ZetsuBozu0012
100+ Head-Fier
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Got a new pair of cans today, the AKG K242 HDs, which are the consumer-oriented version of the popular K240s. Gonna be burning them in over the next few days before posting my opinions here.
From what I've heard so far, they sound a bit muffled, though that may go away after a few hours. Sibilance is present at slightly above-average volume levels, though everything else is exceptional for the price. Sound stage is beyond decent, though hardly exceptional (that's what I get for auditioning a pair of LCD-2s), and imaging is good. Just good.
Look forward to an update (not that these cans have been starving for attention lately)!
EDIT (I copy/pasted the review from a few posts down, to save readers the trouble of scrolling):
And here is the promised follow-up:
After a week of burning them in (my usual playlist + pink noise and freq. sweeps), I'm going to give my final impressions on these cans. For the record, the reason why I took so long to post this follow up was because the K242s I'm using now are a new pair sent in after my original ones suddenly broke (these cans have definite durability issues). That wouldn't have been such a huge issue, if it hadn't taken AKG over a month to replace them.
... Seeing as following that line of thought might lead to a biased review, I'm going to drop it now.
Anyway, on to the actual review.
Test tracks:
1.) Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin - Presence) @ 320 MP3(Rock)
2.) When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV) FLAC (Blues Rock)
3.) Sairin: Katatsubasa no Tenshi [Advent: One Winged Angel] (Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children OST, Disc 2) FLAC (Orchestral)
4.) Gods Bound by Rules (NieR Gestalt & NieR RepliCant Original Soundtrack, Disc 1) FLAC (Vocal)
5.) Welcome to The Jungle (Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction) @ 320 MP3 (Heavy Metal)
6.) Green Dolphin Street (Miles Davis - Kind of Blue) FLAC (Jazz)
7.) The National Anthem (Radiohead - Kid A) @ 320 MP3 (... What genre is Radiohead?!)
8.) S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ (My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys) @ 320 MP3 (Punk/Alternative Rock)
9.) Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd - The Wall, Disc 2) FLAC (Progressive Rock)
10.) The Catalyst (Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns) @ 320 MP3 (Avant-Garde Rock)
11.) Dog Days Are Over (Florence + The Machine - Lungs) (Vocal)
12.) For No One (The Beatles - Revolver [2009 Remaster])
Sources:
a.) Creative Zen X-Fi Style 8GB —> Fiio E17 DAC/amp (as amp only) —> AKG K242 HD
b.) Sony DAV-TZ210 —> AKG K242 HD
About the reviewer:
I'm a college student who has only recently (recently being approximately three years ago) gotten into classical music, orchestral, classic rock, and the like. I like to think that my ears are in good condition (though I suffered from a perforated right eardrum when someone bumped into me while I was cleaning my ear out). Whether that last bit of info will prove a discredit towards my capability as a reviewer remains to be seen, though I've noticed sounds coming in through my right ear to be slightly muffled.
I'm not a bass head, and I never play music at obscenely loud volumes. The K242s are by far the best cans I've ever owned, the only reference point I have being an Audeze LCD-2 I auditioned several months back.
Anyway, I tried to include as many genres as I could while keeping the review to a manageable size. The fact that a lot of the review tracks are rock songs is probably due to the fact that I love rock and many of its subgenres. I also really enjoy instrumentals, orchestral works and choir music, which accounts for the inclusion of all the other tracks. I'm also a gamer, which is why I managed to include songs from NieR and Advent Children. Technically though, the latter track (One Winged Angel) is from the movie sequel to a game.
I listened to the MP3s through the portable setup (Source A), while the FLAC files were played through the home theatre system.
Review Proper:
The K242s have a very versatile character, doing well with nearly every musical genre I threw at it. My only complaints with them were that the soundstaging and imaging could have been better for the orchestral works, while there was a persistently muffled quality to all the tracks. It's something you get used to after a while, though, so it's only really obvious if you try A/B'ing it with, say, a Grado or anything else with an open design.
I'm going to give my thoughts on the K242's performance based on how well they did with the above-mentioned tracks. I'll only go out of my way to name a specific track if there's something significant about their performance with the said track.
Treble:
Cymbals didn't quite have the right amount of impact to them, but no one's lauding these cans for their treble performance anyway, so that's to be expected. Then again, I found Welcome to The Jungle, When The Levee Breaks, and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ much less fatiguing to listen to, so depending on your preferences, the *slight* treble roll-off could actually be considered a good thing.
While the K242s get a passing mark for rock and the like, their performance with orchestral music is sub-par. Listening to stringed instruments becomes a bit of a chore, which doesn't do One Winged Angel any favors. The bass violins still sound excellent, but that's another thing entirely.
Soprano singers also lose a bit of their edge, as was the case with Gods Bound by Rules.
Mids:
As you may already know, these are the K242's strength, as with the case of most other AKGs. Vocals are just superb. Sure, they don't have quite as much resolution or detail as some other dynamic headphones *SennheisercoughHD600cough*, but at the price point, it's great value for the money.
The midgrange is... velvety. I realize that since this is a review on headphones, that particular adjective might seem a bit out of place, but that's the only word I can think of to describe it. While other midrange-centric or balanced cans seem to have their 300Hz-5kHz a bit disjointed from the rest of the spectrum, their is a seamless unity going from the bass to the treble, which makes these really good cans for monitoring. Well, that's only of you don't take the treble roll-off and mid-bass bump into account.
Listening to these cans, I'd heard details in singers' voices that I'd never heard before. An inhalation here, a smack of the lips there, a clearing of the throat, and you're that much closer to actually believing that you're in the same room as the band you're listening to. Most notable of the above tracks is the remastered For No One, which perfectly captures McCartney's forlorn voice, his inflection, tone, and cadence being well-fleshed out.
Bass:
The bass is a bit on the heavy side, which may put off some people. It's nowhere near Audio-Technica's Pro700 MK2, which is practically a pair of subwoofers attached to your head, but it stands out slightly. I wouldn't say that the lower frequencies were muddy (I'm too polite to use that particular word for my headphones), but I'd concede that they are slightly "soft" performers. The aforementioned mid-bass hump isn't quite so salient as to ruin your listening, but it's easily noticeable, so I would recommend a bit of EQ tweaking to remedy that.
The bass on The National Anthem and The Catalyst was moderately detailed, in that you could practically heard each string of the bass guitar vibrate on the former track, and realize that there isn't much in the way of actual detail behind the bass of the latter track. For the record, on Snow in Summer (a track also from the NieR OST), the drums sound excellent; the recording and mastering was well-done, so while the drums come off as a bit distant-sounding, though they retain all their strength and force.
Soundstaging/Imaging:
I'd give the imaging a slightly above average mark. since at some points, when there are a large number of instruments playing simultaneously, things start to get a bit jumbled. Generally, they do well in this area, or at least well enough to earn them a commendation from someone who infrequently listens to opera and the like.
In my experience, however, soundstaging is more of an issue with the quality of the recording itself, as opposed to the performance of the headphones. For instance, listening to a rendition of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (in a performance conducted by Charles Dutioit), majority of the vocals in O Fortuna seem to come from a mile away (a bit hyperbolical, but not by much), which made it impossible to listen to in an environment even mildly noisy.
Then again, I've yet to try the K701/K702, so I may as yet take back those words.
Overall:
The K242s are a bit darker than might be appreciated by most audiophiles, and the treble is a bit weak, though this is offset by a superbly smooth midrange. Good for rock, techno, pop, and other similar genres, as well as vocal-heavy tracks; not-so-good for classical music and jazz.
P.S.
They have some durability issues, though, from what I've gathered, it is an issue that only affect some units.
P.P.S.
I apologize if the review doesn't really meet the readers' standards. As I type this post-postscript, I look at my clock and find that it's around 1:20 AM. I'll probably edit this in the near future.
... Yes, I re-read this and noticed several typos, which I just fixed. I'm getting rid of the review below, which is pretty much a perfect copy of this one, save for the fact that they still have the typos.
Cheers!
From what I've heard so far, they sound a bit muffled, though that may go away after a few hours. Sibilance is present at slightly above-average volume levels, though everything else is exceptional for the price. Sound stage is beyond decent, though hardly exceptional (that's what I get for auditioning a pair of LCD-2s), and imaging is good. Just good.
Look forward to an update (not that these cans have been starving for attention lately)!
EDIT (I copy/pasted the review from a few posts down, to save readers the trouble of scrolling):
And here is the promised follow-up:
After a week of burning them in (my usual playlist + pink noise and freq. sweeps), I'm going to give my final impressions on these cans. For the record, the reason why I took so long to post this follow up was because the K242s I'm using now are a new pair sent in after my original ones suddenly broke (these cans have definite durability issues). That wouldn't have been such a huge issue, if it hadn't taken AKG over a month to replace them.
... Seeing as following that line of thought might lead to a biased review, I'm going to drop it now.
Anyway, on to the actual review.
Test tracks:
1.) Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin - Presence) @ 320 MP3(Rock)
2.) When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV) FLAC (Blues Rock)
3.) Sairin: Katatsubasa no Tenshi [Advent: One Winged Angel] (Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children OST, Disc 2) FLAC (Orchestral)
4.) Gods Bound by Rules (NieR Gestalt & NieR RepliCant Original Soundtrack, Disc 1) FLAC (Vocal)
5.) Welcome to The Jungle (Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction) @ 320 MP3 (Heavy Metal)
6.) Green Dolphin Street (Miles Davis - Kind of Blue) FLAC (Jazz)
7.) The National Anthem (Radiohead - Kid A) @ 320 MP3 (... What genre is Radiohead?!)
8.) S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ (My Chemical Romance - Danger Days: The True Lives of The Fabulous Killjoys) @ 320 MP3 (Punk/Alternative Rock)
9.) Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd - The Wall, Disc 2) FLAC (Progressive Rock)
10.) The Catalyst (Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns) @ 320 MP3 (Avant-Garde Rock)
11.) Dog Days Are Over (Florence + The Machine - Lungs) (Vocal)
12.) For No One (The Beatles - Revolver [2009 Remaster])
Sources:
a.) Creative Zen X-Fi Style 8GB —> Fiio E17 DAC/amp (as amp only) —> AKG K242 HD
b.) Sony DAV-TZ210 —> AKG K242 HD
About the reviewer:
I'm a college student who has only recently (recently being approximately three years ago) gotten into classical music, orchestral, classic rock, and the like. I like to think that my ears are in good condition (though I suffered from a perforated right eardrum when someone bumped into me while I was cleaning my ear out). Whether that last bit of info will prove a discredit towards my capability as a reviewer remains to be seen, though I've noticed sounds coming in through my right ear to be slightly muffled.
I'm not a bass head, and I never play music at obscenely loud volumes. The K242s are by far the best cans I've ever owned, the only reference point I have being an Audeze LCD-2 I auditioned several months back.
Anyway, I tried to include as many genres as I could while keeping the review to a manageable size. The fact that a lot of the review tracks are rock songs is probably due to the fact that I love rock and many of its subgenres. I also really enjoy instrumentals, orchestral works and choir music, which accounts for the inclusion of all the other tracks. I'm also a gamer, which is why I managed to include songs from NieR and Advent Children. Technically though, the latter track (One Winged Angel) is from the movie sequel to a game.
I listened to the MP3s through the portable setup (Source A), while the FLAC files were played through the home theatre system.
Review Proper:
The K242s have a very versatile character, doing well with nearly every musical genre I threw at it. My only complaints with them were that the soundstaging and imaging could have been better for the orchestral works, while there was a persistently muffled quality to all the tracks. It's something you get used to after a while, though, so it's only really obvious if you try A/B'ing it with, say, a Grado or anything else with an open design.
I'm going to give my thoughts on the K242's performance based on how well they did with the above-mentioned tracks. I'll only go out of my way to name a specific track if there's something significant about their performance with the said track.
Treble:
Cymbals didn't quite have the right amount of impact to them, but no one's lauding these cans for their treble performance anyway, so that's to be expected. Then again, I found Welcome to The Jungle, When The Levee Breaks, and S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/ much less fatiguing to listen to, so depending on your preferences, the *slight* treble roll-off could actually be considered a good thing.
While the K242s get a passing mark for rock and the like, their performance with orchestral music is sub-par. Listening to stringed instruments becomes a bit of a chore, which doesn't do One Winged Angel any favors. The bass violins still sound excellent, but that's another thing entirely.
Soprano singers also lose a bit of their edge, as was the case with Gods Bound by Rules.
Mids:
As you may already know, these are the K242's strength, as with the case of most other AKGs. Vocals are just superb. Sure, they don't have quite as much resolution or detail as some other dynamic headphones *SennheisercoughHD600cough*, but at the price point, it's great value for the money.
The midgrange is... velvety. I realize that since this is a review on headphones, that particular adjective might seem a bit out of place, but that's the only word I can think of to describe it. While other midrange-centric or balanced cans seem to have their 300Hz-5kHz a bit disjointed from the rest of the spectrum, their is a seamless unity going from the bass to the treble, which makes these really good cans for monitoring. Well, that's only of you don't take the treble roll-off and mid-bass bump into account.
Listening to these cans, I'd heard details in singers' voices that I'd never heard before. An inhalation here, a smack of the lips there, a clearing of the throat, and you're that much closer to actually believing that you're in the same room as the band you're listening to. Most notable of the above tracks is the remastered For No One, which perfectly captures McCartney's forlorn voice, his inflection, tone, and cadence being well-fleshed out.
Bass:
The bass is a bit on the heavy side, which may put off some people. It's nowhere near Audio-Technica's Pro700 MK2, which is practically a pair of subwoofers attached to your head, but it stands out slightly. I wouldn't say that the lower frequencies were muddy (I'm too polite to use that particular word for my headphones), but I'd concede that they are slightly "soft" performers. The aforementioned mid-bass hump isn't quite so salient as to ruin your listening, but it's easily noticeable, so I would recommend a bit of EQ tweaking to remedy that.
The bass on The National Anthem and The Catalyst was moderately detailed, in that you could practically heard each string of the bass guitar vibrate on the former track, and realize that there isn't much in the way of actual detail behind the bass of the latter track. For the record, on Snow in Summer (a track also from the NieR OST), the drums sound excellent; the recording and mastering was well-done, so while the drums come off as a bit distant-sounding, though they retain all their strength and force.
Soundstaging/Imaging:
I'd give the imaging a slightly above average mark. since at some points, when there are a large number of instruments playing simultaneously, things start to get a bit jumbled. Generally, they do well in this area, or at least well enough to earn them a commendation from someone who infrequently listens to opera and the like.
In my experience, however, soundstaging is more of an issue with the quality of the recording itself, as opposed to the performance of the headphones. For instance, listening to a rendition of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (in a performance conducted by Charles Dutioit), majority of the vocals in O Fortuna seem to come from a mile away (a bit hyperbolical, but not by much), which made it impossible to listen to in an environment even mildly noisy.
Then again, I've yet to try the K701/K702, so I may as yet take back those words.
Overall:
The K242s are a bit darker than might be appreciated by most audiophiles, and the treble is a bit weak, though this is offset by a superbly smooth midrange. Good for rock, techno, pop, and other similar genres, as well as vocal-heavy tracks; not-so-good for classical music and jazz.
P.S.
They have some durability issues, though, from what I've gathered, it is an issue that only affect some units.
P.P.S.
I apologize if the review doesn't really meet the readers' standards. As I type this post-postscript, I look at my clock and find that it's around 1:20 AM. I'll probably edit this in the near future.
... Yes, I re-read this and noticed several typos, which I just fixed. I'm getting rid of the review below, which is pretty much a perfect copy of this one, save for the fact that they still have the typos.
Cheers!
