I'm hoping for the 200-300 range, but I am worried.
This market unfortunately and stupidly IMO equates price with quality. Now Sennheiser, beyer, Ultrasone and Grado are all selling dynamics for around the 1k price (way too much for dynamics, way, way too much) it worries me others will follow suit simply in order to be taken seriously.
I hope AKG keep to their fair pricing policy, I really hope they do, but I have a fear it will come in at over 500 as half the cretins on this site will dismiss it as "mid-fi" without listening to it if it's any less.
AKG doesn't have a fair price policy they just haven't come up with any new designs in 30 years so they can't charge much more. The K701 is at most a tweaked K400 which was made in the early 80's. Some like the tweak, others don't. I prefer the K400. The Q701 was an attempt by them to add worth since they can't seem to do any real engineering.
But I agree about the market and pricing, It's pretty ridiculous. I think the LCD-2 is the only one that may be priced fairly simply due to the costs of being such a small American company.
Yeah I guess you're right - at the time it came out the K701/2 was high priced for the market. This again feeds into my fears that they will price this one at the market rate for a new high end (or supposed to be high end) phone. That seems to be £300 for small portables (DT1350, T50P and the bowers and wilkins thing) and well above £500 for full sized. Hope not but that seems to be the way things are going.
Re the Q/K701/2 - I do think it's actually down to the tastes of the AKG engineers that it sounds that way. If you look under the pads the filter is an extremely open donut of foam that basically does nothing. Put anything slightly thicker in there, felt, fleece, whatever and the tone gets warmer and more realstic and the treble spike comes under control.
Those phones actually do a hell of a lot right, and seem to be a victim of the odd tastes of the some at AKG. They can be so much better with just a little tweak.
Yeah I guess you're right - at the time it came out the K701/2 was high priced for the market. This again feeds into my fears that they will price this one at the market rate for a new high end (or supposed to be high end) phone. That seems to be £300 for small portables (DT1350, T50P and the bowers and wilkins thing) and well above £500 for full sized. Hope not but that seems to be the way things are going.
Re the Q/K701/2 - I do think it's actually down to the tastes of the AKG engineers that it sounds that way. If you look under the pads the filter is an extremely open donut of foam that basically does nothing. Put anything slightly thicker in there, felt, fleece, whatever and the tone gets warmer and more realstic and the treble spike comes under control.
Those phones actually do a hell of a lot right, and seem to be a victim of the odd tastes of the some at AKG. They can be so much better with just a little tweak.
I'm an X Bowers & Wilkins P5 owner. Those cans were ridiculously overpriced for their sound signature. If the P5's had been a hundred bucks cheaper I wouldn't be complaining about it. I see them as the perfect example of a overpriced form over function product. It's a pity because they were one of the most comfortable cans I ever owned. To bad the P5 could have been a real killer product.
I keep looking at the photographs and I guess they are going to be between $600.00 usd and $950.00 usd. That is just what I guess. They look expensive.
I keep looking at the photographs and I guess they are going to be between $600.00 usd and $950.00 usd. That is just what I guess. They look expensive.
1. There is no greatest, best etc and there probably never will be; -it is all just preference. There will simply be those that are more capable than others.
2. Based on the published specs of the AKG K550 my guess is that they will not be mega priced. Although price speculation is useless, guesstimates of $500 USD plus will be well over reality IMO.
US prices do not include tax, Euro prices include VAT... so deduct 52 Euros from that 270 and you get 218, which is $312.90 by today's exchange.
Add an average US state sales tax of 10% to the US price (or 15% here in Canada), and things begin to make a lot more sense.
Back on track, I am beginning to swoon for a pair. I think that they would compliment my Pro900s very well.
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