Traveller
500+ Head-Fier
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- Jan 8, 2004
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Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens /img/forum/go_quote.gifQuote:
It seems I'm far more impressed by the AKG K812 so far than Tyll is. ...I haven't heard the "tizzy" sound Tyll mentioned. That said, the K812 is not a forgiving headphone. I won't comment about how resolving I feel it is vis-à-vis the HD 800, as I don't have that with me now (but will soon). That said, the K812 is, to my ears, capable of very high resolution.
Hi Jude. Just to clarify: I find them a "bit" tizzy. Sounds to me something like there's always a triangle (the instrument) in the treble. I find it modestly fatiguing. I will also say though the I find the overall balance of the K812 better than the HD800, which to me lacks a little warmth in the bass.
The three-pin cable connector indicates to me that AKG doesn't get, or isn't trying to impress this market yet.
I still think it's a good effort on their part, lots of things like the aluminum build and novel earpads to admire, and I think these are markedly better sounding than the T1. But I think in the rush to the top (read: building $1000+ headphones) sonic performance in the market is not yet on par with the build quality these companies are putting into the product. I'd lump the HD800 into that category as well; seems like everyone agrees that they're a problematic headphone. Seems to me that the Audeze LCD-X is probably the closest to delivering a high price/performance ratio, but even there I feel we're well onto the steep diminishing returns curve.
In my estimation we're still in the infancy of ultra-high-end ($1000+) headphones, and it will be another 5 years before we really start seeing the performance of these cans strongly better than sub-$1000 headphones.
In other words: Price still doesn't reflect acoustic performance on the whole, and the K812, T1, HD800, LCD-X, and others have plenty of room for improvement.
@Tyll Hertsens - I'm not sure this is the best way to reach you, but having read your review of the K812 as wll as the associated measurements, I (for one) would love to see, at the least, you doing measurements of the K872, if not a full review.
I don't expect a night & day difference but I would love to see if AKG has made any additional tweaks to the driver itself. Obviously this "dampening ring" they placed between the driver and pad will affect the results, but removing it would show some interesting differences of the enclosed cups, etc.
A great site and I also appreciate your former work at HeadRoom - my TAH is still alive and kickin'!