[lejaz]

Quote:

Several people on these forums claim that the Q701's are a bit fuller/warmer sounding than the K701's. I've even read a review which claims the exact same thing. And seeing as there are other changes than purely cosmetical ones on the Q701's(like the foam-piece behind the outer-grill) I do indeed believe that there is a difference.

It should be easy enough to mod the 'k' then, to sound similar, or even identical, to the 'Q', by putting some foam behind the outer grill. It's damn hard to get off though, so I tried tape over it. Also the 'friend or foe' mod (do a forum search if you've never heard of it) can warm them up slightly. But are the drivers identical? FWIR they are, so it may be just some simple mods that are needed. Maybe not so necessary to rush off and sell your 'k' to fund the purchase of a 'Q'. Seems like a there's lot of 'k's for sale on ebay lately.
 

 

[Neosk]

I choose the former !

 
Quote:

Reasons why some of us think they sound "different":
 
1.   Mass hysteria, which means most of us on this thread are full on CRAZY!
2.   They really do sound different because they really are different.

 

 

[frenchbat]

According to Tyll Hersten, they are the same drivers with some slightly different tweaking in the housing or the damping. Hence my interest in seeing what physical difference can be spotted, and evaluate the possibility to reproduce it with a K702.
 
Funny enough the difference between the two models is in the mids, and not the bass, when you look at the FR graph. Everything else is virtually identical:
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/akg-quincy-jones-q701-sound-and-measurements

 

[lejaz]

Quote:

According to Tyll Hersten, they are the same drivers with some slightly different tweaking in the housing or the damping. Hence my interest in seeing what physical difference can be spotted, and evaluate the possibility to reproduce it with a K702.
 
Funny enough the difference between the two models is in the mids, and not the bass, when you look at the FR graph. Everything else is virtually identical:
 
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/akg-quincy-jones-q701-sound-and-measurements

If I'm reading the graphs correctly the little bump at 1k on the 'k' version might make them a bit less smooth sounding than the 'Q'.....assuming there's very little margin of error in the testing. Also, there's the bit of foam behind the outer grill....don't know yet how much, or how little difference that makes. But other than that foam, they're basically identical. It's certainly easy enough to try some simple mods on the 'k'. Would be interesting for someone who had both to try a mod of the 'k' to see if they could be made to sound identical to the 'Q'.

 

[frenchbat]

Tyll himself would tell you to take the graph for what it is, a test done in his house with his instruments, that can only be compared to the same test bed. But he does some good work and the measurements are repeatable enough to have good faith in it. You might want to read his description of the test, in the ressources section of his blog. And yes it's basically a bump in the mids (900 to 2000MHz) and a less hot treble (10K MHz up) for the Q.
 
It's also been reported that the Q' foam on the inner side is slightly different from the K's. That makes already 3 points of difference :
 
1. Outer grill
2. Outer foam
3. Inner foam
 
there might be some other physical difference of course, but the graph's signatures are so close, that these points might be the main sources. Fishski seems to be getting some good results with some simple inner foam mod, and there's also the "friend of foe" mod that might yield a more extensive change. Either way, even though it's most likely impossible to make a Q701 with a K702 without knowing all the modifications made by AKG, it's quite possible to tweak the sound sig to be similar or close.
 
Quote:

If I'm reading the graphs correctly the little bump at 1k on the 'k' version might make them a bit less smooth sounding than the 'Q'.....assuming there's very little margin of error in the testing. Also, there's the bit of foam behind the outer grill....don't know yet how much, or how little difference that makes. But other than that foam, they're basically identical. It's certainly easy enough to try some simple mods on the 'k'. Would be interesting for someone who had both to try a mod of the 'k' to see if they could be made to sound identical to the 'Q'.

 

 

[chicolom]

Quote:

It should be easy enough to mod the 'k' then, to sound similar, or even identical, to the 'Q', by putting some foam behind the outer grill....
 
...Also, there's the bit of foam behind the outer grill....don't know yet how much, or how little difference that makes. But other than that foam, they're basically identical. It's certainly easy enough to try some simple mods on the 'k'. Would be interesting for someone who had both to try a mod of the 'k' to see if they could be made to sound identical to the 'Q'.
 

I already tried this several pages back ^    http://www.head-fi.org/t/594927/akg-q701-vs-akg-k702-comparison-review/30#post_8133415
 
It barely made a difference in the sound.  I think something else internally could be different still. 

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Just wanna mention that the Q701 sounds GLORIOUS off the NFB5. It loves all that power, it seems.

 

[tdogzthmn]

It's fun to try and find differences between all the K70X versions but really im sure AKG is only putting their effort into exterior superficial changes to the product housing to attract buyers in various market categories.  K701 = audiofile, K702 = studio engineers, Q701 = popular trend (celebrity endorsed) version.  It's very unlikely AKG re-tuned or modified any of the mechanical components between models unless there was a substancial fiscal gain to be had.  At the end of the day its the same pair of shoes but now available in three colors!  My opinions are based off my experiences working in the field of industrial designer.

 

[Dubstep Girl]

wow i jsut love the picture, and the headphones look awesome side by side, great review!
 
wonder where the original k701 falls into all this, cause now i wanna give the q701 a try since it looks awesome 

 

[lejaz]

Quote:

It's fun to try and find differences between all the K70X versions but really im sure AKG is only putting their effort into exterior superficial changes to the product housing to attract buyers in various market categories.  K701 = audiofile, K702 = studio engineers, Q701 = popular trend (celebrity endorsed) version.  It's very unlikely AKG re-tuned or modified any of the mechanical components between models unless there was a substancial fiscal gain to be had.  At the end of the day its the same pair of shoes but now available in three colors!  My opinions are based off my experiences working in the field of industrial designer.

From a marketing point of view, if they intentionally made some physical change designed to alter the sound, they'd naturally want to advertise the improvement. This leads me to believe that if there is a difference in sound signature that it's unintentional. It can't just be that tiny piece of foam behind the outer grill, since a couple of folks tried it on the 'k' and found no change.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Again, I bring up the Beyer DT770/600s. Two variations out there, without so much as a peep from Beyer. One super bassy, one bass light. Zombie_X I believe tried contacing Beyer, and they gave him the generic talk. No actual knowledge as to why/when the bassy 770/600s came to exist.

 

[Dubstep Girl]

Quote:

Again, I bring up the Beyer DT770/600s. Two variations out there, without so much as a peep from Beyer. One super bassy, one bass light. Zombie_X I believe tried contacing Beyer, and they gave him the generic talk. No actual knowledge as to why/when the bassy 770/600s came to exist.

+1

 

[lejaz]

Quote:

Again, I bring up the Beyer DT770/600s. Two variations out there, without so much as a peep from Beyer. One super bassy, one bass light. Zombie_X I believe tried contacing Beyer, and they gave him the generic talk. No actual knowledge as to why/when the bassy 770/600s came to exist.

Could be unintentional with those phones as well, I guess, though it would mean some pretty poor quality control or some error in the manufacturing. However, if a company makes an intentional improvement I'd assume they'd advertise it in order to attract buyers to the improved version. It would make no sense not to do it...would be like turning out a car with better gas mileage and not advertising it. 

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

I got the bass heavy DT770s, and Zombie got the same months later. I highly doubt it was just a select few. I got my Q701 considerably later than Chicolom, and it's obvious to me it sounds different from the K701 I had.

 

[Neosk]

Didn't headfiers claim that Sennheiser updated the HD650 drivers even though Sennheiser didn't explicitly say that they did? So following your logic, the most practical marketing strategy for Sennheiser was to market the new HD650s as the new improved HD650 Rev.2, but they never did that. Why?
 
Quote:

Could be unintentional with those phones as well, I guess, though it would mean some pretty poor quality control or some error in the manufacturing. However, if a company makes an intentional improvement I'd assume they'd advertise it in order to attract buyers to the improved version. It would make no sense not to do it...would be like turning out a car with better gas mileage and not advertising it.