AKG K340 Electrostatic Phones
Feb 9, 2023 at 11:07 PM Post #826 of 1,184
I just come from my music evening session.... Jazz for sometime now.... I discover a new jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein....A melodist...A genius too... More than 40 albums often with hammond organ.... The pairing guitar and hammond organ is a relaxing heaven to my ears... :)

I feel a bit foolish to have order a new headphone, even an AKG sextett.... :)

I am pretty sure nothing or very few headphone could rival the K340.... But it ask so much optimization works, if i recall the complete transformation from the first day till today, that many people who think they know it probably did not know it at his upper most level....I never read for example a reviewer saying that the K340 trash his 8 other headphones as i wrote, then i concluded that many had not go through enough optimization... Or i am deluded, why not? Anyway....

I ordered the K240 sextett by curiosity, i dont entertain the thought that it can rival the K340 at all nor sounding as good....After all an electret made a lot of difference when i listen violin for example....So much difference also his bass rendering which is extended, clear, punchy and dynamical it even move my bones like a speaker pair.......

His mid are realistic and natural, not "beautiful" or seductive as the Stax SR5 gold as i already said, but i prefer the K340 to this Stax, the best mid created by Stax by the way said an acoustic engineer i forgot his name... It is easy also to verify the sub-bass on the K340 with a big organ.... Then what in the world a sextett could do at the end ?

I pay it 30% of my audio system total cost.... But i am curious.... And i never had been able to tame my curiosity nor my spontaneous imprevisible reaction sometime.... Anyway, i am excited by the challenge to put it on his optimal level.... Who knows ? :)
 
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Feb 9, 2023 at 11:45 PM Post #827 of 1,184
I just come from my music evening session.... Jazz for sometime now.... I discover a new jazz guitarist Peter Bernstein....A melodist...A genius too... More than 40 albums often with hammond organ.... The pairing guitar and hammond organ is a relaxing heaven to my ears... :)

I feel a bit foolish to have order a new headphone, even an AKG sextett.... :)

I am pretty sure nothing or very few headphone could rival the K340.... But it ask so much optimization works, if i recall the complete transformation from the first day till today, that many people who think they know it probably did not know it at his upper most level....I never read for example a reviewer saying that the K340 trash his 8 other headphones as i wrote, then i concluded that many had not go through enough optimization... Or i am deluded, why not? Anyway....

I ordered the K240 sextett by curiosity, i dont entertain the thought that it can rival the K340 at all nor sounding as good....After all an electret made a lot of difference when i listen violin for example....So much difference also his bass rendering which is extended, clear, punchy and dynamical it even move my bones like a speaker pair.......

His mid are realistic and natural, not "beautiful" or seductive as the Stax SR5 gold as i already said, but i prefer the K340 to this Stax, the best mid created by Stax by the way said an acoustic engineer i forgot his name... It is easy also to verify the sub-bass on the K340 with a big organ.... Then what in the world a sextett could do at the end ?

I pay it 30% of my audio system total cost.... But i am curious.... And i never had been able to tame my curiosity nor my spontaneous imprevisible reaction sometime.... Anyway, i am excited by the challenge to put it on his optimal level.... Who knows ? :)

The mids on the Sextetts are objectively better than the K340s. The rest would be mostly preferences I supposed, but the luscious mids those six radiators put out...🤌👍
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 9:08 AM Post #829 of 1,184
They are many people who knows headphone way more than me here and had experience with them in a deeper way than me....I come from room acoustic .... I decided after reading all the posts of these people to buy the sextett and one day the DF ... For sure also the AKG engineers of this era with Dr. Goerike as commander made more innovations in few years than many other companies past and future together....

Then buying the sextett and one day the DF cannot be wrong but will reveal to me why i disliked or why i was not satisfied by most headphones on the market : the lack of acoustic and psycho-acoustic investigation at the root of headphones design as it is also at the root of room/speakers listenings, and the market focussing mind among corporations and their shortcuts first and last is the reason i suspected after my convincing K340 listening experience....

AKG is one corporation who created in this golden era each one of his headphones K1000, K240 sextett, K340, K240DF etc with a psycho-acoustic and an acoustic turn of the mind first and last in each one of these cases, more than just mere electrical and esthetical or pragmatical or business ground only....

Then thanks to the great posters here as Majoox, JAanonymus5150 and Davidzak64 and all AKG connoisseurs here for their knowledge helping me with their posts which guided me and thanks for their kindness to me.....
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 9:46 AM Post #830 of 1,184
This K240 sextett will be mine in one week...Then if my K340 let me down along the road i will not kill myself waiting for another pair....I will wait with his little brother.... :)
Sextetts in the house!
Haven't followed the whole conversation now, would just like to note that this is an LP Sextett (Davidzak64), the AKG lettering is on the emblem not in a black box. You can recognize EPs because they have a different grill and the black box (I assume Richard51 had this one) - and these are also the best K240 Sextett for me. The differences are not serious (besides of bass), but justify a different revision in terms of taste.

From the outside you can hardly guess the membrane colors, anyway, I have repaired/owned so many sextet that I know all possible versions.
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 10:05 AM Post #831 of 1,184
This is an EP sextett with "the black box " i guess and with his EP grill ( not mine) .... Is it one Majoox ? the grill of the sextett i bought is different , a more plane one, then i guess mine is not an EP.... I dont have photos of mine with the blackbox logo visible, only my grill is visible and look different than this image under, which come from the same headphone with the logo in the blackbox.... :)
 

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Feb 10, 2023 at 10:19 AM Post #832 of 1,184
MP grill here, we see the difference with the EP grill, where there is deeper small holes distribution, the MP grill is more a plane one.... Perhaps i bought the MP or the LP .....The one i bought is the right one with the same plane grill as the MP grill beside it...
 

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Feb 10, 2023 at 12:11 PM Post #834 of 1,184
I am really curious about a battle in my house between the sextett i just bought and a future DF ....
This article review say a lot.... For instance as the K340 and the K240 sextett, the DF model seems to had 3-d holography too with also it seems the same passive backwave reflective resonators tech. which pertain to the sextett and the K340...

https://www.game-debate.com/article...zerrt/akg-k240-df-underrated-sound-excellence
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 12:34 PM Post #835 of 1,184
The DF has different passive radiators, first the ones from the original 240 Monitor (three white, three black) as paper, then later six black ones with first smaller and later larger holes (similar to K270), until at the very end the white paper from the K240 Studio from 2004 was installed. The 240DF LP with open driver (no black paper in front) sounds best of all, detailed and enormously transparent, clearly a whole level higher than a K240 Sextett - but the DF does not "groove" as much as the Sextett, rather uncolored and without bass hump. Even if that sounds vague.
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 12:40 PM Post #836 of 1,184
Thanks Majoox.... very useful post ....
The DF has different passive radiators, first the ones from the original 240 Monitor (three white, three black) as paper, then later six black ones with first smaller and later larger holes (similar to K270), until at the very end the white paper from the K240 Studio from 2004 was installed. The 240DF LP with open driver (no black paper in front) sounds best of all, detailed and enormously transparent, clearly a whole level higher than a K240 Sextett - but the DF does not "groove" as much as the Sextett, rather uncolored and without bass hump. Even if that sounds vague.
 
Feb 10, 2023 at 1:03 PM Post #837 of 1,184
Feb 10, 2023 at 1:29 PM Post #838 of 1,184
I'm currently leading my bid, however I have no hope for remaining so LoL
 
Feb 10, 2023 at 2:15 PM Post #839 of 1,184
Reading a lot about the Sextett and the DF, i begin to think that i will prefer the sextett sound perhaps over the DF sound but the sound of the DF being more different compared to the K340, i think that perhaps it would have been better to have order a DF, then owning 2 completely different headphones instead of two brothers....

I cannot afford the expanse for a DF just now..... In these diring times only music heal my spirit.... It is difficult for me to imagine something that will rival the K340 anyway.... But something completely different soundwise could have more luck to please me instead of something nearer to it as the sextett seems to be....Only the sextett fabulous alleged mid range could make it appealing ... But for me naturalness of the K340 midrange strike me and nothing will replace neither his bass nor his highs, certainly not the sextett.....

I will be in the obligation to buy a DF for sure :) .... I look for some months before ordering one, if not my wife will object .... I can do without his approbation but i prefer to wait ... :)
 
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Feb 10, 2023 at 2:54 PM Post #840 of 1,184
We dont listen merely to mid frequencies so "beautiful" they could be coming from an headphone as the sextett....Anyway i am happy to inspect and try the sextett for sure....I bought them precisely because of my K340 passion...

We listen all the frequencies together not the mids only ....The complete visible soundfield (Imaging-soundstage-holography) and instrument timbre and dynamic and transients.... Then if someone say that an headphone main point of marketing is his mid range, this means not much to me to be frank but i trust the reviewers who spoke here about this mids magic for sure....I already have a very natural mid translation with the K340 ...But it is an half truth that all music are in the mid range, the other half for me is in the visible soundfield too and in the highs definition and in the bass moving impact....

I just listened Bach Goldberg variation on harpsichord.... The harpsichord, and this one in particular is very difficult to acoustically render in all his hues across the frequencies distributions.... With the K340 i am amazed by the entire frrequencies band translation here.... So magical it is impossible to convey.... It is way better than from my room/speakers and over any headphone i ever owned...

For sure my Sansui alpha and my relatively analytical dac play also a role in the incredible clarity all across the spectrum... The K340 is so sensitive, i can guess what would be the sound with a future change of dac clear and more "meaty" ...

I own another completely different dac, the SPS Nos french dac, i pay it peanuts and it is S.Q. /price ratio over the roof, but i cannot connect it with the amplifier as it is right now.... But i appreciate too the analytical clarity this Hidizs dac, which is also now my battery music files bank, gives; especially with the refined Sansui alpha, which is more refined than my other Sansui AU 7700....

Listening to harpsichord the felt clarity is not cold at all, but more like a light illuminating everything and all possible range of hues created by the harpsichordist....I am amazed... I am just curious about a change of dac one day too, a dac i already own anyway .... :)



 
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