Shoewreck
500+ Head-Fier
My wife uses K 240 Monitor headphones as her home gaming/music/movie headphones. She likes both comfort and sound, volume is adequate directly from the PC. 600 Ohm headphones are generally considered to be hard to drive, but if only moderate volume is needed they actually present an easier load, so higher impedance is preferred.
The trouble is: it's falling apart. I managed to turn them back to working order last time, but it's getting harder each time.
So, I'm looking for a replacement. It's going to be an open or semi-open headphone with similar comfort and tone. I'm still biased to judge headphones by my ear, even though this particular pair isn't going to receive much listening time from me. I usually do some modding, but this time I'd prefer a unit that is at it's best in stock condition.
AKG K 240 Studio seems to be the most obvious candidate. It's affordable, it shares a similar construction and probably sounds similarly. What retracts me: 50 Ohm impedance is rather low (please keep in mind that there is no external amp and no external volume control to tame much higher output) and the graphs show rather weird sound signature, with an elevated bottom and a treble spike. Bass response is rather easy to tame, but I'd beter not bother.
AKG K 601 (K 612) seems to be a bass-boosted successor of K 501. I know (have owned for a long time) the latter for their great comfort and soundstage and somewhat colored tonality (I personally find K 240 less colored). AFAIK the K 601 don't add much to their predcessor and still has some treble glare issues. Not much to mod here, that is actually good.
Sennheiser HD 558 seems to be a good overall headphone with good tonality, headstage and comfort. I'm not familiar with Sennheiser house sound and that makes me more interested. Foam removal mod is highly considered and impedance is on a lower side.
Sennheiser HD 600/650 are out of my budget, but not completely out of consideration.
Fostex T 50 RP - another headphone that I'm familiar with. Not the best one in terms of comfort and requres effort to sound good. Still low impedance, but sensitivity is low as well.
The trouble is: it's falling apart. I managed to turn them back to working order last time, but it's getting harder each time.
So, I'm looking for a replacement. It's going to be an open or semi-open headphone with similar comfort and tone. I'm still biased to judge headphones by my ear, even though this particular pair isn't going to receive much listening time from me. I usually do some modding, but this time I'd prefer a unit that is at it's best in stock condition.
AKG K 240 Studio seems to be the most obvious candidate. It's affordable, it shares a similar construction and probably sounds similarly. What retracts me: 50 Ohm impedance is rather low (please keep in mind that there is no external amp and no external volume control to tame much higher output) and the graphs show rather weird sound signature, with an elevated bottom and a treble spike. Bass response is rather easy to tame, but I'd beter not bother.
AKG K 601 (K 612) seems to be a bass-boosted successor of K 501. I know (have owned for a long time) the latter for their great comfort and soundstage and somewhat colored tonality (I personally find K 240 less colored). AFAIK the K 601 don't add much to their predcessor and still has some treble glare issues. Not much to mod here, that is actually good.
Sennheiser HD 558 seems to be a good overall headphone with good tonality, headstage and comfort. I'm not familiar with Sennheiser house sound and that makes me more interested. Foam removal mod is highly considered and impedance is on a lower side.
Sennheiser HD 600/650 are out of my budget, but not completely out of consideration.
Fostex T 50 RP - another headphone that I'm familiar with. Not the best one in terms of comfort and requres effort to sound good. Still low impedance, but sensitivity is low as well.
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