This thread just seems like a way to grouse about stuff I don’t like. I don’t really want to pick on any particular headphone because they all bring good and bad stuff to the table, and that conversation is not particular useful to others. Any design is made up of choices or compromises. It’s just a matter of if my personal priorities and the priorities of the headphone maker align over a particular product.
So I’m gonna chime to say I think headphones with boosted or extended treble being called detailed are incorrect (or overrated). Detail is not the same thing as more treble, because bass detail is actuallly a thing. And I’d call them bright, definitely not neutral.
Too many people claiming headphones are detailed, when in reality they can't tell that the treble is boosted. I also see a lot of people who think that the less bass a headphone has, the more detailed and "reference" it is. I guess suckers will always exist, more money for headphone makers.
There are a few reviewers who have the ability to slice through the herd mentality and come to conclusions on their own. What I have learned from this hobby is that it is a damn talent if a headphone manufacturer can develop headphones with a healthy amount of bass and still be extremely detailed.
WOW, you have very different ears than me, I found Beyer headphones really overrated and un-natural, maybe T5p 2nd was bit natural but nothing exciting sound.
I had all the DT/T series including 600ohm, they are not natural at all.
I say maybe you can go to local speaker stores and listen to KEF LS/Blade, PSB T3s, Sonus Faber Olympica III, they sound natural to me, then try your Beyer headphones, you will know how much you miss from the speakers. (I am not a fan of KEFs by the way).
That's just me, you may find differently, enjoy head-fi-ng !
I feel bad saying it, but I have yet to hear an AKG signature that worked for me. I had the K872 here for a few weeks and I could not listen to that headphone for more than a few minutes I am sorry to say. Not sure that the 872 qualifies as I don't think that it ever achieved any great following unless I missed it. There must be a good AKG signature out there, but the three models I have heard which also includes the 701 were just too strident for me and lacked musicality. Just goes to show that one persons food is another persons poison as I know full well many people really enjoy AKG headphones.
I have the AKG K 701 for listening video or film because the cable is very long and they are more light on my head and more confortable that is all....The AKG K 340 is the AKG top of the line dedicated to my music listening.... It takes me some months to drive them correctly with my own designed tweaks all along the house and the audio grid but this headphone is now so realistic,musical,organic,holographic, that all my past headphones sounded like way less natural, that include 2 Stax,( the basic nova, the mythic SR-5), the Hifiman HE-400, the beyerdynamic DT 990, and the beyerdynamic DT 150 and the AKG K701... All these headphones are not in the same league than the K 340...It sound so good that I enjoy them on par with my speakers because they are imaging like speakers and had a natural rendering of the natural timbre of voice and instrument in a holographic atmospheric musical space...
The guy who sell me that marvel works in audio business, and probably like most people who try them, he does not listen to them at their full potential,100 bucks for that is a steal...At their optimum level with a good amplifier and some tweaks,but mostly in a cleaned audio and electrical grid they becomes really astounding; i already read a reviewer that prefer them to the Stax 007,and I know now why...With this headphone on my ears I read reviews of new headphones at any price and, I smile slowly, without despair even if I cannot afford to buy the actual top of the line....
This marvellous headphone created circa 1980 was the first hybrid headphone,very complex design, impossible to reproduce at low cost today for the mass market... All reservation or negative reviews about them comes from inadequate implementation or gear synergy,or high level noise in the house electrical grid of the owner and noisy audio line, the K 340 are very sensible to source for their audio qualities... I drive them from the speakers out of a vintage extraordinary amplifier(Sansui AU 7700) and they are incredibly natural like speakers around your head...God is good I have one...
P.S. I do not advice a newcomer or beginners audio fan to buy that headphone because the probability of disappointment if you dont implement them rightly in your audio and electrical grid is very high because they ask for a dedicated amplifier a relatively low cost powerful vintage ss one or a costly tube one, forget most headphone amplifier... I read all reviews on the internet and more than half of the people who owned them never listen to them at their highest potential and after that so called "upgraded" from them...For example when you read that they are incoherent, this is not true to their nature, for sure they are not coherent in the way that an orthodynamic,or an electroacoustic, or a good dynamic headphone are, after all they are an hybrid design,but they are coherent in their own way and perfectly listenable, you will not notice or be bothered by this " incoherence" except if your implementation was inadequate for them...They are not perfect headphone, they are way more than that, they are simply natural and musical with an imaging of the highest order and a more than good soundstage; with them you listen speakerlike to music not to a perfect microscopic detailed dead headphone sound...For me their fundamental quality is not focusing on details, trust me they had plenty of details tough, but more so their capacity to reproduce in a global integrated musical way, not like a microscope...They are not neutral in any way, their medium frequencies reproduction is out of this world and they are not fatiguing at all to listen to...They had plenty of bass around 35 hertz and up, their highs are without harshness at all and celestial...When you listen to them you forgot this horrible vocabulary about medium,highs and bass, and you will remember only the music and you will hear it in an integral way...
I have the AKG K 701 for listening video or film because the cable is very long and they are more light on my head and more confortable that is all....The AKG K 340 is the AKG top of the line dedicated to my music listening.... It takes me some months to drive them correctly with my own designed tweaks all along the house and the audio grid but this headphone is now so realistic,musical,organic,holographic, that all my past headphones sounded like way less natural, that include 2 Stax,( the basic nova, the mythic SR-5), the Hifiman HE-400, the beyerdynamic DT 990, and the beyerdynamic DT 150 and the AKG K701... All these headphones are not in the same league than the K 340...It sound so good that I enjoy them on par with my speakers because they are imaging like speakers and had a natural rendering of the natural timbre of voice and instrument in a holographic atmospheric musical space...
The guy who sell me that marvel works in audio business, and probably like most people who try them, he does not listen to them at their full potential,100 bucks for that is a steal...At their optimum level with a good amplifier and some tweaks,but mostly in a cleaned audio and electrical grid they becomes really astounding; i already read a reviewer that prefer them to the Stax 007,and I know now why...With this headphone on my ears I read reviews of new headphones at any price and, I smile slowly, without despair even if I cannot afford to buy the actual top of the line....
This marvellous headphone created circa 1980 was the first hybrid headphone,very complex design, impossible to reproduce at low cost today for the mass market... All reservation or negative reviews about them comes from inadequate implementation or gear synergy,or high level noise in the house electrical grid of the owner and noisy audio line, the K 340 are very sensible to source for their audio qualities... I drive them from the speakers out of a vintage extraordinary amplifier(Sansui AU 7700) and they are incredibly natural like speakers around your head...God is good I have one...
P.S. I do not advice a newcomer or beginners audio fan to buy that headphone because the probability of disappointment if you dont implement them rightly in your audio and electrical grid is very high because they ask for a dedicated amplifier a relatively low cost powerful vintage ss one or a costly tube one, forget most headphone amplifier... I read all reviews on the internet and more than half of the people who owned them never listen to them at their highest potential and after that so called "upgraded" from them...For example when you read that they are incoherent, this is not true to their nature, for sure they are not coherent in the way that an orthodynamic,or an electroacoustic, or a good dynamic headphone are, after all they are an hybrid design,but they are coherent in their own way and perfectly listenable, you will not notice or be bothered by this " incoherence" except if your implementation was inadequate for them...They are not perfect headphone, they are way more than that, they are simply natural and musical with an imaging of the highest order and a more than good soundstage; with them you listen speakerlike to music not to a perfect microscopic detailed dead headphone sound...For me their fundamental quality is not focusing on details, trust me they had plenty of details tough, but more so their capacity to reproduce in a global integrated musical way, not like a microscope...They are not neutral in any way, their medium frequencies reproduction is out of this world and they are not fatiguing at all to listen to...They had plenty of bass around 35 hertz and up, their highs are without harshness at all and celestial...When you listen to them you forgot this horrible vocabulary about medium,highs and bass, and you will remember only the music and you will hear it in an integral way...
I have to agree with the k701 being great for movies, but also being a frustrating purchase for many. The AKG k701 headphones have a rare ability to scale up an up but it can be an expensive climb thus reducing their ability as a value. Though if someone has a powerful amp laying around the k701 can be the best value out there. IMO
The sound signature also kind of helped me realize that I could like a different sound signature than I was used to. That treble spike they parlay along with the giant head-stage environment make them special even today. Also they can make certain music sound like nothing else.
Funny too, at the time I was really into the k701 I always thought an added bass boost would make them perfect. Of course we know getting them the damping factor of a powerful amp gets them to not only gain soundstage and imaging but gets a dB of bass down low, they so desperately need. Though hearing other later models with more bass from AKG, it’s probably a good thing not to do the bass mod on the k701, but simply let it be what it is. IMO
I feel bad saying it, but I have yet to hear an AKG signature that worked for me. I had the K872 here for a few weeks and I could not listen to that headphone for more than a few minutes I am sorry to say. Not sure that the 872 qualifies as I don't think that it ever achieved any great following unless I missed it. There must be a good AKG signature out there, but the three models I have heard which also includes the 701 were just too strident for me and lacked musicality. Just goes to show that one persons food is another persons poison as I know full well many people really enjoy AKG headphones.
Same here, but would I say AKG in general are over-rated? No. I recall way back when the big 3 mid-range pricing headphone included 701, dt880, and hd650. Sennheisers retained their popularity, and even grew bigger over time with the release of Massdrop 6XX.
Massdrop reflects the popularity. 94k 6XX sold, but 22k K7XX sold.
I can see people that's outside the bell curve to find the Sennheisers over-rated, but that's usually the case with popular stuff with the minority outside the bell curve do not share similar taste.
I haven't owned any AKG headphones, but when I was considering buying one, many people recommended the K612 Pro (a K601 successor). I've been reading reviews on this forum, reddit and some other audio boards – general consensus seemed to be that they are better than modern K701/702, 7XX and sit nicely between DT880 and HD600. I might be wrong, but I think K612 share the same driver with K712.
I understand that frequency response graphs don't tell the whole story, but K612 appears to have a rather neutral FR. I also remember people mentioning that imaging on these is accurate and the soundstage is not as wide (artificial) as K701/702, and closer to DT880 instead.
Either way, since I haven't owned these, I can't tell if they are as good as people claim them to be – this is just an information I managed to gather after doing a bit of research across different forums. These are ~100 Eur on Amazon.de, and if any of this information is true, then you would be hard-pressed to find a better deal than that.
I haven't owned any AKG headphones, but when I was considering buying one, many people recommended the K612 Pro (a K601 successor). I've been reading reviews on this forum, reddit and some other audio boards – general consensus seemed to be that they are better than modern K701/702, 7XX and sit nicely between DT880 and HD600. I might be wrong, but I think K612 share the same driver with K712.
I understand that frequency response graphs don't tell the whole story, but K612 appears to have a rather neutral FR. I also remember people mentioning that imaging on these is accurate and the soundstage is not as wide (artificial) as K701/702, and closer to DT880 instead.
Either way, since I haven't owned these, I can't tell if they are as good as people claim to be – this is just an information I managed to gather after doing a bit of research across different forums. These are ~100 Eur on Amazon.de, and if any of this information is true, then you would be hard-pressed to find a better deal than that.
There's a lot of that around here with people swearing the old ones are better, but you really have to know their tastes to see if it aligns with yours. I got burned a few times from these types of hype like JVC DX1000 and I heard the Sennheiser HD540, and they weren't nearly as good as I was told.
But, that graph does look quite good. Maybe it's a gem. Sometimes, gems are buried under the hype.
Same here, but would I say AKG in general are over-rated? No. I recall way back when the big 3 mid-range pricing headphone included 701, dt880, and hd650. Sennheisers retained their popularity, and even grew bigger over time with the release of Massdrop 6XX.
Massdrop reflects the popularity. 94k 6XX sold, but 22k K7XX sold.
I can see people that's outside the bell curve to find the Sennheisers over-rated, but that's usually the case with popular stuff with the minority outside the bell curve do not share similar taste.
Try the K240. A really 'nice' and inoffensive but musical sounding hedphone and an almighty bargain. The kind of headphone that you listen to the music and not the equiupment.
Try the K240. A really 'nice' and inoffensive but musical sounding hedphone and an almighty bargain. The kind of headphone that you listen to the music and not the equiupment.
The K240 to this day is one of the most musical headphones I've heard, sadly I found it to have a biting treble spike and the bass is a weak point, but it's so musical and cheap I can forgive it's failings. It really is the groovilizer.
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