[levap]

  So interesting to read this, have not heard the Q701 but have had a long relationship with metal and the k701. From reading the interface of the Q701s it seems like maybe the same genre recommendations would flow over to the k701s? What do you think?

I have not heard K701, but seems like they're sonically identical to Q701.
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/akg-quincy-jones-q701-sound-and-measurements
 

  After mental and physical burn in they start to do metal in a way. The 400 hour burn in is quite a task, being best to be let to burn-in for three weeks straight.

In my experience couple of weeks is enough for "mental burn-in" in most of cases. And everyday listening is not mandatory, time for critical comparison of listening experience in different personal conditions is more important.

 

[marts30]

AD900x > Q701 imo

 

[Redcarmoose]

I have not heard K701, but seems like they're sonically identical to Q701.
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/akg-quincy-jones-q701-sound-and-measurements

In my experience couple of weeks is enough for "mental burn-in" in most of cases. And everyday listening is not mandatory, time for critical comparison of listening experience in different personal conditions is more important.

Yes, I spent a year with the k701s and metal. Though besides mental burn-in I think the headphones should be hooked up a fairly loud signal and allowed to burn-in for three weeks.

Here at Head-Fi this AKG line is maybe one of the most loved and hated headphone in equal measure. I do know that many members are not going to fully put out the effort to find an amp match-up and disregard the headphone unknowingly without ever truly hearing it. The key is finding the correct amp and spending the time to understand what the AKG animal is. Maybe many have not let em play at a loud volume for three weeks either. In a way the odds are stacked against the k701s or Q701s.

The mental burn-in can not be under-estimated as for what ever reason the k701s start to sound full range? Though I think there is a slight plastic unnatural aspect to the midrange and it makes the k701s very amp dependent. So they don't have much bass when being used with an underpowered amp. With a powerful amp they still lack it bass quantity but start to sound like high-end speakers with detailed bass once you have subsequent mental burn in.

The Q701s must sound somewhat like the k701s just because your genre choices would be what my genre choices would be for k701s. Listening to metal with orchestra parts is when they really start to shine.

We always read about the classical listeners loving AKG for giving them the detail and soundstage so required to approximate an orchestra in full play.

Again though amp choice is critical with a set of AKG k701s because at high volumes the wrong amp and wrong source material can end up being scathing to a metal listener. Though the k701s will start to become less scathing at lower volumes they also loose even less impact and authority. They are maybe the perfect background listening headphones in this regard.

The perfect match for me was something like the beginning of Opeth's Watershed on vinyl played really loud on the W5 LE Single Ended Triode headphone amp. The match worked because the tubes smoothed out the treble and the Woo had enough power to get the bass. The combo was fast enough and the vinyl had a fuzzy treble which all seemed to blend with the k701. The big deal is getting a powerful tube amp to get the damping factor going. The AKGs are super fast responding headphones but folks can get confused if they attempt to marry them with a slow amp. There is nothing worse than making the drivers slow down due to a slow set-up.



Opeths vinyl record had a dynamic range and detail in ample amounts to fully exploit the AKGs detail response.




It can not be understated that a good tube amp can rid the AKG k701s of any coldness or sterility which they can contain. The big problem here is that there are not that many tube amps that can come close to powering them. Add to this that metal listeners require a little more authority in drums and bass than your typical classical listener or jazz fanatic. The issue here is high output tube amps that can drive the AKGs end up costing a lot. Most tube amps out there can not get the bass response required for the AKGs to react well with metal music. Though with the correct tube amp the AKGs can reach amazing levels of perfection.


Another good quality of the AKG headphones is lightness. When I compare them to headphones like the heavier AH-D 7000s the difference is night and day. The k701s are some of the most non-noticeable headphone I wear on a regular basis. The construction is also very cool if your listening in a hot environment. The temp benefits are maybe due to the velour cups and the fact that they are open air. The other great aspect is the fit. They seem to drop into place and stay in the perfect place for best sound. Folks should try ( as with any headphone) to move them around and check for sound changes. AKG really understands that lightness is a huge plus when wearing headphones for hours on end.


The AKG K1000 ear-speakers were legendary when I first joined these forums. They are maybe the second hardest headphone to drive in history and much harder to drive than the k701s. They sound euphoric hard wired up to a big tube amp with enough power. Still in the rare times I have tried them I still seem to like the k701s.

Getting to understand the house AKG sound is a hobby in itself. To me every AKG has had a certain sound similar to one another and much different than any other brand. I even have a low-cost AKG K512 MK 2 which I use outside. They have much of the same head-stage and detail almost like k701s little brother. They took three weeks of non-stop burn-in to drop their sibilance and get silky smooth.The horrible treble was changed into nice crisp detail, a small amount of bass also resulted from an extended burn-in time.

 

[fauxfreshness]

I use to do music production with MDR -V6 headphones. The analogy I use is the Sony headphones are the optical microscope showing detail in correct color where the k701s are a video on the 65 inch LCD TV. I'm actually surprised they get used in studios over the Sony MDR-V6s? Still I have not tried to Q701 so I may not have a clue as to what I'm talking about?


The HD 800 are maybe the most flat headphones I have heard. At times not entertaining or fun, but clear. Though I have to say in some systems the HD 800s can become absolutely amazing at perfect holographic imagery and perfect sound item placement in the head-stage. HD 800 are maybe the fastest headphones I have heard. So the HD 800s ended up being entertaining with the right source and amp choice.


Sen HD 800s would be a help in mixing, just by being so clear and flat.


I would think the loss of some bass on k701s would cause the producer to peg his bass EQ on the mixing board resulting in a muddy mix on any other playback. On that note my mixes always became more clear when I was aware of the bass running together and polluting my timing? Of course were always told to listen to the mix in a bunch of playback systems.

Seems like you could EQ AKGs to get a flat mix response except for the club that insists you can't get a frequency response if the headphones will not do it in the first place.


I think wave and mp3 are a noticeably different but think it has to do with the listener and system scaleability in regards to quality.

 
No.  None of that was helpful with respect to the question at hand.  And the differences between MP3 and exported, uncompressed/lossy masters are huge, many, and well documented.  If you really want to see an obvious comparison, just get a WAV ripped from a CD and then compare it to one from Amazon's "AutoRip," or MP3s bought from Google Play.  Run them through anything that will do loudness calculation (MP3Gain, Platinum Notes, JRiver Media Center, etc) and the differences are readily apparent.  I was going to pull a track from one of my free AutoRips from recent CDs I've bought, but I just dug up this article instead:
 
http://www.metal-fi.com/about-page/dynamic-range/
 
The images pretty clearly show how much is clipped and thrown away to save space.  And in my case, just using LAME with CBR 320 (which wasn't supposed to have the psychoacoustic crap enabled) had a noticeable increase in and around the mid-bass range.  Then pulling most brand new tracks from Beatport are still showing up at 100 dB values in simple utilities like MP3Gain (with tons of Inter-Sample Clipping and maybe a few overs), whereas my Industrial masters might hit 95 dB with no clipping of any kind, and downtempo piano work hits 89 or 90.  Unfortunately, many of those locations aren't necessarily using conversion software that scales the limit with what it's actually capable of, and rather runs against some terrible "standard" loudness that people with crappy iPods and stock earbuds can't tell the difference with.  Things are changing in this arena, but not fast enough.
 
What I would like to know is if the entire signal chain can be used to run both CD and/or lossless format originals with commercially available lossy counterparts and if the perceived performance is the same as awarded on the chart.

 

[Eternalmetal]

Ive been listening to metal with my AKG K702s for about 5 years now, and I have to say that I really enjoy these phones with metal.  Albeit I do not want overly punchy or powerful bass like most of the posters in this thread, so the AKG fits my listening preference quite nicely.  If lack of bass is a problem, the bass mod significantly improves the lower end and brings the frequency response more towards flat. 
 
I use my AKGs with the Schiit Lyr, and imo it works really well with most of the metal I listen to.  I find the AKG mids to be slightly on the grainy side, and this combined with thick distorted guitar tone just makes my spine tingle.  The synergy I get out of this headphone when I listen to something like Meshuggah's obZen is just incredible (bass mod required for full effect).  I get the same experience with most death metal, though something like Lykathea Aflame sounds great more because of the immense soundstage.  
 
The only metal genre I listen to that these headphones really sound uninspiring is doom.  The only doom album I particularly enjoy on the AKGs is Candlemass's Nightfall, everything else needs more grunt in the low end.
 
Will post thought on black metal later.

 

[YtseJamer]

 
The new HE-400i-at CAF they had the 400i and 560 side by side.

 
Ok thanks.
 
Unfortunately I have never heard the new HE-400i.

 

[swspiers]

I just got the 400i's today.  Totally stunning with Sabbath, Kyuss, Opeth, and this little gem that left me drooling on the floor a couple of minutes ago...
 
 
...Om!
 

 
This is, by far, the most impressive first few hours I've had with a set of cans to date.  Much more suited to my taste in music than the HE-560's were.  I'm kinda surprised.

 

[Redcarmoose]

Ive been listening to metal with my AKG K702s for about 5 years now, and I have to say that I really enjoy these phones with metal.  Albeit I do not want overly punchy or powerful bass like most of the posters in this thread, so the AKG fits my listening preference quite nicely.  If lack of bass is a problem, the bass mod significantly improves the lower end and brings the frequency response more towards flat. 

I use my AKGs with the Schiit Lyr, and imo it works really well with most of the metal I listen to.  I find the AKG mids to be slightly on the grainy side, and this combined with thick distorted guitar tone just makes my spine tingle.  The synergy I get out of this headphone when I listen to something like Meshuggah's obZen is just incredible (bass mod required for full effect).  I get the same experience with most death metal, though something like Lykathea Aflame sounds great more because of the immense soundstage.  

The only metal genre I listen to that these headphones really sound uninspiring is doom.  The only doom album I particularly enjoy on the AKGs is Candlemass's Nightfall, everything else needs more grunt in the low end.

Will post thought on black metal later.

I actually have two pairs of k701s and am thinking of doing the bass mod to one pair.

ObZen is one of my favorites and the CD sounds better than my 2x bright orange first pressing on vinyl.

 

[fauxfreshness]

I ordered the Q 701s since I have mostly closed back headphones anyway.  Well, all of them are.  I have the MDR-V6, my Pioneer HDJ-2000-K, a pair of Reloops, Shure IEM, Etymotic IEM, UE TripleFi 10 IEM, several versions and generations of Sony earbuds, along with their Bluetooth counterpart modules, Bose QC 15 for work (HVAC and a LOT of computers/servers running in our dev office), and Bose SIE2i I use while mountain biking and such.  I tend to run the tracks I make through various combinations, and I have known "great" and known "awful" (like some old iPod earbuds and stock Samsung/HTC ones I've had for a while) to get a feeling for them.  I also play them via Bluetooth to my Big JAMBOX and my car's Bluetooth adapter (using Apt-X) to see if there are any weird artifacts with the cymbals or multiband compression.
 
I started using Platinum Notes for clipping repair on stuff I buy after I rip it, but I've been thrilled with a LOT of the work the artists have submitted to BandCamp, and their MP3 transcoder seems to be pretty nice too.  I usually end up with the CD anyway, but having access to the FLAC immediately is sometimes desired.  

 

[Redcarmoose]

  I ordered the Q 701s since I have mostly closed back headphones anyway.  Well, all of them are.  I have the MDR-V6, my Pioneer HDJ-2000-K, a pair of Reloops, Shure IEM, Etymotic IEM, UE TripleFi 10 IEM, several versions and generations of Sony earbuds, along with their Bluetooth counterpart modules, Bose QC 15 for work (HVAC and a LOT of computers/servers running in our dev office), and Bose SIE2i I use while mountain biking and such.  I tend to run the tracks I make through various combinations, and I have known "great" and known "awful" (like some old iPod earbuds and stock Samsung/HTC ones I've had for a while) to get a feeling for them.  I also play them via Bluetooth to my Big JAMBOX and my car's Bluetooth adapter (using Apt-X) to see if there are any weird artifacts with the cymbals or multiband compression.
 
I started using Platinum Notes for clipping repair on stuff I buy after I rip it, but I've been thrilled with a LOT of the work the artists have submitted to BandCamp, and their MP3 transcoder seems to be pretty nice too.  I usually end up with the CD anyway, but having access to the FLAC immediately is sometimes desired.  

My two main headphones are the closed Ah-D Denon 7000s and the open AKG k701s. I think we are able to get sets of headphones which complement each other. Still the two are so very different that it takes time and energy to get used to one if you have been listening to the other. I just like having choices and think that different genres require different headphones.
 
FLAC sounds perfect for me. Still regular CD from a CD player has it's charms too.Enjoy your AKGs but be prepared to do the burn-in and mental burn in. First listen can be anticlimactic for some. I still have not heard the Qs so they may be a different animal all together?

 

[fauxfreshness]

I'm not too worried about calibration between myself and the headphones, as I tend to have stupid sensitivity issues already (migraines) to light and sound, so I end up hearing the changes in the devices over time, and I like to rotate among them to refresh my perspective.  I rip to WAV and then tweak to AIFF with tagging if the CD was mastered too hot, and I like FLAC just fine but iTunes isn't aware of it, and I used iTunes for importing work back and forth into Traktor.  But since I don't have to mess with that too often, I've gone to JRiver Media Center 20 and put the AIFF and FLAC files on my devices, along with MP3s I haven't found better sources for (or care to).

 

[Redcarmoose]

  Ive been listening to metal with my AKG K702s for about 5 years now, and I have to say that I really enjoy these phones with metal.  Albeit I do not want overly punchy or powerful bass like most of the posters in this thread, so the AKG fits my listening preference quite nicely.  If lack of bass is a problem, the bass mod significantly improves the lower end and brings the frequency response more towards flat. 
 
I use my AKGs with the Schiit Lyr, and imo it works really well with most of the metal I listen to.  I find the AKG mids to be slightly on the grainy side, and this combined with thick distorted guitar tone just makes my spine tingle.  The synergy I get out of this headphone when I listen to something like Meshuggah's obZen is just incredible (bass mod required for full effect).  I get the same experience with most death metal, though something like Lykathea Aflame sounds great more because of the immense soundstage.  
 
The only metal genre I listen to that these headphones really sound uninspiring is doom.  The only doom album I particularly enjoy on the AKGs is Candlemass's Nightfall, everything else needs more grunt in the low end.
 
Will post thought on black metal later.

 
 
 
I'm starting to try and listen for what bands are using to move the music along. Maybe that is the reason why some headphones work with some music only. The headphones are magnifying an aspect. I would totally agree that you could feel like the AKGs are missing the boat on Candlemass. There are times when we want to be bathed in a ton of bass. Much in that genre is this bass feeling and the songs slowly move along in that zone.
 
I'm listening to the new In Flames on the AH-D 7000s then I will listen to the whole album with the AKGs as it is a way to study different aspects of the same album. So far Siren Charms is really guitar centric. The guitar is introduced right away as taking the lead in the music?

 

[swspiers]

For the next few days, I'm going to torture test the 400i's with extreme tracks: Maiden, King Diamond, Sunn O))), Boris, Opeth, Orange Goblin, Cathedral, Agalloch, Elder, Yob, Monobrow: as wide a spectrum as I have.

 

[metaldood]

Dayumm.. Bought LCD-X yesterday. LCD-X just blow HE400 

 . Listened to Pale Communion, Raven that Refused to Sing on the LCD-X back to back and was quite satisfied. Cymbal crashes and double bass just sound great.

 

[YtseJamer]

For the next few days, I'm going to torture test the 400i's with extreme tracks: Maiden, King Diamond, Sunn O))), Boris, Opeth, Orange Goblin, Cathedral, Agalloch, Elder, Yob, Monobrow: as wide a spectrum as I have.

 
Can't wait to hear your feedback!