[Aanta]

1: Impedance and your amp.
 
I happened upon a pair of AKG 701's for one exceptional price before I even had one headphone amplifier. But then I had to part from them since they had too low impedance, 62 Ω, for my tube headphone amp.
Impedance is all important for many reasons, too much of the Ohms and a weak amplifier will not be able to get your cans to sing. And if you go with tubes, too low impedance and the tubes will be unable to provide much bass at all, and the sound got all mid and treble.
As a sidenote I would say that is most likely the reason the AKG 701 have gotten the reputation they have on this forum, due to the mismatch of headphone amp and the low impedance of the 701's.
 
So I had to switch to the AKG 601 that comes with 120 Ω Ohms and so are much better for listing to a separate headphone amp, regular stereo amplifier or for watching films. (They are however utterly not suited for any mobile phone or MP3 player device.)
 
2: On the head.
 
Yes that's where you're supposed to put the headphone right?

But for those I tried I have found that a majority is not made for real world use.
My AKG 601 comes with 3m of cable, which means that you can move around when listening. So for length that is a check and ok.
Now most use headphones for listening in quiet, but my way of listen to music is certainly anything but quiet.
I hum along and in most cases I headbang wildly, that at the same time as I most often wave my arms wildly or play airguitar - haha!
Most other headphones will not stay in place for me, especially the over ear phones.
 
So do the AKG stay in place - yes they do!
 
3: Reproduction.
 
Now many have stated that the AKG headphones are best suited for vocals, acoustic music and jazz.
That's possible they good for that, but as for those claim that they're not good for rock and metal: I say they are dead wrong!
Most of the music information in rock and metal are in the midrange and treble. At least I don't want a booming bass that drown out other things in the music, but I do like to hear what the bass player is doing - and that is something the AKG deliver finely.
The only kind of music the AKG's are not suited for are techno, rave and perhaps rap where most sonic information is in the bass booms.
 
As a sidenote, I do have a pair of cans that provide serious boom: Beyerdynamic DT-880 that I also own. But with the amp I got I have the feeling they give way to much bass at all times. They are a good match for the amp with 250 Ω, and they came highly recommended here on Head-fi but I don't blame anyone. It depend on what music you listen to, and that I will address in the last paragraph, so they happened not to be quite to my taste and I might part from them with one ad on any of the online sale sites soonish.
 
4: Cans versus speakers
 
So how do the AKG do with the music I listen to? Super is all I will say for those who want the short version. If anything I am surprised that I get almost exactly the same reproduction of the music as trough the loudspeakers. (The only noteworthy difference is in the treble, and nothing can beat the sound from the Jet tweeters.) Yet all this speaks volumes for the quality of both the speakers and the AKG's.
Now the AKG's and the Elac are both German built. And that means they reproduce the music without adding anything at all. In short they're very free of colouration. But the amplifiers are very different in how they work and the philosophy they are based on. And that why it surprised me getting very close to the same listening experience.
Now there's a little one, I will tell what it is: The Elac have a slight problem with very complex signals, and if the record mixing is not by the best recording engineer the speakers will loose their foothold somewhat. But then again, the AKG's are not able to give the same absolutely superior treble of the Elac's. Highrange is still good in the AKG's, but I think only electrostats could stand up to the competition of the jet tweeters in my speakers.
 
Now for my choice of these speakers and headphones: The bottom line is that I like and prefer this very analytical listening, dissecting the music and finding details like the buzzing synth in the background of a track which I found today and never heard before.
 
5: Doom and death metal with AKG 601
 
I give some examples from my favourite tracks, who also are my reference tracks for any listening equipment.
 
Tool / 10 000 days / The pot: The singers voice stand out beautifully. And the sound is very much the same as I get from my speakers. That including hearing the master tape hiss. When the crescendo of the band arrives the AKG cans have no trouble following and I do listen at a very high level compared to anyone I can imagine.
Here I say the AKG surpass my speakers, who loose a little bit of footing on extreme levels.
 
Tool / Anima / Jimmy: Midrange is absolutely perfect, the treble is a little bit leaned backwards, but there's way too much bass!
Yes despite what many have said, AKG 601 do provide in the bass range and I do wish I had a bass control on the Darkvoice / Figaro I use for headphone amplifier.
 
Disturbed / Believe / Awaken: When Disturbed sound really good via speakers, I have to say they sound dry in the AKG 601's. And oddly enough there's too little bass on any Disturbed record.
 
Third Moon / Bloodforsaken / Obsolete scars: What first struck me was how prominent the master track hiss was when listening in the AKG's they are really unforgiving for things that are present on recordings. Like with Disturbed the recording is super in mid range but again a bit leaned back in the bass. Its not bad, the transients are reproduced faithfully, yet It lacks a bit of the punch that is present when listening via speakers.
 
Neurosis / Through silver in blood / Locust star: Absolutely perfect! The sometimes muddy sound mixing of their albums that is a problem when I listen trough the speakers is gone, and the AKG makes this music a true joy to listen to.
 

 

[sumathias]

interesting review on the k601s. I use my K701s for techno and metal (mostly just power/heavy though) as well. I find that on some recordings, they do just fine, and by toning down the bass, your ears take in more of the mid and high details. Its just a pity that most metal songs are recorded poorly. A good experience all the same.

 

[Slaughter]

Most interesting thing is that you think the 880 has bass. It goes deep but has little impact. It works good for jazz and some blues, but not real enough for me.

 

[Aanta]

Thank you sumathias, yes I think the 701's do very well with metal, I would have kept them if not for the problem with impedance. They had my amp work overtime to provide power for the bass range, and which therefore often came out too weak and would over time have burnt the tubes.
 
Yes the recording on most metal albums are just sad, its not only that most bands have a small market and so limited resources to get into a good studio. There's also a problem of most recording engineers, who seem not to understand how to handle the material. Lastly the CD pressings are at times not as good as they might be.
 
So over to Slaughter: I'm sorry for being a bit roundabout in my text now I did in fact say something similar! For the AKG 601's I said that the bass: "Its not bad, the transients are reproduced faithfully." In short I ment to say that the AKG's do have the impact in the bass range that the DT-880's lack. And the 880´s do indeed go deeper but without good reproduction of the transients I experience that as a "boom". And yes, this is one of the reasons I described my first 'review' as one extremely subjective one.

 
Still our views do not differ that much actually.

 

[luckybaer]

I think my K601 are the most "neutral" of the phones I own.  I like them.

 

[Aanta]

@ Luckybear: So many words from me above here, and you said the same thing in that sentence.

 

[Proglover]

interesting Aanta, K601 is one of my want-to-try cans for prog.rock
 
I use Tool as one of my first references also when getting to know a can. My K501 are too 'thin' for that, maybe 601, we need that instrument separation and no drowning in bass