YMMV but they never were any good. I have them, never use them. Sitting in a plastic zip bag unused. People claimed good results years ago with Heed amps... needed a lot of EQ and even then they didn't sound right. OTOH, listen to them long enough and maybe you can acclimate to the sound. Much prefer Beyer DT880, Ti or Senn HD650.
I think they're all slightly different but only by a small amount - I've mainly got a couple of the k701s including the Quincy Jones ones and played around with the cables a bit where there's quite noticeable change - to me, the older ones do sound 'better' but that just might be familiarity.
The 'best amp for me' on the k701s is the diy version of the PassLabs HP-1 designed by Wayne Colburn, that's been optimized for my Hifiman HE-500 with the ViaBlue cable, very similar sound to the classic HE-1000.
I've been looking for someone local here to have a listen to the Austrian Hi-65x ones but ...
... and they're still very dependent on using a rather good quality headamp too and upgrading the stock supplied cable - even though they're old design, still one of the best overall balanced sound...
Since fitting a 4 pin XLR to my K701 (recent China version) stock cable and upgrading to the Cayin iHA-6 I am hearing a totally different headphone!
The K701 is cabled balanced internally which makes the mod super easy.
I am of the opinion that the grey stock cable is absolutely sufficient and no replacement is necessary.
If you are able to feed it plenty (and I mean plenty) of current the K701 will reward you in spades.
Even though I have other, more expensive headphones, I will always keep these around for those recordings that suit it.
I think you might have something there about the extra "grunt" of the Cayin amp but unsure about the cables, particularly the one on the 'more recent' Quincy Jones version - my older k701s have had after-market for so long I can't remember the original sound but it wasn't all that bad and I wanted to "up" the sound to suit me so maybe not an upgrade at all, just different - not a rocket scientist here!
I recently got one of those fancy RME ADI-2 dacs, the FS one - oh dear, that's a real revelation for the K701s! using softer dac output filters and judicious choice of eq profile, you can nearly make these humble ol' phones sound like anything especially big on detail and extra 'air' in the sound along with the same extremely comfortable fit plus non-fatiguing sound
I'm a bit gobsmacked actually as to why I hadn't looked towards these sort of amps before this, and without the complications of using the usual dsp formats - bass, treble, 5 para-filters plus a lot of extras ...
Since fitting a 4 pin XLR to my K701 (recent China version) stock cable and upgrading to the Cayin iHA-6 I am hearing a totally different headphone!
The k701 is cabled balanced internally which makes the mod super easy.
I am of the opinion that the grey stock cable is absolutely sufficient and no replacement is necessary.
If you are able to feed it plenty (and I mean plenty) of current the k701 will reward you in spades.
Even though I have other, more expensive headphones, I will always keep these around for those recordings that suit it.
I think you might have something there about the extra "grunt" of the Cayin amp but unsure about the cables, particularly the one on the 'more recent' Quincy Jones version - my older k701s have had after-market for so long I can't remember the original sound but it wasn't all that bad and I wanted to "up" the sound to suit me so maybe not an upgrade at all, just different - not a rocket scientist here!
I recently got one of those fancy RME ADI-2 dacs, the FS one - oh dear, that's a real revelation for the K701s! using softer dac output filters and judicious choice of eq profile, you can nearly make these humble ol' phones sound like anything especially big on detail and extra 'air' in the sound along with the same extremely comfortable fit plus non-fatiguing sound
I'm a bit gobsmacked actually as to why I hadn't looked towards these sort of amps before this, and without the complications of using the usual dsp formats - bass, treble, 5 para-filters plus a lot of extras ...
The RME is a real box of tricks and seems to have the necessary grunt to drive the K701 quite well.
My impression was that it's incredibly clean and thus perhaps not the best synergy with the AKG without some judicious filter tweaking.
Glad you're enjoying the combo.
Yeah, with a bit of patience, you can alter the sound to an enormous degree - in fact, there's no difficulty in replicating Shane Olive's Harmon Curve settings if you particularly wanted that sound - the only think I'd like to add would be the possibility to perhaps add a 'valve' characteristic but probably need a high quality valve stage and/or another headamp but still use the facilities of the RME - a very interesting piece of gear.
My current go-to 'phones are the HE-500 with the ViaBlue cable but the 701s are very relaxing, particularly over longer listening periods - it's really surprising that these "old guys" are still so acceptable in this age of multi thousand $ units
Another amp that drives the 701s really well is the diyAudio kit called the HP-1 - a few changes to the power supply, up the bias current and 'hey presto', a really good amp for these 'phones too, especially if you're into building your own gear.
Every once in a while, I get this itch to put on my K701s, like today. A couple things that surprised me. The bass is lean and does roll off, but it can sound quite satisfying on certain tracks, such as "Look Away" by Lo-Fang and "Armored Prayer" by Steve Jablonsky. Strangely enough, I find the K701's treble to bother me less than my HD600's. It's brighter, and yet the wider soundstage and more "diffuse" presentation, for some reason, makes it less fatiguing and more enjoyable for me.
Every once in a while, I get this itch to put on my K701s, like today. A couple things that surprised me. The bass is lean and does roll off, but it can sound quite satisfying on certain tracks, such as "Look Away" by Lo-Fang and "Armored Prayer" by Steve Jablonsky. Strangely enough, I find the K701's treble to bother me less than my HD600's. It's brighter, and yet the wider soundstage and more "diffuse" presentation, for some reason, makes it less fatiguing and more enjoyable for me.
Every once in a while, I get this itch to put on my K701s, like today. A couple things that surprised me. The bass is lean and does roll off, but it can sound quite satisfying on certain tracks, such as "Look Away" by Lo-Fang and "Armored Prayer" by Steve Jablonsky. Strangely enough, I find the K701's treble to bother me less than my HD600's. It's brighter, and yet the wider soundstage and more "diffuse" presentation, for some reason, makes it less fatiguing and more enjoyable for me.
Right on. The 600 “Row A” presentation can be a bit more than I want sometimes, despite how sweet it is. As you describe, the K701 (with the angled original pads) backs that off nicely (Row H?) for me.
It's a rather startling thing that these "old things" are getting on in years (30+?) but haven't radically changed their overall sound characteristics and that some of us would be/are quite happy to listen to these instead of some of the multi-thousand $ units that are saturating today's marketplace and the dawning series of headamp/preamp streamers also up in the many $k range - I thought the 2nd hand RME with/or the Ayre Acoustic dac feeding the optimized dayAudio HP-1 was getting extravagant, but this obviously is "yesterday's news"!
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