K371 and I
I use these cans as my primary headphones at work. They’re usually fed through the stack of Topping DX7 Pro DAC / FX-Audio Tube-O3 tone control pre-amp / Monolith Liquid Spark headphone amp or the secondary option of ALO Audio The Island DAC/amp.
K371 is transparent and true-to-source. A change in the audio chain can be detected with ease. For example, today I tried removing the pre-amp from equation and feeding LS directly from DX7 Pro. You could tell the difference right away. Mids thinned out and sounds became slightly more accurate but slightly less musical. Overall experience became slightly boring so I added the pre-amp back into the mix. When listening to The Island, K371 also communicate the sound signature to the ears very well. Island uses CS4398 which is a delta-sigma dac chip that tries to imitate behavior of non-oversampling DACs through Cirrus Logic’s proprietary NOS filter. Although soundstage becomes simpler, there’s a different, enjoyable resolution of pacing and beat, giving a more of “analogue” experience.
K371 with Stock Pads
There are many reviews on this model. There are popular for a reason. Satisfying, flat but non-fatiguing sound that allows to enjoy a variety of music and other sound sources for extended amount of time due in part to comfortable, light fit and great passive sound isolation. They’re not most resolving but there’s more than enough details to keep the listener engaged with their easy-to-hear tonality.
To me, it doesn’t sound like classical AKG sound. Over the years, the AKGs I’ve heard have been on the bright, cold, and analytical side of things. K371 sounds like a marriage between with Sennheiser. There’s still great upper treble extension and overall cheating with neutral frequency response but upper mids get recessed and there’s more emphasis on upper bass and lower mids giving a bigger body and overall darker profile than what I’m used to with AKG.
Although revealing in nature, K371 is not overly sensitive to recording material quality due to it’s well-put together frequency response. Majority of tracks recorded with poor equipment and/or by bad producers.
More on Stock Pads
Stock pads are pretty decent to begin with. Above average passive noise cancelling. They appear to be made from quality pleather; good tactile feel; sleek soft. Now, this is where the problem is…. they’re a bit too sleek! AKG maybe decided to save a few pennies on the stuffing and reduced the amount of internal material inside the pad cover. Once on head, they collapse with bias collapsing to the front (face side). This slump can be attributed so the specific headband design of these headphones. Although there are various useful ways to adjust each size of the headband, maybe due to the specifics of my wide head this effect is felt with all of the different pads, however the issue is strongly mitigated by fuller and thicker Dekoni pads as is elaborated below. Once collapsed, there’s significant separation between pad covers and the pad material inside. I end up with a bit of an awkward pad cover bulge up on my face. Cannot get the tower of Pisa of my head, literally and figuratively!
Dekoni Pads
It’s nice to see the pads provided in hard-cover containers. Although pads are not very prone to form damage, it’s still nice to ensure their shape is fully protected and remains intact, which isn’t the case with most pads which are sold in soft bag containers.
All models in this review pads do a better job at alleviating the issue of collapsing on pad side closest to face which is prominent with stock pads due to lack of internal material padding.
Choice Leather
These pleather pads are closest to stock pads in terms of feel. Shinier and less grippy than stock pleather pads but are thicker with more material inside the pad cover leading to less collapsing as described earlier on. They feel a bit more premium and high quality with a nicer touch to skin. They also sound closest to stock pads in terms of sound reproduction. If you love the original sound signature of K371 but looking at comfort upgrade, Leather pads accomplish that.
Elite Sheepskin
These are made out of real leather and feel most luxurious to touch than pleather stock and pleather Choice Leather. There’s more plump to the form factor. Sheepskin collapses the least, giving best noise isolation out of the bunch. In terms of sound, these really raise the bass levels by a couple of db notches at least. This works very well on bass prominent tracks but not so much on bass light tracks whereas the bass can be too overpowering at times. These are ideal pads for a basshead looking to boost the bass response of their K371 without needing to EQ the frequency response.
Choice Suede
Being suede, I was surprised these are actually thicker and plushier than stock pads. I’m used to thin suede pads in my audiophile rabbit hole. Bass is cleaner in terms agility and movement, there’s less rumble, thump and decay; less upper bass blead into lower mids which allow the all-so-very important for musically low mids to be more resolving and accurate to the natural timbre of instruments. Small 1db lift in lower treble provides a slightly more balanced overall frequency response. Front side of the pads doesn’t inspire confidence in terms of longevity. It seems as if material has started to slightly separate but it might also just be extra padding added onto the pad cover.
Elite Velour
Outside material feel more “whole” that Choice Suede but not as soft and nice to skin touch. They appear more durable. Bass-wise, there’s as much rumble as with stock pads, but thump and upper base are reduced for improved flow to the mids. Treble is more extended than on Suede. These pads made K371 sounds more v-shaped due to improved treble presence and thundery bass. Velour is roughly as thick as Suede and is less prone to collapsing just as Suede. Velour passively isolates noise better Suede which is an important factor for enjoying music in noisy environment.
The End
Dekoni has given many K371 (and K361) owners around the world an opportunity to increase the comfort of their (favorite) headphones while being able to keep the same sound signature or to slightly alter it. As long as price is not an issue and you enjoy K371 in stock form, it’s no brainer to pick up a pair of Dekoni pads to improve the overall experience.
Disclaimer
I have no affiliation with Dekoni, these are my first Dekoni pads. Shout out to Dekoni for providing head-fi’ers like myself
an opportunity to check out their pads.
You can order these pads directly from Dekoni online store, or from one of their authorized sellers.
Hope you’ve found the review useful. Please feel free to leave any comments with your feedback or questions.
