[RadChild]

Greetings everyone! It's my first post here and I'd like to hear some opinions about my experience with these headphones.
 
I've been aching to get them for a while and now that I did...I am shocked that they were nothing like what I imagined. I ripped up the wrapper, opened up the box and plugged them to my Asus Xonar Essence STX the minute I received the cans. I've listened to them for a while and apart from the nice low end (which my M-Audio Studiophile DX4 speakers lack), nothing else impressed me. I'm not sure what's wrong with my ears, because I couldn't tell the difference between a V2 mp3 file and the original flac... So I decided to return the K601s, because I was simply not worthy of them... Any practical advice would be appreciated!
 
Here's a sample of what I listened to:
 
Flac: http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/6630/flaci.jpg
 
MP3: http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2183/mp3v2.jpg

 

[kn19h7]

I see no problem with the mp3..

 

[mikeaj]

Particularly if you can't hear above 18 kHz (or wherever the lowpass filter cutoff is set for the encoding), there should be little difference in the mp3 LAME V2 and lossless.  It depends on the music though, as to how audible any compression artifacts may be.  At around LAME V2, it's often or usually transparent, as in pretty much nobody can blind ABX identify them on any gear.  Other times there may be noticeable but generally not huge differences at that bitrate.
 
AKG K601 is intended to be mostly a neutral set of cans (granted there is apparently some non-trivial harmonic distortion in the upper mids giving you extra 2nd/3rd/4th/etc harmonics), so I wouldn't say there's much to be impressed about sonically.  The impressive thing is that they let the music pass through without too many undue alterations, which may or may not be the sound people are looking for.  As always, particularly with headphones, YMMV.

 

[tdockweiler]

The K601 won't try to "wow" anyone with it's sound. It doesn't try to do this with anything in it's signature. They did "wow" me at first, but I love this type of sound signature. It doesn't seem to change my music into something it's not. It's quite neutral with a slight boost to the upper mids, but nothing too much. It also depends on what genres are played and what other headphones you've tried or are comparing them with. I personally think they are just fine for most genres, but not great for some of them (such as bass heavy material). K601 isn't a headphone that everyone will like. I think that may just be the case here. We are have our favorite sound signatures and the K601 and HD-598 have mine.
 
I'm not going to say the STX is the reason you didn't like them. I know that it has a decent headphone amplifier built in and can drive fairly powerful headphones. It just makes me wonder if your opinion would have changed with say a regular desktop amp. Even the E9. Based on my experience it's one of the hardest headphones to drive. Even slightly harder than the K702. Even if it's properly driven, bad amp synergy can keep someone from liking a headphone. Some may disagree. I didn't love my HD-650 and K702 until I paired them with specific amps.
 
I had problem with my K601 on the Asgard, but love it on the E9 which is even cheaper! This could be similar to my experience. It could be that they just aren't at their best with the STX even if it's properly driven. I wonder how the K702 is on the STX? If the K702 sounds bad out of the STX, the K601 might be a bad match also. I'm not sure.
 
Also it's not surprising you can't hear the difference between the two files. Sometimes it's hard and other times it's easy. For me it depends on the recording and not just the format or bit-rate. The K601 are also not a super revealing detail monster, not like the DT-880, KRK KNS-8400 or K702, but pretty close. Still quite revealing, but not overkill. I think they are still fairly forgiving of lower bit-rate files, but not as much as some of the Sennheiser headphones.
 
 
 
 

 

[RadChild]

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions! Well, to be honest, I think the hype got the best of me. From reading reviews and opinions on the internet about the K601, I had higher expectations than I used to when I first saw the model. I've had previously owned cheaper AKG models so the K601 were obviously better, but they didn't sound richer than my current speakers (except for the bass). I prefer neutral sound with subtle bass and I always thought that headphones that cost more than my speakers would sound better. As I said in my previous post though, I already returned them since what I hear doesn't justify the price. That means I can do no more testing even if I had other amps.
 
I was wondering if burning them in would've made a difference to me, but it's too late to find out now.