slapo
100+ Head-Fier
Bear in mind that both the K245 and K275 used to retail for around £120 before the K371 and K361 came out. The latter two are, frankly, pretty poorly built.Hey! I've had these for a few days now, these are my absolute first "proper" headphones and for the price I paid (50$) I'm absolutely amazed. At first I was terribly afraid that my pair came faulty with perceptible channel imbalance (Left speaker seemed 3-4dB louder). In the process of troubleshooting I learned that the fault lies in... my ears. Learned something new, I suppose.
As I said, I'm SHOCKED that the K245's are so under the radar. Basically nobody is talking about them online, there are very little reviews and this forum is just about the only sizeable discussion about them. It feels like such a steal to be able to buy these for such a low price. For the first few hours I was giddy with excitement, coming from KZ ZSN Pro X IEM's, these headphones blew me away.
I recently purchased a pair of Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro's for 120USD as the audiophile bug bit me good and I thought to myself: "Well, if this is what 50$ can sound like, what about 120$?". The DT990's are heavily recommended headphones everywhere online, so I expected to get wowed even more considering the investment!
Sadly, the DT990's came with an actual factual channel imbalance (as confirmed by multiple friends of mine), which is a bummer, but there was science to be conducted!
And so I began comparing the two. Considering the prices of both of these headphones, the K245's seem to punch far above their weight for music, media consumption and gaming. The DT990's are almost unlistenable to without EQ, and as such the K245's eat them for dinner if no EQ is available. The DT990's do put up a much better fight if they're EQ'd, and at that point... things get difficult for the K245's.
One thing I'm wondering about though; there are tens of guides as far as EQing the DT990's and more popular headphones. No such thing for the K245's. Does anybody have any recommendations as far as EQing them goes, then? I saw FR measurements for them earlier in this thread, but, alas, I'm a grasshopper when it comes to headphones and struggle to come up with something on my own.
Also, do the K245's represent the famous "AKG-sound" you hear about online so much? If yes, I'd say I rather like it, and am inclined to look for it in future headphones!
That aside, price isn't necessarily an indicator of sound quality (well, more often than not, it won't be).
If you'd like to equalise the K245, you'll probably want to start with a question to yourself - what is it you would like to change about their sound?
If there's nothing, the just enjoy them as they are. There's nothing wrong with that.
I'm not actually sure what the AKG house sound actually is, considering that earlier models were generally pretty lean on bass and (perhaps excessively) fairly abundant in highs.
Things somewhat changed with the K550 (mostly neutral with an earlier brighter and a somewhat less bright later tuning), K702 (decent bass, highs somewhat harsh), K712 (I haven't heard that one, but should have more bass than K702, but not necessarily be tidier in the treble).
Then K245 and K275 came and they were sort of like variations on the K550.
Now we're at K361 and K371, which are highly praised (and which I don't like).
Of course, they also had portable headphones which had a tuning of their own, from what I'd heard, but I haven't heard any of those.