[Davidzak64]

It's the green ones, but I must honestly say that the difference is limited. The green version has enough bass with decent amping and good ear pads. Here's what I noticed during my various K340: The green drivers are identical in construction to the red ones from the K240 Sextett, but with mechanical rolloff at 4 kHz. The grey drivers are from a K240 Monitor, which run up to 20 kHz and therefore have no rolloff. The voltage regulators are also different and I found the green version to be better in the treble, what I would like to check again. At that time, as I had a deep notch exactly at 4 kHz with all the grey ones.

Thank you for your reply. I also have the green driver. I'm driving them straight from a Luxman R-113 receiver's HP output that has plenty of headroom and sounds musically awesome. My only complaint with them is the 2.5 Khz spike that is easily neutralized with eq adjustment. I've had many HP'S come and go over the last couple of years and none of them have given me the pleasure that the K340 has. I'm still searching for something that can top the K340's magic.

 

[Reputator]

I have a love-hate relationship with the K340 - I've had a lot of them and many of them disappointed me, and I would have wished all the technology inside to sound really good. Even my modified K340s were dark, veiled, undefined in direct comparison against other headphones, but I only noticed this when I had the comparison. Otherwise, the ear gets used to the sound far too quickly.

My opinion actually changed when I was able to buy two NOS pairs from an estate as an impulse buy a week ago, which had been in the original box for decades. These K340s sound outstanding!

In terms of sound: "Musically", the phase problems are not noticeable at all, the peak at 2,5 kHz is there, but not annoying - it's incredibly fun to listen to music with it, even if the music is presented unusually. The detail resolution can keep up with a K1000, no trace of a "veil". It still doesn't sound incredibly natural or spatial, but I have other headphones for that. If I can listen to all kinds of albums with one pair of headphones and don't want to stop, they've already won a lot.

I wanted to use this as an opportunity to compare a stock and a modified pair.

What influence do modifications have?
I decided to leave one K340 in its original condition and modify the other, but in such a way that it can be taken back at any time. Modification was direct wiring from the dynamic driver, removing the grille, a different cable (in my case from a K240). Result is that the modifications have a minor effect, the modified one sounds slightly brighter. It's a nice icing on the cake. Instead, I noticed something completely different, which was my mistake with former K340.

I would not have thought that headphones could be so amplifier picky. It's not just about volume, but about tonal influences - from lifeless, empty, unnatural and dark to neutral. The best results were directly on amplifier outputs (tested SAE Mark IV DM, Sony TA-1120A, Crown DC-300A) but surprisingly amazing on the SAC KH1000 amplifier I use for my AKG K1000. The "clinical" and "bright" sound of the DC-300A elicited quite a lot of detail from the K340. The Sony was on the "warmer" side and showed more bass. The SAC is a combination of both - neutral. As a rule I recommend low output impedances, even neutral tubes have not convinced me for the K340.

Very cool! Lucky find, and it doesn't surprise me that they're very amp-dependent. Especially given how MUCH power they need, the attributes of that power would seem particularly important to their sound. Given the high impedance, I'd love to try them on tubes.

Another thought I had while reading your post is that your NOS headphones no doubt have pristine earpads, which may also be influencing how much better they sound. My K340 sounded VERY peaky (I guess in that infamous 2.5k range) and thin in the bass region with the old hard pads.

 

[Mellowship]

I have a love-hate relationship with the K340 - I've had a lot of them and many of them disappointed me, and I would have wished all the technology inside to sound really good. Even my modified K340s were dark, veiled, undefined in direct comparison against other headphones, but I only noticed this when I had the comparison. Otherwise, the ear gets used to the sound far too quickly.

My opinion actually changed when I was able to buy two NOS pairs from an estate as an impulse buy a week ago, which had been in the original box for decades. These K340s sound outstanding!

In terms of sound: "Musically", the phase problems are not noticeable at all, the peak at 2,5 kHz is there, but not annoying - it's incredibly fun to listen to music with it, even if the music is presented unusually. The detail resolution can keep up with a K1000, no trace of a "veil". It still doesn't sound incredibly natural or spatial, but I have other headphones for that. If I can listen to all kinds of albums with one pair of headphones and don't want to stop, they've already won a lot.

I wanted to use this as an opportunity to compare a stock and a modified pair.

What influence do modifications have?
I decided to leave one K340 in its original condition and modify the other, but in such a way that it can be taken back at any time. Modification was direct wiring from the dynamic driver, removing the grille, a different cable (in my case from a K240). Result is that the modifications have a minor effect, the modified one sounds slightly brighter. It's a nice icing on the cake. Instead, I noticed something completely different, which was my mistake with former K340.

I would not have thought that headphones could be so amplifier picky. It's not just about volume, but about tonal influences - from lifeless, empty, unnatural and dark to neutral. The best results were directly on amplifier outputs (tested SAE Mark IV DM, Sony TA-1120A, Crown DC-300A) but surprisingly amazing on the SAC KH1000 amplifier I use for my AKG K1000. The "clinical" and "bright" sound of the DC-300A elicited quite a lot of detail from the K340. The Sony was on the "warmer" side and showed more bass. The SAC is a combination of both - neutral. As a rule I recommend low output impedances, even neutral tubes have not convinced me for the K340.

Great!
Those look absolutely amazing.

For those who are not willing or able to connect the K340 to a speaker integrated/receiver, the Loxjie P20 is a sensible option.
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/loxjie-p20-technical-measurements.7607/

 

[richard51]

It is time to add an update to my past review from many years ago:

The Akg K 340 are very hard to drive "optimally"....Like i already said some years ago now, they are the best of the 8 headphones i ever used by far.... For example compared to them , the Akg K701 i already own is unnatural sounding and non holographic at all ...I cannot listen to them anymore....

A caveat : they are like all headphones vibrating, the room chamber pose problem i solved with sorbothane duro 70....And they ask for powerful or/and very good amplifier and clean source...Very clean source....Give that to them and their high frequencies beat my 2 stax model (Sr-5 and lambda) because it sound way more natural....I listen their higher frequencies with my skin shivers and their bass with my body and feet....What is important in music experience is natural TIMBRE experience...Is it easy to spot a violin and a viola and a cello in a quartet with for each one instrument their specific 3-d qualitative vibrating volume filling my room and out of my head?
They give on all good recordings of choral music for example a sound completely out of the head filling my room....This sound "illusion" is very important for me, because without it no headphone can replace my speakers in my past acoustically controlled room...Because i must sell my house i was going back to headphone only till my death and i ask for natural timbre sound experience and i ask also for this "real" illusion of sound filling my room, not my head....

What headphone under or over 1000 dollars do that ? i paid them 100 dollars used...
All their attributed defects comes most of the times from the way the user use them and with the wrong amplifier, wrong cable and wrong source , wrong pads, and with no vibrations controls...

Are they perfect for details and rendition ? No .... But all headphones i ever listen to are imperfect on one or on many counts and none of them beat them at all for me...

Here the ratio quality /price is over the roof.... But they are the most hard headphone to use when you target and try to reach their true potential for sure.... Then buy them but think a lot first and last about the way to drive them rightfully....To be frank it takes me years to figure out ....But i will die with them and i am unable to listen to any other headphone i have.... And I am afraid to buy any costlier possible upgrade replacement because of fear of deception and regrets so good they are now, i am afraid to pay many many thousand dollars in a quest trying to beat them anyway, they sound better, way better than 3 years ago now for me.....I replaced cable, source and amplifier and pads to accomodate them, this is why....I bought a Sansui amplifier of the Alpha series to upgrade my AU 7700 to drive them improvingly after selling my house and closing my audio tailored made acoustic room ....No more audio room this year for the older retired dude i became...

For those who will try them: The magnificent holographic staging out of the head given by the electret cell takes around 20 minutes of warming to manifest completely like a blossoming flower under our amazed eyes...
For example with string quartet there is no comparison at all between the AKG K 701 who replaced them one time as flagship headphone for AKG... The unnaturalness of the string sound whih is bent toward the higher frequencies with some erasing of the mid frequencies texture timbre of the strings are more than annoying after tasting the AKG K 340 more natural timbre rendition .... No coming back for me....Here each string flavor of the violin viola and cello are completely audible and separated in their own space volume out of my head so to speak, completely filling my room as each recording make it possible accordingly to the quality of the recording engineer talent....

I listen now to all the string quartet litterature without being fatigued at all.... And there is more details, and even if someone in the first minute of listening could think that the AKG K 701 could be more detailed, they are not....High frequencies showing rain dont replace mid frequencies timbre naturalness and is very fatiguing if you listen music for hours...And by the way the highs of the K 340 are more natural and more beautiful like in electroacoustic headphone compared to most dynamic one.... Anyway i own few dynamic, electroacoustic and planar magnetic headphones already and i will never return to any of them....To beat the rightfully driven AKG K 340 you must pay a lot more than i want to pay, over probably more than one thousand dollars...Anyway enjoying them now made me fear to any blind possible upgrade based on the reading of some reviewer...

Audiophile paradise at so low cost is enough for me... I feel lucky because : how do you replace good speakers in an acoustically dedicated and controlled room when fate and retirement push you toward headphone use only?

But remember they must be rightfully driven, and it takes times to learn how to tame them....They are the most difficult to tame headphone i ever had....And their original earpads by the way must be replaced first....After that vibrations controls is mandatory...Etc...They need a very clean, detailed and more "cold" source dac than a "warm" one too....It is optional modification to put off the plastic grid in the enclosure between your ears and drivers, i did it, but you will need a foam with an optimal balanced thicknessor thinness to help optimization if you do that....And likemany already had said it here,forget the original pad and throw them off....

I wrote this to help by saying my truth: they are very good but not for every one out of the box and not for me too....It take me much time to tame them and love them for what they are which cannot be revealed at first listening at all...Reviewer who judge them without taking the time to tame and optimize them and give a negative review are not credible for me.... Ratio price/SQ is over the roof here that is the truth which matter....This hibrid can is forgotten but this technology could be optimized but people look for something "new" not for past optimizable miracle....That is life....



My best to all...

 

[Majoox]

Another thought I had while reading your post is that your NOS headphones no doubt have pristine earpads, which may also be influencing how much better they sound. My K340 sounded VERY peaky (I guess in that infamous 2.5k range) and thin in the bass region with the old hard pads.

I measured my one K340 with original pads and this is what came out - in the end, the 2,5 kHz "mountain" does not go away regardless of the distance. In my experience, velour pads (from AKG themselves) tame all the treble and take the shoutiness out immediately.

About tube amplifiers: I had a modded Little Dot MK II at the time and even with various pairs of tubes I was not able to produce satisfactory results with the K340. The bass was bloated, undefined and an inappropriate "warmth" spread in the midrange, which didn't fit with the analytical electret at all. The bloating was due to the high output impedance (120 ohms), so I had about +3 db more around 100 Hz.

Even with the usual stereo receiver headphone outputs, where resistors are connected in series, the output impedance is enormously damaging. It always sounds best with a transistor with nearly 0 ohms. A combination with a Bottlehead Crack could be exciting, even if the same physical things occur there.

 

[Davidzak64]

It is time to add an update to my past review from many years ago:

The Akg K 340 are very hard to drive "optimally"....Like i already said some years ago now, they are the best of the 8 headphones i ever used by far.... For example compared to them , the Akg K701 i already own is unnatural sounding and non holographic at all ...I cannot listen to them anymore....

A caveat : they are like all headphones vibrating, the room chamber pose problem i solved with sorbothane duro 70....And they ask for powerful or/and very good amplifier and clean source...Very clean source....Give that to them and their high frequencies beat my 2 stax model (Sr-5 and lambda) because it sound way more natural....I listen their higher frequencies with my skin shivers and their bass with my body and feet....What is important in music experience is natural TIMBRE experience...Is it easy to spot a violin and a viola and a cello in a quartet with for each one instrument their specific 3-d qualitative vibrating volume filling my room and out of my head?
They give on all good recordings of choral music for example a sound completely out of the head filling my room....This sound "illusion" is very important for me, because without it no headphone can replace my speakers in my past acoustically controlled room...Because i must sell my house i was going back to headphone only till my death and i ask for natural timbre sound experience and i ask also for this "real" illusion of sound filling my room, not my head....

What headphone under or over 1000 dollars do that ? i paid them 100 dollars used...
All their attributed defects comes most of the times from the way the user use them and with the wrong amplifier, wrong cable and wrong source , wrong pads, and with no vibrations controls...

Are they perfect for details and rendition ? No .... But all headphones i ever listen to are imperfect on one or on many counts and none of them beat them at all for me...

Here the ratio quality /price is over the roof.... But they are the most hard headphone to use when you target and try to reach their true potential for sure.... Then buy them but think a lot first and last about the way to drive them rightfully....To be frank it takes me years to figure out ....But i will die with them and i am unable to listen to any other headphone i have.... And I am afraid to buy any costlier possible upgrade replacement because of fear of deception and regrets so good they are now, i am afraid to pay many many thousand dollars in a quest trying to beat them anyway, they sound better, way better than 3 years ago now for me.....I replaced cable, source and amplifier and pads to accomodate them, this is why....I bought a Sansui amplifier of the Alpha series to upgrade my AU 7700 to drive them improvingly after selling my house and closing my audio tailored made acoustic room ....No more audio room this year for the older retired dude i became...

For those who will try them: The magnificent holographic staging out of the head given by the electret cell takes around 20 minutes of warming to manifest completely like a blossoming flower under our amazed eyes...
For example with string quartet there is no comparison at all between the AKG K 701 who replaced them one time as flagship headphone for AKG... The unnaturalness of the string sound whih is bent toward the higher frequencies with some erasing of the mid frequencies texture timbre of the strings are more than annoying after tasting the AKG K 340 more natural timbre rendition .... No coming back for me....Here each string flavor of the violin viola and cello are completely audible and separated in their own space volume out of my head so to speak, completely filling my room as each recording make it possible accordingly to the quality of the recording engineer talent....

I listen now to all the string quartet litterature without being fatigued at all.... And there is more details, and even if someone in the first minute of listening could think that the AKG K 701 could be more detailed, they are not....High frequencies showing rain dont replace mid frequencies timbre naturalness and is very fatiguing if you listen music for hours...And by the way the highs of the K 340 are more natural and more beautiful like in electroacoustic headphone compared to most dynamic one.... Anyway i own few dynamic, electroacoustic and planar magnetic headphones already and i will never return to any of them....To beat the rightfully driven AKG K 340 you must pay a lot more than i want to pay, over probably more than one thousand dollars...Anyway enjoying them now made me fear to any blind possible upgrade based on the reading of some reviewer...

Audiophile paradise at so low cost is enough for me... I feel lucky because : how do you replace good speakers in an acoustically dedicated and controlled room when fate and retirement push you toward headphone use only?

But remember they must be rightfully driven, and it takes times to learn how to tame them....They are the most difficult to tame headphone i ever had....And their original earpads by the way must be replaced first....After that vibrations controls is mandatory...Etc...They need a very clean, detailed and more "cold" source dac than a "warm" one too....It is optional modification to put off the plastic grid in the enclosure between your ears and drivers, i did it, but you will need a foam with an optimal balanced thicknessor thinness to help optimization if you do that....And likemany already had said it here,forget the original pad and throw them off....

I wrote this to help by saying my truth: they are very good but not for every one out of the box and not for me too....It take me much time to tame them and love them for what they are which cannot be revealed at first listening at all...Reviewer who judge them without taking the time to tame and optimize them and give a negative review are not credible for me.... Ratio price/SQ is over the roof here that is the truth which matter....This hibrid can is forgotten but this technology could be optimized but people look for something "new" not for past optimizable miracle....That is life....



My best to all...

I love your review, the k340 is indeed special. I must have got lucky with the right Amp pairing from the start. I think it has to do with having a strong power supply that can deliver the voltage needed: Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[richard51]

I think you are right about voltage....I am not an engineer for sure.... But this gradual "blooming" of the sound after few minutes of the electret cells warming , 20 minutes, is a sign that this hibryd headphone needs for good alimentation is particular and different from singular dynamic or even singular dedicated electro-acoustic can...The plural dynamic and electret cells ask for something very specific.... We need an engineer here....

But alimentation particular quality is one problem about this headphone, they are particularly sensitive to vibrations too....And the original old pads did not help....Nor the plastic grid in front of our ears....Cabling also has a great impact....And i think they win with an accurate very clear and "cold" source dac in my case.....

These problems particularly acute in this hibryd complex headphone explain why people perceive "a veil" , myself too i perceived it like that, as a "veil" , in the beginning of my optimization process with them ....But this headphone dont sound like an headphone when optimized, it sound with very good recording more like speakers filling my room.... With a varying "Out of my head" possible experience accordingly to each various recording potential qualities.... This hibryd reveal less the " details per se" and more the acoustic spatial acoustic qualities related to the original acoustic situation of the lived musical recorded event, be it in a studio, a room, or a theater....

They dont sound as an "headphone" with some good recording at all... The holographic experience is astounding and drug-like addiction.... Even a good headphone like AKG k701 sound like trash now for me , unnatural, unlistenable now and i tried because i own one....Are the AKG K 340 a "veiled" experience? Yes they had been a veiled experience for me too, not completely satisfying till now, till my improvement of their mechanical, and electrical embedding in my audio system and by it....They ask for a rightful implementation and even for some mods....Their cost is low but the time needed to optimize them was costly in hours and experiments for me....They cannot be judged out of the box simply...How many hybrid, electroacoustic/dynamic phone exist now on the market? why so few? This AKG K 340 was one of the first....The advantage of some of the qualities of the dynamic and electro-acoustic worlds without some of the inconvenience is their great advantage over most non hibryd headphones i guess....

Now they dont sound so much like the "revealing" more crystal clear costly headphones , but they sound natural more like speakers with a good recording, voices of a chorus or of instruments filling my room more than filling my head.... Details for details are fatiguing, especially if these rain of details stay in your head... I want naturalness of timbre experience not details for the sake of details.... I want an headphone who will compete with my past speakers experience in my dedicated acoustic room....I dont ask for a microscope for sound....But an intermediary between me and music with natural acoustic instruments....

I want to forget that i am no more free of any choice between speakers in an acoustic dedicated room and headphones because of my retirement and lack of space in my new house....They give me that revelatory holographic experience no other headphone ever give me at a ridiculous cost....

Are they perfect?
No....
Are they good?
Yes they are more good than what is suggested from allmost all the reviews i read....

In price/ sound quality ratio they are the king of headphone with no competition for me....Correct me if i am wrong, i dont know all headphones for sure....

Thanks for your attention and kindness....

I love your review, the k340 is indeed special. I must have got lucky with the right Amp pairing from the start. I think it has to do with having a strong power supply that can deliver the voltage needed: Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[mulveling]

It's the green ones, but I must honestly say that the difference is limited. The green version has enough bass with decent amping and good ear pads. Here's what I noticed during my various K340: The green drivers are identical in construction to the red ones from the K240 Sextett, but with mechanical rolloff at 4 kHz. The grey drivers are from a K240 Monitor, which run up to 20 kHz and therefore have no rolloff. The voltage regulators are also different and I found the green version to be better in the treble, what I would like to check again. At that time, as I had a deep notch exactly at 4 kHz with all the grey ones.

I have a 100% stock pair of K340 at home that sounds "pure magic" with an OTL tube amp. It has the white "AKG" print on headband. I'll go home today and peek at which drivers it has, but from your descriptions I'd guess it will be green. And here right now (at girlfriend's), I have a different "nearly stock" K340 with a Mogami replacement cable - which I don't think is an important mod anyways. No "AKG" print. This one has the gray drivers, and it definitely sounds "wrong" compared to the golden sample at home. Yeah, sounds like there is a big hole somewhere in the upper mids.

I'd be interested in learning which mods can fix the gray version. I got it because of its great cosmetic condition versus my other pair, but quite honestly this is unlistenable lol.

I had the good pair in a closet for over 15 years, and only brought it out this year only to use with my Singlepower tube amp as an impromptu "listen-and-learn" tube tester for old 6SN7's. Once I got to the Sylvania WGT's and Tung-Sol round plates (ugh RCA's and GTB's) I was like "woah this sounds REALLY good, and I want to keep listening", haha.

 

[Majoox]

Very interesting to hear! I was always looking for gray ones at the time because I was guided by the "bass heavy". When I then bought a green one as a spare I was still amazed by the sound. Anyway, I'm not wrong with my observation apparently.

I tried to fix the gray version back then, installed the older PCB including electret in a gray K340 for that, swapped the components of the PCB, played with wiring and phase - the notch didn't go away. The hole at 4 kHz was very audible.

 

[richard51]

For this "hole" around 4khz , i did not need to open my headphone to hear it and verify that my Akg k340 is the gray one....

For example it was enough to compare listening AKG K 340 and AKG K 701 with harpsichord, piano and flute to hear this hole in the K340 and not in the K701...

But this was simple to remedy with a relatively satisfying success with electronic equalization around this frequencies....

And "voila" it is easily done with one finger; we have a great holographic headphone now with a better response to this frequencies range ....

All headphone had their response problem, more or less...

It is the same with speakers....

Most people dont "know" that speakers in a room without electronical equalization of the imperfect speakers drivers response to the imperfect room will not sound optimal at all if not implemented, and also and this is a fact which most people ignore completely that the room response itself must be mechanically equalized relatively to our specific ears and not only in relation to the drivers speakers to create also an optimal sound experience...

In the same way the shell/room of the headphone in relation to our ears and to the peculiar drivers must be mechanically and electronically "equalized, or optimized....Minimizing vibrations and resonance of the 2 shells is mandatory and ask for a kind of mechanical optimization like the mechanical equalization of a room ...Our own ears guide us in this task....For the drivers response around 4Khz the equalizer incorporated in my Hidizs dac do the job easily in recreating a more balance sound....

The Akg K 340 even the "gray" one could then be stupendous after that ....If we optimize them for sure.....

The AKG K340 is not perfect, but the sound experience it deliver at this price is nowhere to be found.... This is the reason for this "cult" status....

It is the only headphone i owned that rival and beat now my past speakers /room experience.... Happily so, because i will no more have a speakers/room now anyway .....It is the first time i listen my headphone anew in the last few years because after creating my room/speakers satisfying experience i put all my headphones in a drawer to lay in peace.... I was very sad at first being in the obligation to go back to headphone experience by the fate of event....After rethinking my way and my audio system this last month with and around the stupendous AKG K340 , i prefer headphone now.... Amazing imprevisible turn of event for me indeed....

 

[Davidzak64]

I have a 100% stock pair of K340 at home that sounds "pure magic" with an OTL tube amp. It has the white "AKG" print on headband. I'll go home today and peek at which drivers it has, but from your descriptions I'd guess it will be green. And here right now (at girlfriend's), I have a different "nearly stock" K340 with a Mogami replacement cable - which I don't think is an important mod anyways. No "AKG" print. This one has the gray drivers, and it definitely sounds "wrong" compared to the golden sample at home. Yeah, sounds like there is a big hole somewhere in the upper mids.

I'd be interested in learning which mods can fix the gray version. I got it because of its great cosmetic condition versus my other pair, but quite honestly this is unlistenable lol.

I had the good pair in a closet for over 15 years, and only brought it out this year only to use with my Singlepower tube amp as an impromptu "listen-and-learn" tube tester for old 6SN7's. Once I got to the Sylvania WGT's and Tung-Sol round plates (ugh RCA's and GTB's) I was like "woah this sounds REALLY good, and I want to keep listening", haha.

Pro tip: Touch your ears to the inside back of the pads and listen to how the bass wakes up. Placement is critical!
They have the best bass guitar timbre I've heard in a headphone. That's coming from a bass player. Enjoy!

 

[Krassi]

I have a tube amp especially for those but havent used it for a while.
They sound amazing on a solid state 80s Technics SU-V3 or SU-V4X and on a newer NAD 356bee.
Really insane bass on those!

Magical as ever. with a good amp it really doesnt matter what you use them on in my opinion.

i was really lucky with my sheepskinpads from aliexprez that work amazing on them.
with some little eq i prefer them over anything i have and if you listen to 70s and 80s music they kick ass like it was meant to be.

 

[Davidzak64]

I have a tube amp especially for those but havent used it for a while.
They sound amazing on a solid state 80s Technics SU-V3 or SU-V4X and on a newer NAD 356bee.
Really insane bass on those!

Magical as ever. with a good amp it really doesnt matter what you use them on in my opinion.

i was really lucky with my sheepskinpads from aliexprez that work amazing on them.
with some little eq i prefer them over anything i have and if you listen to 70s and 80s music they kick ass like it was meant to be.

I have a tube amp especially for those but havent used it for a while.
They sound amazing on a solid state 80s Technics SU-V3 or SU-V4X and on a newer NAD 356bee.
Really insane bass on those!

Magical as ever. with a good amp it really doesnt matter what you use them on in my opinion.

i was really lucky with my sheepskinpads from aliexprez that work amazing on them.
with some little eq i prefer them over anything i have and if you listen to 70s and 80s music they kick ass like it was meant to be.

Headphone Jack or speaker output?

 

[richard51]

Speaking of pads , i bought four different pairs from aliexpress for 10 bucks each.... Sheepskin, protein skin,vented holes, and techno cloth.... I dont like velvet then i forgot this one...

I bought these 4, because they had different materials composition and 3 different thickness size here....

In my experience, there is a big change with changing the pads of any headphones....

For the moment with the K340 i appreciate very much the improvement gained from the original pad to the leather pad....But the protein skin is more thicker in size and i was eager to try them..... For the vented hole one or the cloth one for the price it is interesting to try them.....

The k340 are very sensible to ANY change i introduced in my system, cables or pads or amplification or any change, way more than any headphone i ever own....

In my case, even if the K340 dont lack bass at all, i like an equalization increasing deep bass extension because i like bass but especially also a slight decrease of the db level near 500 hertz to compensate for an influence of the bass impact in the lower mid frequencies characteristic of this headphone and to complement and balance for a bit more db level increase under 5 khz to compensate the "hole" or lack in the lower highs is enough for my equalization optimization .... The resulting difference in perception even with this slight modification are staggering....For example a better perception of the number of distinct violins in a group or the distinction of voices in a chorus... and a better perception of contrast between different instruments timbre in an orchestra...

The Hidizs AP180 pro is one among others ideal dac for this headphone because very neutral quality but 2 equalization process are possible with it, which is very useful with the AKG K340.... A slight equalization has an enormous impact like i said.... I did it for my ears and with them to my complete satisfaction....

For amplification i discarded my past Sansui AU 7700 which was marvellous with my speakers/room but is too noisy for the sensible K340....The Sansui alpha series, mine is the basic one integrated at 100 watts, is one of the best amplifier created by Sansui at their peak history.....i may and i use the direct path circuitry inside it at the push of a special button to spare the signal travelling tone controls circuitry and other circuits way useless for my need.... The alpha amplifier design of Sansui has a very low noise floor compared to the AU-7700....And is way more neutral than the AU-7700... The K340 ask for " melting ice" amplifier sound like the alpha one more than for a warm "fire" amplifier sound like the au-7700....For my specific ears ....

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003521747357.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.0.0.27061802Dvl9eM

 

[richard51]

A word of caution:

Just because of my enthusiasm for the AKG K340 quality/price ratio and my posts , this does not means that this headphone is a bargain for everybody when you throw it out of the box and plug them....

Sorry but it was for me a work in the making to use them rightfully and mods them and picking the right environment and dac and amplifier and pads and cables to give them the best they can do without erasing completely some of their perceived and attributed "defect", the main one being it is not a clear microscope instrument to zoom in in all sound details.... They dont lack details for sure but they dont focus on details but on soundstage, imaging and good timbre....They are holographic if the recording is recorded in the best possible way to begin with....

My main point is : there exist many better headphones on all separate audiophile aspects and counts yes, but at a very high cost point , certainly over one thousand dollars .....I will never dare now to try a one thousand dollars headphone or to try any headphone now at any price anywaY, without comparison first with the AKG magic because of my fear to be sad after some high cost purchase, so magic my K340 are, and nevermind their imperfection....They are a cult headphone because they are imperfect, they were made with this new hibrydation audio technology at the times between electret and dynamic cells to improve the balance between all aspect of sound in a new optimal compromise....Today most audio product must be resolving first and last even before being musical....This was not so at the golden age of Sansui or of AKG at the level it is today.....All past tech design or vintage are not trash even if they were technologically surpassed....

Like anything in life it is a compromise : I prefer 3-d soundstage and natural timbre to micro details in 2-d and i prefer natural musical impression not "perfect" artificial plankton phantom sounds for the sake of it, i prefer living real music with all his limitations....For me, they give me that.... At a ridiculous price....And understand me right they are resolving headphone if the recording make it possible, but they were made to give the more natural sound experience possible accordingly to each recording and not created to be a microscope for any and all recording.....

Then i hope i was clear because i dont want my enthusiasm to fool anyone in some impulsive purchase ....The AKG is marvellous but not for everyone, then think about it.....

If i wrap it all in one sentence: their magic precisely grow from their native imperfection....And i prefer a limited beautiful imperfection on all aspects of sound at peanuts cost to an " alleged " illimited perfection at a very high cost on some aspects of sound only.....