Unfortunate things happened to AKG N5005. I ordered 3 weeks ago and AKG/Harman shipped via UPS mail innovation, the tracking says it reached to my nearest UPS shipping facility but pending acceptance. And it’s been sitting there forever.
I called AKG to see what’s going on the feedback upon their investigation was:
“N5005 is out of stock, so we can’t deliver it to you anymore. We will process a refund to your original payment”
Hmm! Interesting. The actual shipment says arrived at my nearest UPS facility and pending their acceptance scan.
Where did the shipment go?
Anyway, just a heads up for someone who run into same issue like me with AKG/Harman in the future. Good part is I didn’t need to wait 30min to connect to a customer rep, only 30sec or so for the queue which is very good.
Misfortune and fortune came at the same time.
The missing UPS N5005 arrived. Good part.
UPS placed the package directly on a driveway right outside of my garage door…
I stepped over the N5005 with my 2ton car.
Package destroyed.
Lucky part.
AKG packaged N5005 very very well. No wonder it’s called a flagship. Contents seemed still ok, uncertain if that’s functional or not.
I’m not sure about the refund AKG mentioned. If I get, wow thank you as xmas gift! If not fine.
If anyone have same delivery pending situation, it may worth your 10min calling them, if lucky you may get a chance of free gift
[update…] right ear IEM is damaged…
▶︎fit issues (one of weirdest fit, Wu is hard to fit one for me as well, probably need nose extended type like one of those spinfits)
you can see the angle of nozzle is weird, and the way MMCX pin sticking out of shell also didn’t match with mine. A small IEM, but hard to fit for some.
Left is HEXA, right is N5005.
Once you removed MMCX, it’s extremely to put it back. The shape of IEM is too round and there is not point you can add force to click MMCX on to the IEM. Bad design…Harman.
▶︎
sound:
clear & reference-y style,
but very low in bass, not sure it’s a fit or breakage on right IEM.
I hear bass-light. Harman-neutral with primary priority in imaging & Variations like Sub-bass L- lift. I can see crinacle wouldn’t value this coloration for treble.
It’s a bit rough, but reference tuning is that of Variations without 3khz pinna gain peak, and little spice added for staging effect.
What that dip&peak for? It’s to pull out “voice in your head” out, then actually widen the spotlight light area to the whole grand piano on the stage.
The dip/peak is an artistic expression, and of course it will divert from technical accuracy.
Visual Example: Technically Accurate
Visual Example: Artistic
Which one is better?
It’s up to listeners preference, where you like to see the musical with all lights on— technically correct — or You want to see spotlight emphasizing main actors. N5005 belongs to later one.
—Reference Tuning filter
Great balance between thin&thick, note weight isn’t too light nor too heavy.
I see AKG’s “AESTETICA NEUE” here.
I can see this tonality is a little bit warm compared to Moondrop’s Dusk/Variations. Pretty close to Blessing2 in overall tonal weight balance, highlighting around upper-mid but avoiding peaks, which makes sound very pleasant.
After proper sealing, N5005 has sub-bass elevation even with reference tuning, which I do like quite a lot.
N5005 is tuned as gain spot avoiders, it takes evasive actions (dip) around pinna gain area, and harsh sounding area.
That makes N5005 a very pleasant to listen IEM. I loving it.
Not a typical Harman curve coming out of Harman Flagship, wow.
Diffusion field natural? No. It’s a piano concert stage type, decent spotlighting on the grand piano on the stage (not like moondrop’s spotlight on female vocal’s mouth style, N5005 has wider range of spotlight)
▶︎fit issue adjusted: using spinFit W1, still have little uncomfortableness, but N5005 starts to shine. Great tuning! One of very coherent IEM. Balanced and no sign of distortions that you feel from blessing2’s or any dd+BA dynamic’s “change in driver type” of response speed lag (timbre inconsistencies), I forgot if N5005 is a hybrid or not, but it certainly is very timbre consistent. (Confirmed N5005 is 4BA+1DD.
▶︎How the bass DD? It’s still out of box, so I’m not still sure. Not as fast as LCP ones you find in Variations/HEXA. But not too sloppy as well like the ones you find in blessing2s, Tea, Yume, etc.
▶︎N5005 has one BA directly located inside nozzle camber, like the ones you can find in KBEAR Lark, KZ ZAX.
1BA(probably mid-range to my ear) in the nozzle, 3BA inside housing.
To my ear it sounds like 2BA(supertweeer)+1BA(upper-mid)+1BA(mid- upper bass) + 1DD (subwoofer) 4 way composition. Of which 1BA inside the housing for mid thru upper bass having a coverage for the driver transition from BA to DD, to smooth out timbre consistency. The upper-mid BA in the nozzle for mid body articulation.
But that’s just a wild guess, it also could be the nozzle BA as
super tweeter, and 2BA for upper mid, 1BA for lower mid to bass transitional liaison. Need some time for a detailed listening session for a better understanding.
▶︎acoustic filter test:
-Changed ear tip back to stock, white one(a spinfit copy, with harder silicone). W1 somehow lowers bass floor, so it’s not a particularly good match unless you want a dead flat neutral bass.
Bass boost acoutfilter:
Pretty satisfying warm U-tuned, Modern IEM tuning.
—Is it worth $199+tax? YES. Great! Packages, sound, all flagships premium.
500? Maybe? RSV is 730.
At asking MRSP 1k? Hmm not for me.
I will do a detailed review later on.
▶︎N5005’s cable is better made than W80’s and on top of that, N5005 has 2.5mm balanced MMCX vs 3.5mm SE MMCX of Westone’s. For this alone I’m so happy since I have very few mmcx cables that goes TRRS. Below is W80 with N5005’s 2.5mm stock cable.
—Any change on W80 with this cable? YES HUGE. I see 3-4db of opened up treble (4-7khz) a lot more visibility on W80 than stock cable. I love this tuning on W80. Almost VX like tonality.
I hope you guys don't mind that. Thanks.
