[ohmicide]

so my AKG K550s broke under warranty and AKG will only replace them for the K545, rep said they were "much better" but since he was a moron (insisted that the K550s cable was detachable for one and that I should twist and pull it) I went to Best Buy's Magnolia to try them out and... no
 
the K545s are far less comfortable and the soundstage is nowhere near as good, seal and low end were a tad better but soundstaging is much more important to me since I'm a music producer
 
either way, I tried to get a pair to make sure if they could do the job or not but they didn't have them in stock, drove to a different Best Buy 30 minutes away which had a pair and they were broken
 
wanted to swap them out for the Denon AH-D600 which were surprizingly good although a bit too big for my head and a bit scooped on the mids but they didn't have those in stock either in any of the 3 stores around me.. and I live right in the middle of South Florida
 
well, long story short, I ended up with Beat Pro for the time being because I had used the Beat Studio for some time (paired with AKG K702s to get the soundstage right) and what a horrible idea that was.. these headphones have the most horrible low end our of all the headphones I've ever tried and make my ears feels like they're being plunged out of my head
 
so I'm stuck trying to decide between a few options:
 
1. repair the K550s myself and lose the year of warranty I have left
2. upgrade to a better pair of headphones and sell the K545s when they arrive - I really did like the AH-D600 but I'm hearing a lot of good about the new Focal Spirit Pro
3. have them send me K712s and pay the difference
4. keep the K545 and deal with it
 
a little more info about the headphones I've owned:
 
Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro - moddy, was never able to get a good mix with them
AKG K702 - amazing sounstage but simply lacked too much low end for what I do, it's very hard to mix bass heavy music when you can barely hear the bass
Beats Studio - quite bass heavy but allowed me to get good mixes paird with the AKG K702s, I would do most the mixing with the Beats and fine tune with the K702s (specially vocals which were very difficult to get right on the Beats)
AKG K550 - these took over the jobs of the K702s and Beat Studios but still lack just a tad of low end, soundstaging is great but could be little better
 
and headphones I've tried:
 
Audio-Technica ATH-M50 - very similar to the Beats Studio but not as detailed
Beats Pro - they make me feel like I'm in a ricer honda civic with Boss subs cranked all the way with the low-pass filter completely bypassed, I still have a headache from trying them out for 10 minutes about an hour ago
 
concerns about the options I have:
 
Denon AH-D600 - there was just never a lot of raving about them, kind of makes me think twice about what I heard, maybe it was the desperation making me think they would do the job
Focal Spirit Pro - can't find a proper comparison between these and the headphones I've tried, and headroom doesn't have a frequency response graph for them yet
AKG K712 - read a review that said the low end is not quite as good as the K550's, wouldn't want to be stuck with the same problem I had with the K702s
Fostex TH-600 - haha yeah right
 
sorry about the lengthy post, any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[ridethespiral]

Contact AKG directly (or did you do this??). There's no reason they should be trying to 'downgrade' you if they're within the warranty period. Also, you don't exactly explain what happened to your K550's...

 

[ohmicide]

after lots of reaserching I decided to go with the Focal Spirit Pros which should be here early next week, tons of raving about them on Gearslutz, a few peeps even said that they're better for mixing than their HD 650s
 
going to return the Beats Pro and get ATH M50s instead for the time being, those Beats are just awful
 
in case anyone's insterested in brand new AKG K545s, I'll have mine for sale on here as soon as I get them from AKG which should be in a couple of weeks

 

[ohmicide]

  Contact AKG directly (or did you do this??). There's no reason they should be trying to 'downgrade' you if they're within the warranty period. Also, you don't exactly explain what happened to your K550's...

 
well yeah "directly".. I'm pretty sure I was redirected to an office somewhere in the middle east which was a mess
 
I've had good of luck with the guys over in California but apparently they only do support and repairs for AKG professional and not the consumer products
 
and it's the stupidest thing, the tip of the plug broke off so it just needs the cable replaced, they were even about to order the part because the guy didn't understand the cable was not detachable, but then when he understood the situation and said all they could do was exchange them for the K545s
 
"much better headphones" my ass

 

[Greeni]

Look to the bright side. It is not so bad a scenario afterall. I have had much worse incidence of dealing with some big names around this website. Last time I drop Ray Samuel twice an email requesting replacement of the headphone output jack that became loosen with his amp I did not even get a reply. The Ultrasone dealer in my country quote me something like $100 to replace the cheap headphone cable that come with the phone when the internal wire came off.
 
Manufacturer warrantly usually include terms that such warranty not apply if the damage is done by the product owner's misuse of the product, and it is sometimes difficult to prove whether it is a manufacture defect or owner misuse that cause the damage. Some guys around this website do seem to prefer K545 to K550. Being a K550 owner myself, I can see where they are coming from. I can sympathise with your preference for K550 as being a music producer, but at least you got a replacement K545 which is not too bad. Plus the K550 price has come down since introduction and it make sense to buy another pair and own both.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

   
well yeah "directly".. I'm pretty sure I was redirected to an office somewhere in the middle east which was a mess
 
I've had good of luck with the guys over in California but apparently they only do support and repairs for AKG professional and not the consumer products
 
and it's the stupidest thing, the tip of the plug broke off so it just needs the cable replaced, they were even about to order the part because the guy didn't understand the cable was not detachable, but then when he understood the situation and said all they could do was exchange them for the K545s
 
"much better headphones" my ass

 
That's not direct enough, you should have emailed their head office in Austria. When the local NAD distributor here tried to cover up the faulty transport issue with the C520 CDP forumers emailed NAD's home office in Canada about it. Got nearly instant results, CDPs replaced, and by next year NAD hada different distributor. Heck you should be able to get the K551, and I wouldn't mind if I had to add a few bucks, save for the color - the K550 comes in tasteful and understated metallic grey while I only like the K551 because the white one can go with my smartphone.

 

[ohmicide]

  Look to the bright side. It is not so bad a scenario afterall. I have had much worse incidence of dealing with some big names around this website. Last time I drop Ray Samuel twice an email requesting replacement of the headphone output jack that became loosen with his amp I did not even get a reply. The Ultrasone dealer in my country quote me something like $100 to replace the cheap headphone cable that come with the phone when the internal wire came off.
 
Manufacturer warrantly usually include terms that such warranty not apply if the damage is done by the product owner's misuse of the product, and it is sometimes difficult to prove whether it is a manufacture defect or owner misuse that cause the damage. Some guys around this website do seem to prefer K545 to K550. Being a K550 owner myself, I can see where they are coming from. I can sympathise with your preference for K550 as being a music producer, but at least you got a replacement K545 which is not too bad. Plus the K550 price has come down since introduction and it make sense to buy another pair and own both.

 
I had a pretty bad experience with Ultrasone in the US, they sent me back my headphones without repairing them twice in a row, it was a nightmare
 
I also had a pretty bad experience with Land Audio Services which placed an order wrong and kept my headphones for over a month then refused to overnight them to me, luckily AKG in California got involved and paid for the shipping even though it wasn't their mistake.
 
anyways, I'm not complaining really other than the fact that the costumer service Harman is using is a bit incompetent and completely unsympathetic, I sent them an email last night asking how much it would cost me to get a pair of K712s instead and they replied with this
 

 We can only replace your "K 550" with "K 545", we can not give you the "K 712". The cost of "K 545" is $ 249, which is higher than the cost of "K 550" . Please check and reply accordingly.

 
no ****... they're discontinued...... even the guy at Best Buy's Magnolia knew that the K550s retailed at a higher price than the K545s
 
but whatever, wasn't going to argue with the guy since I'm already aware he don't know nothing 'bout anything 
 

   
That's not direct enough, you should have emailed their head office in Austria. When the local NAD distributor here tried to cover up the faulty transport issue with the C520 CDP forumers emailed NAD's home office in Canada about it. Got nearly instant results, CDPs replaced, and by next year NAD hada different distributor. Heck you should be able to get the K551, and I wouldn't mind if I had to add a few bucks, save for the color - the K550 comes in tasteful and understated metallic grey while I only like the K551 because the white one can go with my smartphone.

 
Yeah, I could have also contacted AKG profressional to see what they could do but whatever, I'll take the K545s and sell them when they get here, I'm not even going take them out of the box