[Fitz]

K1000, K240 Sextett, K400 with K401 drivers. I miss the old collection. :/

 

[p a t r i c k]

I bought a pair of AKG K702s about six weeks ago and I am truly delighted with them. What wonderful transparent headphones they are!
 
I actually bought AKG K701s originally but the cable was too short (I blame the iPod generation) so I sent them straight back and they were replaced immediately. With the AKG K702s I can easily create a new cable for them myself which will be a good bit longer. I am surprised at how short the cable is on these headphones. Who wants to sit beside their headphone amp all the time?
 
Apart from the short cable they are, truly superb

 

[Fitz]

That's what extension cables are for. When I'm sitting by my amp I don't want a mile of cable laying there in the way.

 

[TheKisho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by p a t r i c k /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I actually bought AKG K701s originally but the cable was too short (I blame the iPod generation) so I sent them straight back and they were replaced immediately. With the AKG K702s I can easily create a new cable for them myself which will be a good bit longer. I am surprised at how short the cable is on these headphones. Who wants to sit beside their headphone amp all the time?

 
The K701's cable is not much shorter than the classic AKG K240's if i remember correctly.  Longest cable I've seen on any headphones I've ever owned (previous to AKG).   How long do you really want it to be?  Do you want to walk down the hall to the next room?  I can pretty much walk from my desk [which is in the corner of this room], and I can walk across the room without needing an extension cable [and it's a moderately sized room, bigger than the average bedroom].  If you leave your desk how do you control the volume on your amp, unless you have a fancy one with a motor in the pot.
 
 
P.S. Fitz I was always envious of your old headphone collection.  Didn't you have pretty much one of every pair of (quality) headphones that AKG made?  Which one do you miss the most (of the ones you no longer own)?

 

[Fitz]

At one point or another I had just about all of the full-size vintage AKGs, but I never managed to get every version of each headphone (since there were 2-3 versions of most of them, due to production changes...). I want to hear the K290 Stereo again though, I remember really liking that one a lot. It's the K290 Surround but with a thinner cable wired just for 2-channel use. Maybe I should sell some of my spare parts and track down another pair?

 

[TheKisho]

      Do you still have a big stock pile of replacement parts?  It seams like at one point you were (or maybe you still are) AKGs favorite customer [Parts Department].  But I guess the big collection of headphones required a lot of parts to make them all like new once again.
 

      Maybe you should.  I never saw the out come of your experience with them [K290 Surround].  I remember seeing upto the part where you were thinking about finding a cheap used surround sound amplifer locally so you can try them out with the switch box but I don't remember you posting if you did or didn't before you sold them.  

      Did AKG sell the K290 Stereo or was this a personal recabling?  Is it actually wired only for stereo or was this via the stereo adapter?  The stereo version still had the two drivers per cup?

 

[Fitz]

I've spent a few hundred dollars with AKG's parts department, but mostly it was for stuff I needed rather than just stockpiling extra parts. All I have left really are some used parts off of Sextetts.
 
I never really pursued the surround aspect of the K290 much, since I doubted it would be worth it. The K290 Stereo is basically just a factory-modified version for 2-channel only: normal single-entry cable instead of the chunky dual-entry cable for the surround wiring, and some stickers on the earcups to cover the original "Surround" branding. Probably AKG was trying to find something to do with all the unsold K290 Surrounds.

 

[TheKisho]

Enough used parts left to make at least one pair of Sextetts or almost? ;D
 

Are they hard to find? [K290]  I have never seen any for sale on eBay, and I think I only seen two for sale on Head-fi.  Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.  It is possible to recable a stereo back to quadraphonic it sounds like.  Doesn't sound like AKG went to a lot of trouble to rebrand the remaining stock.  It probably is not be worth it to put a lot of effort into trying out the quadraphonic sound of them, but it might be worth trying it out if you had the equipment laying around.  Out of all the quardaphonic headphones I know of, I think the K290's would probably be the best bet at decent quadraphonic headphone experience if there is any hope at all.

 

[Fitz]

For another pair of Sextetts? Probably. I know I have at least 2 pairs of drivers/baffles, but I dunno if I have a complete headband assembly or not.

 

[juanharu4913]

SPeaking of akg does any one have a set of k181 theyd like to sell for cheap?

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

 
The K701's cable is not much shorter than the classic AKG K240's if i remember correctly.  Longest cable I've seen on any headphones I've ever owned (previous to AKG).   How long do you really want it to be?  Do you want to walk down the hall to the next room?  I can pretty much walk from my desk [which is in the corner of this room], and I can walk across the room without needing an extension cable [and it's a moderately sized room, bigger than the average bedroom].  If you leave your desk how do you control the volume on your amp, unless you have a fancy one with a motor in the pot.

The cable I'm used to is the one on my Sennheiser HD540 Ref Golds and it is a good bit longer than the one on the AKG K701s. In fact the HD540 Ref Golds were the last pair of headphones I bought for attentive listening, that was about 20 years ago! I'm not one for rapidly changing hi fi components

 
 
So, maybe in the last 20 years there has been a shortening of cables for headphones?
 
I do have several other headphones which I use for personal/portable use. These have short cables but I don't expect them to have long cables. In fact with them long cables would be a great nuisance.
 
I want to have a cable that I can simply sit in a chair in the room with the audio stuff reasonably far away and not have the cable "suspended" in other words the cable should lie lazily on the floor. I really can't do that with the standard cable on the AKG K701s. I'm delighted that with the AKG K702s that I have I can simply build my own much longer cable and plug it in.
 
My Sugden HeadMaster headphone amplifier does have remote control and I think that this should be fitted to more headphone amps as it is great to have.
 
One thing about listening to music with headphones is that you don't have to sit in a "sweet spot" as you do with speakers, so this means you can sit anywhere you like cable length permitting!

 

[palindrom]

It's all a matter of preferences. I have 3m of cable on my K240 sextett and I find it too long. That's one reason why later versions have mini-XLR.

 

[bhanja_trinanjan]

 
Quote:

The cable I'm used to is the one on my Sennheiser HD540 Ref Golds and it is a good bit longer than the one on the AKG K701s. In fact the HD540 Ref Golds were the last pair of headphones I bought for attentive listening, that was about 20 years ago! I'm not one for rapidly changing hi fi components

 
So, maybe in the last 20 years there has been a shortening of cables for headphones?
 
I do have several other headphones which I use for personal/portable use. These have short cables but I don't expect them to have long cables. In fact with them long cables would be a great nuisance.
 
I want to have a cable that I can simply sit in a chair in the room with the audio stuff reasonably far away and not have the cable "suspended" in other words the cable should lie lazily on the floor. I really can't do that with the standard cable on the AKG K701s. I'm delighted that with the AKG K702s that I have I can simply build my own much longer cable and plug it in.
 
My Sugden HeadMaster headphone amplifier does have remote control and I think that this should be fitted to more headphone amps as it is great to have.
 
One thing about listening to music with headphones is that you don't have to sit in a "sweet spot" as you do with speakers, so this means you can sit anywhere you like cable length permitting!

Too much cable = possible signal degradation.
 
Good Hifi = Short signal Paths

 

[p a t r i c k]

Quote:

Too much cable = possible signal degradation.
 
Good Hifi = Short signal Paths

Hi bhanja_trinanjan
 
Yes that is true

but it is just practicality for me.
 
When I create the longer cable for the AKG K702s I will still have the shorter one so I can compare.

 

[Fitz]

Quote:

 

Too much cable = possible signal degradation.
 
Good Hifi = Short signal Paths

 
Too much cable = trip over it with lights dimmed or after a few drinks. :/