Beagle
His body's not a canvas, and he wasn't raised by apes.
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2001
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On a whim I went to a local music (instruments) store Friday after work, looking for Beyerdynamic, as the Beyer distributor had given me this place as a dealer. No Beyers to be found, but...
They did have a few AKGs, K55, an older K400 and a few others. I asked if they were able to order the K501 and the salesperson said he had one in stock.
He indicated the price was $185 (Canadian) which surprised me, as they list for about $230 US.
I checked them out and asked if I could come back tomorrow (today) to demo them. I read reviews, and the K501 comments on head-fi and audioreview.com, then I went back this morning, expecting that they would suck, be distant sounding and have no bass, and I would be able to keep my money, trying to talk my self out of buying yet another pair of phones.
So I brought my MD Walkman, RA-1 amp, plugged in the 501, and FIRST THING THAT HIT ME was the bass. It went very deep, lower than the HD600. Second thing I noticed was that I had to turn the volume up a bit higher, although when demoing in a busy store, this is probably a given anyway.
Next thing that struck me was the clarity of the upper mids and treble. Cymbals, percussion, snare drum, rimshots had snap, notes and transients had very fast stop/start times. There was natural dynamics. You could almost see the stick hitting the skins. But the biggest difference, the thing that made this phone so unique compared to other headphones I had listened to, was the openness and transparency in the bass range. No midbass hump, no dark fog, just flat bass response where the deepest notes were as present as the mid and upper ones.
It was as if the highs and lows were actually stacked like their names would indicate. Deep bass near your chin (or back of neck actually) mids at your nose and sparkling highs at the sides and top.
Still, I was bothered by something in the midrange. It seemed at first to be a slight "quackiness" or pinched effect on vocals, as if they were mouths and noses in space, with no chest or throat. But at this point, I realized that the price was right and this phone had some very special characteristics, so it was obvious that I had to adopt the poor thing, so I bought 'em.
When I got home, I tried them out with the X-Cans and surprisingly, I had to turn up the gain more than I anticipated. Also, the very low bass, which I had heard during the demo, was absent. So I reverted back to the RA-1 and that great sound returned. In the confines of my listening environment, the K501 requires just slightly more gain on the RA-1 than do the HD600s.
I threw just about every type of music at the combo, Underworld, Steely Dan, The Rankins, Ella Fitzgerald, Rusted Root, Gershwin, Crystal Method,
David Gray, NIN, Ozzy, and the 501s just loved everything. Crisp clean recording sounded crisp and clean, dull ones sounded dull. The "quackiness" and pinched effect on vocals seemed to go away, perhaps me realizing that vocals were clean, properly portrayed and not bloated as with some other phones. And the sound is certainly not distant, it portrays a big detailed soundstage, but concise, everything is within "reach" so to speak.
So I'm a happy AKG camper for the time being, and probably for a while, as I haven't been this excited about listening for a long time. You know you're happy when you want to dig out all your favourite albums and hear how they sound through your new toy.
A special thanks to the people who provided info in my "take the plunge" thread. But ultimately it was my ears that make the decision for me, the only way to go, I suppose. I urge everyone who hasn't heard the 501 to give 'em a listen, they fall right in that heavenly area between the HD600 analytical perspective and the Grado in yer face effect.
They did have a few AKGs, K55, an older K400 and a few others. I asked if they were able to order the K501 and the salesperson said he had one in stock.
He indicated the price was $185 (Canadian) which surprised me, as they list for about $230 US.
I checked them out and asked if I could come back tomorrow (today) to demo them. I read reviews, and the K501 comments on head-fi and audioreview.com, then I went back this morning, expecting that they would suck, be distant sounding and have no bass, and I would be able to keep my money, trying to talk my self out of buying yet another pair of phones.
So I brought my MD Walkman, RA-1 amp, plugged in the 501, and FIRST THING THAT HIT ME was the bass. It went very deep, lower than the HD600. Second thing I noticed was that I had to turn the volume up a bit higher, although when demoing in a busy store, this is probably a given anyway.
Next thing that struck me was the clarity of the upper mids and treble. Cymbals, percussion, snare drum, rimshots had snap, notes and transients had very fast stop/start times. There was natural dynamics. You could almost see the stick hitting the skins. But the biggest difference, the thing that made this phone so unique compared to other headphones I had listened to, was the openness and transparency in the bass range. No midbass hump, no dark fog, just flat bass response where the deepest notes were as present as the mid and upper ones.
It was as if the highs and lows were actually stacked like their names would indicate. Deep bass near your chin (or back of neck actually) mids at your nose and sparkling highs at the sides and top.
Still, I was bothered by something in the midrange. It seemed at first to be a slight "quackiness" or pinched effect on vocals, as if they were mouths and noses in space, with no chest or throat. But at this point, I realized that the price was right and this phone had some very special characteristics, so it was obvious that I had to adopt the poor thing, so I bought 'em.
When I got home, I tried them out with the X-Cans and surprisingly, I had to turn up the gain more than I anticipated. Also, the very low bass, which I had heard during the demo, was absent. So I reverted back to the RA-1 and that great sound returned. In the confines of my listening environment, the K501 requires just slightly more gain on the RA-1 than do the HD600s.
I threw just about every type of music at the combo, Underworld, Steely Dan, The Rankins, Ella Fitzgerald, Rusted Root, Gershwin, Crystal Method,
David Gray, NIN, Ozzy, and the 501s just loved everything. Crisp clean recording sounded crisp and clean, dull ones sounded dull. The "quackiness" and pinched effect on vocals seemed to go away, perhaps me realizing that vocals were clean, properly portrayed and not bloated as with some other phones. And the sound is certainly not distant, it portrays a big detailed soundstage, but concise, everything is within "reach" so to speak.
So I'm a happy AKG camper for the time being, and probably for a while, as I haven't been this excited about listening for a long time. You know you're happy when you want to dig out all your favourite albums and hear how they sound through your new toy.
A special thanks to the people who provided info in my "take the plunge" thread. But ultimately it was my ears that make the decision for me, the only way to go, I suppose. I urge everyone who hasn't heard the 501 to give 'em a listen, they fall right in that heavenly area between the HD600 analytical perspective and the Grado in yer face effect.
