[erik701]

So no any real big announcment until 2017, OK.

 

[VandyMan]

Glad Nomax posted in five topics to lets us know.... nothing at all.

 

[ToroFiestaSol]

Want to do a huge service for the company?
Remove your avatar, delete all your posts announcing K1000 successor and this thread.
Hire Jude in 2017, pay some reviewers 2 or 3 months before product launch.
Let Jude do the product launch on head.fi, and launch reviews the same week.
 
Look at what happened to "Diana" (you and music alchemist posted about it, like you with K1000 this months).
The only one in the forum who cared about Diana was...Audeze, now you have Sine, iSine10, iSine20 and LCD i3...not a huge service to JPS Labs eh?
Don't repeat the same scheme, be smart.

 

[interface95]

Want to do a huge service for the company?
Remove your avatar, delete all your posts announcing K1000 successor and this thread.
Hire Jude in 2017, pay some reviewers 2 or 3 months before product launch.
Let Jude do the product launch on head.fi, and launch reviews the same week.

Look at what happened to "Diana" (you and music alchemist posted about it, like you with K1000 this months).
The only one in the forum who cared about Diana was...Audeze, now you have Sine, iSine10, iSine20 and LCD i3...not a huge service to JPS Labs eh?
Don't repeat the same scheme, be smart.

To be honest, I think that would be the right way to launch a nice start of the new headphone.
Unfortunately marketing has almost become more important than anything else...

 

[EvilKillaruna]

Read correct the Headline.......1989 vs 2017!

I am sure more information will come later this year

Nomax

 
I am a huge fan of classic AKG constructions, proud owner of growing collection of their most iconic headphones from tiny K70 TV to K1000, impressed by AKG's will for pioneering in headphones and audio equipment over last 40 years. I am also a reviewer, who is using their headphones as a reference during my work and chose them for this role after many years of comparisons and confrontations between various brands, schools of sound and philosophies. So please take my words as coming from person, who work with their products, love the old principles and is very interested in future well-being of AKG brand.
 
Teasing people on few forums and creating enthusiasm in artificial way with absolutely no valuable informations is in my opinion very unfortunate kind of approach and at the end the only thing you will get, is frustration and all your efforts weared off with effectivenes. So please try to understand a little any form of criticism at this point.
 
I am not working directly in marketing and I don't feel I want to teach anybody how to do his job right, but I still have my point of view and can see whenever a certain manufacturer have good product, marketing approach and community management or not. In my opinion you should just gather all valuable informations and make one fast revelation with everything at the same time to let people see it, read it, judge it and eventually talk about it, even let them make some initial reviews. Unfortunatley at this point there is nothing to discuss, not a single thing is known, maybe only weight. Talking about innovation is still only talking and there is nothing more behind it. I personally don't have much time and tolerance for such approach and despite my greatest respect for AKG and their history, I won't be running around with saliva and tongue trailing on the ground. Those times were about 10 years ago when such marketing model could work out.
 
With also iconic products like Sony MDR-R10 we already had a full scale blast of informations, images, specifications etc. about Z1R. In my opinion of course. The same goes with Focal Elear/Utopia. Even Orpheus 2 from Sennheiser was better considered, planed and balanced for community. With better teaser with better quality and without such great postpone time. How much do you think low resolution, pixelated background photo will affect people's imagination in terms of resolution of sound and quality? Advertising psychology, visual dependencies etc. What is more, AKG fans have great respect for engineers worked with K1000, which was and still is very unique piece of equipment and after all these years looks like the only thing they deserved is low-res splash page, complete lack of information and attempts to make a fire with few matches but without much wood around. That's how I see it.
 
So, yes, honestly I don't think your marketing/community approach is correct with such iconic product as K1000. Especially when it won't be launched under AKG brand as far as i recognise (correct me if I am wrong). I also wonder where to include the fact that AKG will be closing their factory in Vienna in 2017, firing 131 employees. It looks like the history of AKG is going to the bitter end and the most frustrating thing is that many people still have greater respect for their vintage models than those from actual production lines. With such informations and reputation of being in a state of stagnation on your back, the result is that (at least I personally feel) you are simply toying with people and their admiration for the very one product in entire AKG history, that is considered a legend and top-tier to this day. Even Sennheiser didn't dare but still, it's your call...
 
... or not anymore: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/54xm0u/rip_akg_end_of_an_era/

 

[ScubadudeSA]

+1 ... exceptionally well-considered advice Nomax would do well to consider.
 
We are also a startup company (in mining equipment) that just made major a product announcement with international impact at the Electra Mining and MINExpo exhibitions in Johannesburg and Las Vegas.  I absolutely know and understand the difficulty in striking a balance between creating buzz and saving the announcement for the right moment, between the protection of IP and giving potential users a real glimpse of the potential value, excitement and restraint .... lifting the skirt a little but not too much so to speak. And knowing when to do so.
 
I for one am still dead keen to see what Nomax and Co. is up to.  After all, the quality of their innovation, engineering and product is much more important than the quality of their social media skills.  And to those who put their life on hold pending this major announcement I seriously would suggest that you get a life.
 
Nomax, don't let the negative comment get the team down!  And good luck with the remainder of your product development.  I know from recent experience that timescales are always too tight, budgets always too small and if there can be a curve ball there will be.  So much so that we named our product Curve

 

[akg fanboy]

So, yes, honestly I don't think your marketing/community approach is correct with such iconic product as K1000. Especially when it won't be launched under AKG brand as far as i recognise (correct me if I am wrong). I also wonder where to include the fact that AKG will be closing their factory in Vienna in 2017, firing 131 employees. It looks like the history of AKG is going to the bitter end and the most frustrating thing is that many people still have greater respect for their vintage models than those from actual production lines. With such informations and reputation of being in a state of stagnation on your back, the result is that (at least I personally feel) you are simply toying with people and their admiration for the very one product in entire AKG history, that is considered a legend and top-tier to this day. Even Sennheiser didn't dare but still, it's your call...

... or not anymore: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/54xm0u/rip_akg_end_of_an_era/

These are the original k1000 engineers so I think it is fair game to say these are the k1000 successors regardless of being released under the akg brand name or not, after all, the k1000 would not have been in existence if it weren't for these engineers. Obviously they don't have the backbone of akg to support them for a big marketing budget anymore so a splashpage was all they could do at the moment (these will be released 2017, so no need for an official product page just yet).

From what I hear, akg is only ending headphone production in Austria and moving entirely to Slovakia and China

 

[jokostyle]

We also can take Nomax posts as indications of what can perhaps happen. Reading some insider material, in this domain or another, never hurts.

 

[thatonenoob]

The mobile part on the website worries me.  I don't doubt the engineers - but I hope they have adopted a clear direction for this headphone.  For the love of all things good, I hope this can doesn't attempt to do too much or appeal to too wide an audience.  An open design w/ surround sound for mobile use is really not in the least bit practicable and I hope by mobile they mean "transportable" or something else (I'd still be conflicted).  Better yet, I hope that it was just a marketing buzzword thrown in there for...well...marketing and that the headphones will primarily be focused for home users.

 

[hrklg01]

Ok, understood!
With MOBILE we mean "easy to wear and carry and use with mobile players". We does not recommended and plan it to use on the street.
Kind regards heinz

 

[thatonenoob]

Ok, understood!
With MOBILE we mean "easy to wear and carry and use with mobile players". We does not recommended and plan it to use on the street.
Kind regards heinz

So more like transportable.  Awesome!  Thanks a lot for clarifying.  Really look forward to perhaps one day hearing these.  

 

[Amarphael]

More like EFFICIENT i hope, something the K1000 infamously was not, 'twas perhaps it's biggest weakness, right after the weak deep bass response... which does leads to the obvious question of, was any improvement made in this area of the spectrum? And this might also correlate with the subject of the chosen target response curve, There is the newly developed Harman HRTF which favors a more robust bass response than the (IIRC) Free Field HRTF that was used for the K1000 voicing.

 

[hrklg01]

Till now, target is the Harman curve. But fine tuning towards exact response curve will happen late this year.
And yes, the sensitivity is quite high and at least one octave more towards low frequencies compared to K1000 " high bass versions "
....

 

[akg fanboy]

I don't really agree with the Harman response curve, especially after reading innerfidelity's writings about it. The beats solo 2 for example has a bass response very close to the Harman curve and the NAD hp50 is probably one of the closest to the full spectrum. The harman curve was just based on subjective research on what sounds good to most people and how mimicking speaker response is a good idea.

I'm still interested in these though, especially when hearing how efficient they will be compared to the k1000

 

[EvilKillaruna]

Till now, target is the Harman curve. But fine tuning towards exact response curve will happen late this year.
And yes, the sensitivity is quite high and at least one octave more towards low frequencies compared to K1000 " high bass versions "
....

 
 
Thank you sir for such informations. Working on improvements with ergonomic department were truly required with the precedessor. As same as about tuned up bass response. Looks like you are really the right men to the job. 
 
For me personally K1000 with some effort and thinking behind getting a proper system to drive and steer them, can be really a strong opponent against the most part of todays market of extraordinary constructions. So I hope your current project will be too.
 
I think the only areas where K1000 can nowadays feel a breath of their competitors are:
- very hard to extract the lowest bass department. I could get around 30-40 Hz of bass from K1000 with my old, trusted and kind of bassy Yamaha M-35 power amplifier from late 80's.
- too much pronounced areas of 2,4 kHz and 6-8 kHz for long-runs lasts at least few solid hours. Once again my Yamaha via her slightly dark nature and combined with pure copper cables could do the trick, but with normal, common equipment is a kind of having luck with synergy.
- slight lack of final polishing of sound. It was top class during the days, but now this pair of marvellous headspeakers have to compete with very refined flagships. I was heavily compared last time my pair (SN 6800) with Audeze LCD-4 and in many ways K1000 stood their ground, leaving me very impressed with both pairs. I also mentioned many of those observations in their review on audiofanatyk.pl.
 
Talking about target curves, I like working with physical evidences and certain reference products. In whole history of AKG headphones, there is only one pair in my opinion, which FR was so close to the ideal tuning - the AKG K500 EP with large bassports on back of their DKK45 driver capsules. I believe your company launched them in 1991 and kept in production only to 1993. The secret behind these headphones is that they are the most bassy from all other models in this series, yet with very close, intimate vocals and the classic AKG's treble, but toned down, still fresh and detailed but natural, real, safer and not so shouty as for example K401 or 501 and especially every single model from modern lines. The LP version came with narrow bassports and therefore their sound was in my opinion ruined completely against EP variant - lack of bass, much more dry character, increased brightness. I also did a direct confrontation of both and took some pictures, which can easily explain the differences:
 

 
Damping material inside my capsules is not original. I've had to replace it with other foam taken from DT100 dust filters.
 
I was comparing them with such headphones as for example HD800, HD800S or T1 Gen2 and - especially against Senns - while my old AKGs played music with more pronounced grain and worse resolution, more suitable for current Premium class, in terms of tonality they could return hits with ease. I know there is always a lot of personal preferences and every single member of this forum has its own picture of ideal sound, but for me, the K1000 and K500 EP duo is a combination capable of leaving very deep imprint on any listener. Those two pairs are nothing alike, but at the same time - very similar in various ways. I am considering my K500 always as "more human" version of K1000 working in lower class and with lower quality but much greater ergonomics. I can only encourage you to take your time and go back to this particular model and give it a round. Maybe you'll find some more sonic inspiration lying behind those drivers.