[jarnauga]

Hi happy AKG K712Pro users, I want to address a different issue that I saw few days ago in a review. I think in this very site.

The reviewer assessed the treble as 'slow'. I doesn't understand how it can be. I will try to explain my confusion:

I only do digital but I have a good memory/exposure in the long past about good vinyl. I also have experience through ownership of different models along the years that have problems in the treble when the program, the software, the material is complex. If it pushes things by a busy soundscape in the upper region then some of them make more noise than music, similar in fact to white noise.

I also regarded this model as an outstanding 'renderer' of brass instruments, trumpets, wind metal in general. I'm talking about the 'tone colour' or timbre. For a trumpet or a horn that means to show the high pitch plus the resonances and overtones up and down.

I tried lately to understand and keep myself educated in Bruckner symphonies. I found a copy of the 7th with Karajan from 1971, remastered by EMI to a high standard with the original tonmeister, the sound engineer that did the original vinyl master.

At the end of the 2nd movement in one of those crescendos with tutti orchestra, up and up in sound pressure and more and more instruments, a horn takes the lead up and above the busy landscape. And it sounds wonderful, repeating the melody whilst the full team is playing like crazy around. And you can hear everything. There is no glitches, no noise, no doubts. If the treble is not fast, and I mean really really fast, how can it be?

More feedback:

I have two problems that appears from time to time: greyness and, unrelated to the former, a flattening of the tempo. The first issue can be related to the amp. I'm almost sure of it. I'm looking for expression, for prosody of the musical passage (the patterns of stress and intonation). If I can't retrieve it and the music is dull but I know it is in the music, record and interpretation then I have to assume something is wrong in my playback chain. Sometimes it is the electricity or some other problem with machinery working at home. So I prefer to listen in the night. But at the moment I can't address this issue: if I need a new amplifier I want something like an ECP DSHA... or it won't be a real upgrade. So I have to wait.

The funny bit and very complex for me is the effect, psychological maybe, of 'flattening the tempo'. Could be because it is a monitor of sounds not music, because it puts forward everything to the same level of consciousness so your mind has to address and discard so many unmusical sounds, I don't know. I notice that in a few recordings, romantic takes and music with outstanding interpreters that do their job by stretching, delaying or pushing the bow or a key press longer, harder or slightly shorter or softer along the whole composition to express more emotion, the music is less dramatic, less 'virtuosistic', and more plain in general. All the music is simpler by a degree. The fast response to any change in pitch and the quick anticipation pays off wonderfully in any music from the 20th century onward though. And also some noisy and spectacular Mahler, for example.

It is not a problem with older recordings where some noise and softness is all around in the music. But a modern, digital, clean, pitch black background, detailed recording, it is a problem: the simplification, the detachment. And it is at the same time showing full colours, sounds with soul and beauty in the deep core of the music. Examples of modern compositions like Per Norgard 3rd by Segerstam on CD is an incredible experience (and it will be the same with any modern neutral full range, super nice treble headphones).

Maybe what I'm describing is not a problem in the headphones but a cold SS amp showing what it is inside and what it can't do (Lehmann Audio Linear at 0db gain, the other two settings increase distortion). Am I looking for tubes maybe? This effect didn't happen, at all, with my K501, or with my DT770-250.

In the meantime I just enroll in my small collection of gear a Beyer DT1990. It is few days old and mostly shouty and a bit dark. But very neutral and with a surprisingly good tone with violin. I just bought a Sibelius Concerto to test it in full... And I want to test my amp and the 'flattening the tempo' effect further.

 

[trellus]

i asked akg and the response was that the k712 pro are still made in Slovakia only. NOT china. other akg's are made in china like the k7xx among others but not the k712 pro. if someone got a pair "made in china" they are probably fake. can you post pics of the whole box? both of my pairs came from china sellers, both made in slovakia, both checked serial number wise with akg firectly both genuine product.

Exactly... all we've seen is the bottom of a box, I'm wondering if the rest of the box would shed some light on whether it's a fake or not -- although I know there are some convincing fakes as far as boxes. And I wonder what the sticker on the headphones themselves says.

@Deftone what does your pair have on the inside right below the headband, above the right ear cup? Here's what mine says:



And here's the part of the box that looks similar to what you showed -- except that there's no AKG logo on mine, unlike yours -- that's one difference:



Here's the box on the front:



And here's the side where the Acton sticker is -- clearly sold by a Chinese seller:

 

[swagadelic]

just type your serial number and it can be tested at AKG

 

[trellus]

just type your serial number and it can be tested at AKG

Yeah, I have no concerns about my pair, might be a good thing for people to do who are worried they have a fake.

 

[swagadelic]

yep, having a pair made in china seems very strange, so id recomend that person do email AKG with his serial number to double check

 

[Deftone]

Exactly... all we've seen is the bottom of a box, I'm wondering if the rest of the box would shed some light on whether it's a fake or not -- although I know there are some convincing fakes as far as boxes. And I wonder what the sticker on the headphones themselves says.

@Deftone what does your pair have on the inside right below the headband, above the right ear cup? Here's what mine says:



And here's the part of the box that looks similar to what you showed -- except that there's no AKG logo on mine, unlike yours -- that's one difference:



Here's the box on the front:



And here's the side where the Acton sticker is -- clearly sold by a Chinese seller:

I completely missed the sticker on the inside, it does say made in Slovakia EU. The box does say though thats its manufactured in China, i will assume this is a printing error.

 

[swagadelic]

ok. i have a few updates. i listened to a headphone amp today, a Pro-Ject head box, i believe it was called. It was something like 550 euro so out of my league but holy crap.
It was the first time I heard the full potential of the headphone. The source was a Audiophile grade CD player with an "audiophile mastered" cd playing.
I dont even feel like saying more I was just blown away.

Anyway, back home and I feel a bit short changed with my UR22, with its crappy HP amp, and even using my HiFi stereo as its amp - there are still not enough power to fully drive these ****ers.
I can get it sounding very nice and loud - but I still feel there is not enough juice to fully drive the low end and the openess of these phones.

ANYWAY

here is my EQ setting I currently use, and it sounds pretty ****ing good even from youtube and everywhere else.
There sure is a problem with the tuning of these phones in the 6k and 10k area....


So try this if you want to.

 

[swagadelic]

i also dont feel the above EQ is necessary in music mastered in the 90s. but music mastered later than that, needs it. especially music mastered in the 10s.
its also only needed in the more sibilant songs mastered in the genre of hip hop and metal. some trance too.

but even if you keep it enabled all the time its fine, its just some tracks might sound a bit too dark.
this is a track where the above EQ removes all the sibilance from the snare drum and make it sound pleasant

 

[swagadelic]

here is another thing ive notice with these phones.

they are brutal when it come to ear fatigue. you might use these headphones for lets say 3 hours. you dont feel paticularily fatigued, but your ears are.
take a 5 min break, come back, and you will notice the sound change immensly.

this is a problem nothing can fix.. perhaps using the above EQ will darken the headphones just enough to not fatigue you - but if you just take a 5 min break - come back - all of a sudden your headphones will sound way too warm and dark, and you wanna BOOST the frequencies you just cut previously.

its very tricky, and this is why these phones arent all that great for mixing sadly. I said they were previously but they really arent. They are good for mastering though , when short period listening is vital.
They are also of course very pleasant for every day listening, but unfortunately they are not really good for production and mixing.

 

[swagadelic]

and the absolute final thing that i want to add about these headphones, in regards to mixing is this.

lets say you get a cheap pair of phones for mixing. like m50x or whatever. you get to know them quickly. youll be like "ok if i make these phones sound like THIS, it will sound like THAT on a proper system".

im pretty sure most of you have gone through this. and its fun. it might not sound great to you at the time, but you know your phones. you know if you make them sound like THAT, it will sound like THIS once you listen to it on a reference system.
now lets get onto the problem with these headphones.
the k712 sound good no matter what you do. There is no sense of "ok if i mix like This, it will sound like THAT".

That does not exist here. If you mix like this, it will sound like this.
Thats a huge problem and again why these pair is not suitable for any sort of production or mixing work.
you will get fooled, and you will be unable to make critical decisions.
you simply CANNOT set levels using this pair.
there IS NO "ok, if it sounds like THIS, i know it will sound like THAT".
it is simply "it sounds like THIS, so it sounds like THIS".

now, i know what you are thinking. isnt that great? no, its not. because headphones no matter which pair are inherently bad at mixing. thats just the way it goes. you get zoomed in to the mix.
you dont see the big picture. but with cheaper, closed back, crap headphones, you can get to know them. thus you know what to do with your mix in order to sound the way you want.
with this pair - you are in the blind at all times. you have no clue. it doesnt even matter if you A/B reference your favorite tracks - you will get lost in the mix.
these sound TOO good for you to mix in them.

For mixing, you want
a) closed back
b) fairly poorly sounding
c) ability to know what your headphones sound like when something sound "good".

with these headphones you got none of that. everything sound "good", its impossible to mix.

 

[Deftone]

here is another thing ive notice with these phones.

they are brutal when it come to ear fatigue. you might use these headphones for lets say 3 hours. you dont feel paticularily fatigued, but your ears are.
take a 5 min break, come back, and you will notice the sound change immensly.

this is a problem nothing can fix.. perhaps using the above EQ will darken the headphones just enough to not fatigue you - but if you just take a 5 min break - come back - all of a sudden your headphones will sound way too warm and dark, and you wanna BOOST the frequencies you just cut previously.

its very tricky, and this is why these phones arent all that great for mixing sadly. I said they were previously but they really arent. They are good for mastering though , when short period listening is vital.
They are also of course very pleasant for every day listening, but unfortunately they are not really good for production and mixing.

i think the treble on K712 is silky smooth but i find the HD650 fatiguing.

 

[491838]

I disagree about the harshness for the most part but on some days I noticed my hearing is more sensitive so sometimes they can indeed sound a bit harsh, especially on certain tracks.

As for using them for mixing, they are very useful in my opinion. They bring you closer to the sound and you can pick up details that you can't hear on more modest monitors. If you want to reference on crappy headphones, buy some cheap IEMs. In fact many mixing engineers do do that.

 

[Rvl1]

I have the k712 and the Teac a-h01 and Audio Technica at-ha20 headphone amps
I want to get something better to listen to my ipods , iphones and ipad(netflix)

I also have hd595 , hd558 , sony mdr-xb1000 cd900st
Also listening thru my Oppo bdp95

 

[swagadelic]

https://www.tradera.com/item/340269/322326599/akg-k712-pro-referenshorlurar

just thought id share. on sale on a swedish auction site (owned by Ebay) for around 160 euro. These are brand new in box, and is the AUSTRIAN model!
so I just HAD to share in-case someone wanted to get their hands on a NEW pair of Austrian made ones.

I wrote the user selling to add original pictures, of the box and more. lets see if he does.

 

[swagadelic]

good news, the guy has added pictures of the box and contents! it certainly is new!