I have no problems with pictures of these beautiful headphones
i see six of them hanging on the wall, are they all sextetts or do you also have other old AKG’s like the K240DF or K280 parabolica which more or less look the same?
Thanks! I've been into K240's for a while. They were my first 'real' studio headphone, when I bought my MKii's in the 90's. I'd gathered a few more over the years, but had been dying to hear the sextetts. 20 years pass and one day I found a set on kijiji in Calgary... I don't live anywhere near Calgary, so I decided to chat with the seller and see if I could get them shipped. She was a nice lady with a mom-n-pop used good shop. She had them listed as 'old AKG headphones' for $20
. I talked to her for a little while about them, I believe she said they were her uncles. I figure I could have gotten them here, shipped, for $30 or $40, but guilt got the better of me and I told her I'd send her $100 (cad) if she would ship them... still a great deal, and she was happy about the extra coin.
I got them... I put them on... I cried.
I wish I were joking... Though I'll admit I'm softening with age, I've cried maybe a handful of times in the past decade... deaths and failed relationships... these were headphones! They sounded like my road-worn, near-50-year-old ears were 20 years old again. There were serotonin and dopamine releases that took me back to Jr. high school. They weren't like modern headphones. They weren't flat... they weren't accurate... but they were like food or candy... the most musical headphones I'd heard, and they would inspire me to piss off every friend I have, trying to shove them onto their heads every time they'd come over for the next few months.
At some point, I found my way to eBay Germany. To get a nice set over, you'll pay prices that are similar to buying a set here in Canada... But!... these things are everyone's grandfathers headphones over there... there are a lot in various conditions and you can find serious deals if you're handy and obsessed. So I've been practicing restorations, thinking that if I get it right, I can make a little back and re-introduce them to a few people. I've gotten a few other sets since then and I've been able to get some to a few to friends who I know have the ears to appreciate them.
This path led me to deals on most of the K240 line, so I set out to collect them all when/if I could find the deals. I need just 2 now to complete it... there are a set of French K242 sextetts on their way now, and at some point I'll need to find a K240R, if in fact that's even a real headphone, lol.
My little journey has taken me to a few others, including K270 Playbacks (sort of), K280 Parabolics and K290 Surrounds. Basically the same headphones in various formats, but the shape of my ears didn't take well to the vertical driver arrangement of the K270/280... but the K290s are a real treat for me... imagine if your K240's were modeled after a PA rather than nearfield monitors. I've opened mine up a little with DT770 pads, they fit around the bass ports a little better and seal up great.
I've sold the K280s and have recently decided I need to recoup a little, so I'm going to list the rest and stick to the K240s, which work a little better in the studio than the others. I may keep the 290's as well, lol... it's hard to let them go.