New K26P: Impressions

[sgrossklass]

Good packaging, but not what I'd consider "human openable" - ouch. Giving customers a hint re: how to open this wouldn't be a bad idea. (It's a two-part clear plastic job molded together at all the edges.)

Anyway, on to what's inside: The cans themselves, the cute carrying bag, a folded sheet with a security note re: hearing damage and a warranty card. Not even a spec sheet or wannabe manual, apparently you're supposed to keep the back cardboard from inside the packaging. Packaging sez "Made in China (P.R.C.)" along with "Designed in Austra by AKG".

Construction/mechanics: Ingenious folding mechanism (as to be expected from the folks who invented the first foldable headphone, K1 - wasn't it?), headband seems to be made out of some kind of spring steel. The hinge parts are plastic, I'd prefer to see metal here (with the thin silver parts at least). We'll see how they hold up. Fit and finish are good. The plug is angled but at a bit more than 90°, probably so as to be more easily removable. The carrying bag is a nice touch.

Sound: After a bit of break-in on the radio I can only confirm that a wool blanket seems to ship standard with these current ones, at least they sound somewhat dull. A good thing for noisy environments I guess (we'll see how they fare on the bus, which is what I bought them for; the source will be fairly bright sounding anyway), but at home they're not going to win any audiophile contests. That being said, I think that while they frequency response may be skewed it is not too uneven. The bass may be relatively strong but I don't really feel that it's lacking in quality. I haven't stumbled across any obvious resonances either, the small earcups may be involved here. The headband clearly is microphonic.
EDIT: These are *very* sensitive, a lot more than the DT231s. The 125 dB SPL / 1 V spec corresponds to ~110 dB SPL / 1 mW if I'm not mistaken, while the DT231 is spec'd at 95 dB SPL / 1 mW - that sounds about right.

Comfort/Isolation: The headband is indeed best extended before putting these on, then the "hair killer" effect will be minimal. (It does have a tendency to snap together again on my sample.) The earpieces press against the ears quite a bit, achieving fairly good isolation. The headband needn't rest on your hair due to this. On the downside, you will get hot ears when wearing these over extended period of time.

The verdict: Is still out, since I've not yet tested them in noisy environments. But I think I can safely relegate the DT231s to in-bed listening, for which they have already been used together with the ICF-SW30 for a while with good results.

 

[humanflyz]

What a coincidence! I just got my K26P today. I'll give my own impressions after some burn-in.

 

[humanflyz]

First thing I noticed, these have way more bass than the Eggos; the difference is immediately noticeable. On the downside, these do seem a little muddy and not as detailed as the Eggos. I'll see what happens after burn-in.

The biggest problem I have is with the construction and comfort. The folding mechanism is good, but the headband always snap back to its smallest form, making it inconvenient to put it on each time. Second, comfort is not that good. The earpads don't cover my ears enough to get a comfortable fit.

Isolation is good, and leakage is very also very good. Overall, I think if you have small ears, these should provide a decent portable solution. But for me, the earpads are just not big enough to rest on my ears in a comfortable fashion. I think I will return these to HeadRoom.

So now I'm looking at the ATH-FC7, Sennheiser HD25-SP, and Sennheiser PX200. For people who have tried the K26P and these phones, how do they compare in earpad size? I know none of these will completely cover the ears like circumaural phones, but how do they compare? If they are the same as the K26P, then I won't get them. But if they are bigger, I might consider them.

 

[gshan]

sgrossklass, nice impressions. K26 is definitely not very balanced. I've found that it works really well outdoors with bass music because it is so boomy.

humanflyz, a lot of people have the problem with the headband slipping while fitting. You just have to set it to max-size and after it's secured on your head, then you adjust it smaller.

 

[apostate]

The headband can definitely be annoying though I've found that after using them for a while it is almost automatic to extend it all the way before putting them on.

TME, the congestion/muddy sound subsided significantly after 100hrs of burn-in. I didn't listen to them at all during that period to try to remain impartial (though I was expecting much given their low price). YMMV but I'm pretty happy with mine now. Not sure I would have kept them based just on my first impressions.

EDIT: They are still pretty bass heavy. For me that works out ok since it tends to balance out the iPod when I use them unamped.

Ant

 

[episiarch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by humanflyz So now I'm looking at the ATH-FC7, Sennheiser HD25-SP, and Sennheiser PX200. For people who have tried the K26P and these phones, how do they compare in earpad size?

I have K26P, PX200, HD25-SP and HD25.

PX200 earpads are about the same size as K26P. Less of a bassy fun sound, but a lot more detailed and accurate than the current K26Ps. It is comfortable and doesn't have the springing-back-to-smallest-size problem of the K26P.

HD25-SP is substantially bigger, covers much more of your ears, and gives you a lot more isolation. It's really a good headphone, and would get a lot more respect if its name didn't lead people to compare it immediately to the 2x-the-price HD25.

The HD25-SP is clean and neutral-sounding, nicely detailed, and neither shrill nor bassy. It is a little dark. It benefits from an amp but sounds pretty good (though dark) without one. It has a 3-meter (or so) dual-sided cord with a straight plug.

The HD25 (not that you asked) is much bassier, more sensitive, brighter, and all around more fun. But it is less balanced by far. For rock and some jazz it is very good, but if you ask me the HD25-SP wins out for piano and classical because it is much better balanced, while the HD25 blows the bass way out of proportion. HD25 comes with a single-sided 1.5-meter cable with a right-angle plug.

The other small headphone often mentioned in these discussions is the DT231. I find it a very mushy-sounding headphone, with poor isolation (and some leakage), but it does fit all the way over your ears (if they're not too big), and it has fairly deep bass.

 

[humanflyz]

Ok, so from your description, I'm definitely not going to get the PX200 because I cannot possibly imagine earpads that small being comfortable.

That leaves me with the ATH-FC7 and the Sennheiser HD25-SP. So to people who have experience with both of them, how do they compare? From reading other threads I learned that the earpads on the FC7 are 70mm in diameter. Are the HD25-SP earpads comparable to that size? In fact, I would welcome any comparison between the two, and there doesn't seem to be any comparisons done between them when I searched old threads.

 

[humanflyz]

Bump

So, can anyone tell me? I'd really appreciate it.

 

[sumguy_]

Quote:

Originally Posted by episiarch I have K26P, PX200, HD25-SP and HD25. /clip

Thanks for your comments.

 

[Lisa]

If the earpads of the HD25 are the same size as the hd25sp than it's 7cm in diameter.

 

[atomic]

Humanflyz:
I have both the FC7's and the K26P's. Yes, the FC7's are a bit bigger as you noted and, IMO, they sound better than the K26P's, less muddy. However, for me they were less comfortable because of the size of the earcups - the FC7's are such a size that they press on the outer edges of my ears, and this gets kinda painful after a while, and the K26P's press more on the center, sturdy part of my ears. Also, the FC7's are less isolating, which probably has something to do with their better sound.

So if you find the K26P's too uncomfortable, and you don't need as much isolation, I would definitely recommend the FC7's. They fold up in a very cool way and the pads don't press on each other as much as the K26P's when folded.

 

[humanflyz]

@atomic:

Thanks for the info. I originally was choosing between the K26P and the ATH-FC7, but I think I read your post comparing the two and decided to go with the K26P. But I guess everyone's different. I'll go with the ATH-FC7. Thanks for all the input everyone.

 

[sgrossklass]

Since I went to the dentist today (which involved a bus ride), I had a good opportunity to test the K26P's performance in a fairly noisy environment. After break-in, the cans still feature approximately half a wool blanket in a quiet environment. As it turned out, the isolation came in handy, and there wasn't a trace of any wool blanket. More of the music got through without me having to crank up the volume to hearing-damaging levels when compared to the DT231, and in spite of the higher sensitivity amp noise wasn't an issue with the RF-B11. So far, so good - now they only need to withstand daily (ab)use.
Running some tests now, a series of diracs sounds fairly clean (OK, I didn't expect much reverb either, given the dimensions of the earcups), and a linear sweep (anyone got a log sweep that's neither too fast no too slow?) shows a mostly smooth frequency response with phasiness only setting in pretty high up. There isn't much beyond ~15.5 kHz (as per my test tones), and the high end seems to be rolled off in general - which will probably surprise exactly nobody at this point. The bass reaches pretty deep, I can still feel it at 25 Hz. My bass removal EQ for the HD590 (to get the freq response to approx. linear down there, even with the finite Z_out of my amp) seems to work pretty well for the K26P, at least down to ~70 Hz or so.