AKG 701 Headphones REVIEW

My Overall Rating:

Available on Amazon.com for $275.00

If you’re looking for a headphone with audiophile sound but for a much better price compared to other headphones that are in the thousands of dollars range, then you may have heard of the AKG k701.

The AKG K701 is currently on sale with a  49% discount from Amazon.com

The AKG headphone has been described as a studio monitoring headphone, clear, precise, relatively bass light, and illuminating etc.

Is this true?

I will have to say that it is one of the nicest headphones I have heard. But there are pros and cons to these cans (see below).

I compared the AKG 701 with the Beyerdynamics DT in the same price range and also Sennheisers in the $2500 range and found that the AKG:

1. Were more detailed and less muddied
2. The treble (mids quality) and highs were clear and pristine
3. The bass is relatively light compared to other headphones but the bass quality was tight, natural and controlled and I preferred this to the bass heavy phones that make bass sound unnatural
4. The sound seems to come from outside your head than in your head – this makes these headphones speaker like. This was one of the nicest and pleasurable qualities of this headphone and makes the sound seem like its coming from speakers in the room and is more pleasurable than the other headphones. And the soundstage is wide, quite wide in fact that with orchestral music you can hear where all the different instruments are coming from all the way from left to right and in terms of how far away the instrument are.
5. The comfort is very good with the circum-aural pads that go all around the ear than on it, and the cans can stay on your head for ages.

Basically you hear more of the music and more detail and the soundstage being outside your head makes it a pleasure to use headphones instead of getting overwhelmed and having to take them off for breaks.

When you go from the AKG 701s to the other phones, you notice that the other phones have bass that sounds unnatural and overbearing and details get lost and muddied.

With piano sounds, the notes are heard clearly and the way they are struck and the overtones and resonance can be easily heard. With orchestral, all the instruments can be heard in their place and the strings have real life, with drums and vocals, it is all crystal clear and punchy.

I have tried it with the Meier concerto, and the Burson HA160, and were excellent matches for both, and preferred it when compared to the Hifiman HE-6 or the Sennheiser HD 650 or HD800. The timbre of instruments is so clear and real texture with the Meier and so smooth and yet detailed with the Burson.

Do you like modifying your phones?

If you do, you can get them modded to become balanced and the sounds becomes even better. It will cost more but if you want to upgrade in future you can. Some examples of AKG recabling options are the Cardas ‘fat pipe’ xlr balanced cable, the apuresound, or the ALO cables.

The specs?

Weight without cable: 235 g

Sensitivity: 105 dB/mW, dB/V

Audio bandwidth – Frequency response (Hz to kHz) 10Hz – 39,8 kHz

Max input power: 200 mW

Impedance: 62 ohms

Convertible jack plug (1/4″ to 1/8″)

2-Layer diaphragm

99.99% oxygen-free cable

You can see customer reviews and headphone reviews to find out more.

For audiophile quality headphones that performs with headphones many times its cost, then have a close look at these headphones the AKG 701.

The AKG 702 is similar except in color and with a detachable cable. In terms of sound, I have found a difference (I will explain in a later post), but many others have not found a difference.

To summarise:

Pros:

Detailed sound

Excellent sound in all frequencies

Wide soundstage

Comfortable

Price (compared to other audiophile headphones)

Cons:

For best sound requires burning in (the smoothness of the treble improves over time)

Not bass heavy, but the bass is accurate and tight

Because it is detailed, a poor quality source can be easily heard, so use a good source such as CD quality files and better.

This top audiophile headphone has been commented as “closest thing to the sound of live instruments” in a recent review.

Get the new AKG 701 headphones here at the best price:

The AKG K701 is currently on sale with a 49% discount from Amazon.com

Tags: AKG 701, AKG 701 Headphones, AKG k701, AKG k701 Headphones

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 4:15 am and is filed under Headphones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.