By a hair you mean the difference is negligible ? I bought the AD900x. I remember owning the closed back version A700x … it was very "beautiful" sounding but for some reason, I sold it.
I am going to buy the Q701 as well, does it sound very different when compared to K702 ? How about when changing pads to memory foam(K712) pads ? what about cheap memory foam pads sold on eBay and amazon ?
I also have the MA900...how does MA900 compare with AD900x and K702/Q701 ?
The AD700x and AD900x would have closely comparable performance and detail, they contrast in just a slight tweak to loudness of certain sound notes (frequency response curve). The A700, on the other hand, is quite different; a store sent me an A700 TWICE by mistake when I had ordered the open-backed AD700, they tried to play it off as a more expensive headphone and preferred by some people, but I wasn’t having it (and demanded compensation for refusing to correctly fulfill my order for a month). As a closed-back headphone, the A700 seemed to have a bit more midbass due to resonance, but that cuppy/cave like sound shrank the sense of soundstage depth and snappy detail enough that it took away from what made the AD700 special for competitive gaming.
Q701 has more bass emphasis and a bit of a fatter bass sound than the K701, not quite sure first-hand how much the K702 deviates from the K701. The fatter bass sounds a bit more solid bodied and I think some music conveys the emotion of “threat” or foreboding a bit better, objectively it’s like thunder having more rumble (something that caught my attention with the Vault of Glass raid in Destiny, enjoyably). For me, it was a worthwhile upgrade in tuning and comfort over the AD700 with very minimal trade-off, though the AD700 was easier to drive and reach its potential on weaker amplifiers and equipment. The K712 Pro rumbles less and has a clearer sound, I think the K712 Pro also have tighter tolerances and driver matching, though it does have a noticeable 3dB midbass increase over the K702. I don’t regret the educational steps of my journey to reach the K712 Pro, and I enjoyed each prior headphone for about three years before upgrading, but yes the K712 Pro was all-around my favorite up until that point (this was before I tried Sennheisers).
Mad was so kind as to lend me his MA900 back in the day. It did have more midbass than the AD700 and there was something special about the mids, which I kind of miss and I still think now, 10 years later, that it would be fun to own one. I also think their angled, vented, and extremely open sound was unique in a special, positive way. However, I found it’s sub bass extension poor, and at the time I found the AKG Q701 to be a better all-rounder that sounded as good for music and movies as well as gaming, while the MA900 sounded anemic and “not how the director intended” when I tried using it to watch the movie Dredd. If you ask me today, I would easily pick either an AKG K612 Pro or Sennheiser HD 560S over the MA900, K712 Pro or HD 660S if you can afford those, because they satisfy me more for a full variety of audio.
I am excited about the grell OAE1, which is coming out soonish (maybe after Christmas, but I don’t actually know), because it looks to combine the tuning expertise of the HD 650 and HD 660S with the angled drivers of the HD 598 / HD 800S, the BioDynamic drivers of the Fostex TH-600 series, and an enclosure openness of the MA900, all into one headphone. I haven’t heard the varieties of work-in-progress prototypes that started being demonstrated at trade shows early this year, but
on paper each of those features listed above have long been on my wish list but never combined into one before. The Fostex open back flagship TH-909 got close, and that was quite a fun (and beautiful) headphone, but that didn’t feature angled drivers either
I think, and isn’t nearly as open as the grell OAE1 will be, I hope.
