
 bass is lot
 medium is average
 high is medium-high
Tested with rock music, drum and bass and beatbox. Recommended for music with lot of bass.
Clear, not noise heared.
 
- with MP3 music:
 bass is more
 medium is high
 high is lower
Tested with 320kbs mp3s and sound is clear but sometimes hear low noise effect.
 
Volume level is very good high. I like this headphone. You need just try one, and you like them too

Although having a drawer full of portable headphones there was room for one more. I got these for use during commute, replacing a sennheiser px 200 II. The form factor appeals to me and it comes with a sturdy case. Soundwise however these are very dark and even a bit muddy sounding cans. I have an iPod nano going to an iBasso PB2. That should be enough juice.
All in all I used them them for half a year, getting used to their sound signature, but in the end they didn't convince me and found a place in the drawer.

If your looking for a fun sounding headphone thats strong on bass and and smooth sounding it could be it!

I bought these headphones as a replacement for my (still working) PortaPro, because I needed a nice portable headphone that folded into a neat flat shape. After a bit of reading, I decided to pickup these headphones, and while I wasn't expecting much from them in terms of sound quality, there were other aspects of this headphone that made it worth the purchase for me.
 
I cannot overstate how much I love the portability aspect of the AKG K450. When moving around, I'm usually carrying with me a Knomo sleeve bag made for the 13" Macbook Air, and with the way these headphones fold, they are about as thick as a notebook.
 
They are also packaged with a nice carrying case, that is considerably thicker than what the headphones occupy without it, but help it very secured even during long-distance travels, and they come with two cables, a longer and a shorter one, both of which are very thin, but seem sturdy enough to withstand some degree of "punishment". Even though the cables have a proprietary plastic hook that helps keep the cable secured to the headphone, if they happen to break, you can replace them with any 2.5mm to 3.5mm as long as the 2.5mm is thin enough to fit in, and they hold on well enough.
 
The isolation is fairly good, giving you most of the musical detail you expect from a closed-headphone without completely omitting the sounds of your surroundings, good for commuting or working in coffee shops.
 
Although I find the sound a bit more dull and less fun than the PortaPro, whatever I think these may lack in sound quality, they make up for in features design and comfort, making them my go-to portable headphone for the time being.

The AKG K 450 is the first higher-than-SHS3200-end pair of cans I had (and at that time it's the only one). I wanted to be able to listen to good sound in the bus without hearing uninteresting conversations, so I started to search for good budget closed headphones for Christmas. After having spent four hours searching, comparing and reading reviews on Head-Fi.org ("Wow, this is a good site, I should keep it in mind..."), I decided that it had to be the K 450.
 
This will be rather a pragmatic review, because I don't master English very well yet.

 
Value: I wanted a very portable pair of "cheap" (60 € on Thomann) cans. I didn't wanted headphones I would have had to wear around my neck all day long. The K 450 isn't very expensive, and is carried very easily. The case takes up in an Eastpak The One bag, which is very handy, and it is quite tough. There are two cables in the K 450 packaging: a 50-centimeter long one (that is, in fact, 54.5-centimeter long [this is very important]) and a 110-centimeter long one. The 50-centimeter one is quite handy when you can put your source into your chest pocket. On the other hand, the 110-centimeter isn't long enough. Pluging it in you computer prevents you from moving freely, otherwise you pull on it, and it's quite fragile, as I could read on reviews. The headphones themselves looks (and are) pretty tough.
 
I have a problem with mine: the cable inside the headband is badly placed, and when I collapse the cans, the cable gets "hurt". This will cut it at last, I think.
EDIT : It has happened. The cable has cut down. I sent the 'phones back to have them changed.
 
Apart from this, even after one year of daily using, none of the cables cut, and the sound is still very good, maybe even better than at the origin (burnt in?).
 
Features: The K 450 come with :
   • Two detachable gold plated cables
   • A gold plated 1/4" > 1/8" adaptator
   • A gold plated 2,5 mm > 3.5 mm adaptator
   • A nice carrying case

 
Sound: I haven't had the opportunity to compare the K 450 with many other headphones or earbuds. All I can say is that it sounds better than Philips SHS3200 and than Panasonic RP-HTX7 (okay, these are cheaper, but I never had the chance to listen to more expensive headphones, so I compare with what I know). Sound is more... pure, more precise (you hear interferences very well). The K 450 sounds very well to my ears.
 
Edit : (Thanks to Lorspeaker) : After having listened to them carefully, I realized that I felt the bass instead of hearing them. I just EQed down the bass a bit, and it was better.
So yes, there are a lot of bass in these cans.
 
There are crappy distortion stains on Metallica songs from Death Magnetic. I don't know what component of the drums makes that noise, but it sounds crappy. Maybe it's 320 kbps MP3's fault, but I don't think so. Otherwise, even at high volume (20 out of 30 with my YP-K3), the sound is very pure.
 
I won't speak about the soundstage very precisely, because I've never heard cans with good soundstage and I don't know what it is. All I can say is that sound seems to come from very very close to you ears. Sometimes it is even right inside your skull (listening to Andy McKee with these is pretty surprising, it's like being inside his guitar).
 
 
Comfort: The K 450 clamps a bit hard, and it becomes a little uncomfortable from about one hour of listening, especially if you wear glasses (take them off, or it will really hurt).
 
 
So, as a conclusion, I will repeat the title: these are very good budget portable closed cans.