Some owners say the entire frequency spectrum is warmer, other's say only the bass is louder.
I wonder if, in addition to the memory foam pads, the drivers were tweaked by AKG to have more 'warmth'.
Is the following possible with headphone drivers? I know that some of the best microphones (Neumann, AKG, etc) used a tube in their cylinders, so...
Like with additional low-order harmonics and very low levels of distortion to warm up the sound, like what an expensive high-quality tube amp (with it's tubes running in
high voltage) should sound like - 'warm' due to mild tube overdrive and the resulting additional pleasing low-order harmonics and distortion. I'm not talking about starved plate tube amps (cold/cool tube). And by this type of distortion, I'm not referring to audible distortion, which usually sounds poor, but the good kind that you cannot hear, but will warm up an audio component.
Not sure if that makes any sense. About 10 years ago, during the DIY guitar stompbox era, I made a few transistor-based overdrive pedals and remember trying different opamps which gave different tones, some very pleasing to the ear, but most were pretty bad. I wasn't trying to achieve a heavy-metal distortion, but I was attempting to get a warmer clean guitar tone.
I guess I'm not too educated when it comes to speakers and headphones, but at least I know AKG didn't put opamps, tubes, or additional transistors in there to change the sound.
But then again, it probably is the pads.
Another thing about bass:
If you're listening live to a typical 6-string acoustic steel-string guitar, for example sitting across from the guitarist, you'll notice that the sound has plenty of bass. Martin dreadnaughts are especially known for their powerful bass. Taylor guitars are known for their crystalline shimmery trebles, but they still have a ton of bass.
For recording, the mics are placed usually very near the 'hole' of the guitar (soundhole) and sometimes for true-stereo, another mic will be placed up towards the neck, or further back to capture environmental ambience.
But what you hear on a recording is different. It's been equalized and compressed to 'fit' better in the mix with the other instruments. If it's a solo guitar recording, then you'll hear something more natural, but it'll most likely still be slightly eq'ed, with usually a reduction in low-frequencies and maybe a notch filter in the mids to smooth out the sound. Also dynamic compression to also smooth out the transients so nothing is too quiet or too loud.
Anyway, what's my point? Well, our 24bit/96kHz WAV recordings of my nylon and steel string guitars with the K702 65th Anniversaries and a DACport sound almost identical compared to the real thing - as in sitting a couple of feet in front of the guitarist. This wasn't the case with the various closed 'studio' monitor headphones I've used or owned over the years, or with the dozens of mid-fi audio interfaces I've used (RME, MOTU, Roland, M-Audio, Native Instruments, Tascam, Echo Audio, etc).
Anyway, these headphones sound great.
