One of Many : List of best mix/mastering headphones 2020

I am a AKG 701 user and I am very satisfied ...

...Are you sure they cost that much? The AKG702 (which is the same as the 701 but is black and has removable cable) on Amazon Italy costs less than 160$ (135euro).
Perhaps it would be ...
I did see the Pro Audio K702s at $209 on Amazon U.S. Same specs plus detachable cable and replaceable earpads. I believe these are manufactured at a different source at lower cost.
 
I never understood the need for detachable cables? is that to replace them easier like the ear pads?
The differences of 701 and 702....the choice gets real subjective Id' imagine. That 701 with the stand and leather headband, it looks like a serious pair of gear. The SOS articles have always been a top shelf reference for me and that comment on the 701 leans me toward those.
 
Just received my K701s - Amazon's 5-8 day free delivery arrived in a swift 2 days. LOL, my last pre-covid lockdown order took almost 2 weeks.

As far as these much lower priced phones being real or fake, everything about the packaging, paperwork and phones themselves looks quite authentic. All the numbers are in place - full ser # on box's outer surface and numerical portion on inner surface of LH headband. Small sticker on LH underside of leather headband states Made in China. The serial number format matches that supplied on AKG's site.

I emailed AKG requesting authentication. Before I do anything with these they'll sit in their stand atop my desk until AKG confirms authenticity - or not.

The only thing I did was to try them on. My first impression was WOW! These not only cover my ears, they swallow them! The headband holds the cups in a comfortable position, not pulling down on my ears. My ears are a bit larger than the average bear's, so that's something. If I can restrain myself from using Brylcreem or some other type of bear fat to hold my hair in place, these earpads may last for some time.

A note about packaging :

The display box is quite substantial. Although plastic rules the world these days (and this is molded plastic), my first impression was that of 1/4" plywood or particle board. Weighty, stiff and not very flexible. Could probably withstand the odd cinderblock attack.

___________

I also downloaded a nice PDF with full blowup of all service parts along with a parts list.
 
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I never understood the need for detachable cables? is that to replace them easier like the ear pads?...

...
I like the detachable cable feature. With my Tascam TH-200x, the straight cable is always underfoot and frequently yanks my head. That's while sitting at my desk in a swivel chair working on my PC or just listening to music. When I'm standing, tracking myself on guitar, I take care to route it out of the way but if I move too much it gets underfoot easily. It's almost as aggravating as smacking your glasses on your car's door opening while sliding in.

One home basement studo I was in had the phones in the tracking rooms coming down from a drop ceiling - hung on a wall hook. That worked great.
 
interesting on the detachable cables...never thought of that...ive never had that happen with wires yanked out..

congrats grabbing the 701...I would think they are OEM. And they did come with the stand?
for that price I was imagining the stand didnt come with the set.

WIKIpedia shows-
In 2016 it was announced that the AKG Vienna facilities (headquarters, manufacturing, and engineering) would be shut down in 2017, with a transfer of brand headquarters to California, USA. Most current AKG-branded products are made in Harman's overseas production facilities


The SOS article offers some good confidence data...that kind of sold me on them. I noticed theres some Quincy Jones sets...signature series.
They are cool looking phones. Comfortable looking.

add: I went rabbit hole on the new ones vs old ones, and it was years ago....no change in sound and actually several prefer the new bands over the old ones....youve probably read the same.
 
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In my initial Email with Harman's rep, he stated they were not aware of any knock-offs at this time but would check mine if I would send pics of stickers, labels, box and phones. I sent those and am awaiting a reply.

They did come with the stand, which is quite handy since it provides a smaller footprint on my desk and floor when phones aren't being used. These have a sticker "Made in China".

Re new vs old, reading the article posted earlier on headphone burn-in, it would seem that used phone's performance could well be inferior due to being burned in "on the fly" so to speak - just plugging and playing whatever they were used for... that based on the proper burn-in supposedly "stretching" the diaphragms, increasing their response accuracy and flexibility. Even with all that, I'm sure my ears will notice very little if any difference - but the next owner may appreciate them should I ever sell them in the future.

I decided to go ahead and do the burn-in while I'm waiting on Harman to reply. I'm going the 5 hours/day for 10 days route. What the heck.. I won't be needing them for awhile.

I shouldn't have thrown the delivery box away as I may want to cover the phones during the process. I'm in the next room and it sounds like a couple of satellites scrambling about in there. Then there's the Star Trek TOS hand phaser on overload.. :eek:
 
I have used the AT MX70 for Tracking & Mixing. Reasonable price @ $299 and they do everything I personally need
 
I did the burn-in thing, then using a free YouTube frequency sweep I checked my hearing range.
It's not professional but I get some idea of where I'm at.

The sweep range was 20Hz to 20kHz. My hearing was in the 35Hz to 8500kHz range. Not too awful in the low end but quite a loss in the highs.

I have to say though, with these AKG 701s I can hear more in the mids and highs than with my TH-200x phones. I guess much of that may be due to a combination of the bass not washing them out and the 701's better response in that range.
 
that makes sense, "the bass not washing it out"....

I took a hearing test in a real room, and one online myself and the results were the same.
then in my studio-room I found I had to turn the volume up a bit to get my best results which is normal, the high freqs come back with volume.
My kids often play me songs on their shitspeakernanosizedplasticdistortion phone speaker and I tell to send it to me...Im not ready for that crap level.
Earbuds are ok and can sound ok....but I prefer nice, large sound scapes with crisp highs and low lows...so OpenBacks and nice amp is as good as it gets.

I understand for mixing and the translation thing people will test the mix out on laptop speakers, earbuds, cars etc...a lot of work, thats no different with mixing on headphones, imo.

so far you like the 701's it sounds like... great price, they look well built..
 
On the first run through, I did turn the volume up at the start and about halfway, around 9000kHz, to see if I could hear. Didn't make enough difference. Second run through, I left the volume at around 50%.

I like the idea of earbuds but they don't perform well in my ears. Less low frequencies are heard. I need something like IEMs molded to my ear canals, but are outside my budget at this time.

The 701s are the most comfortable phones I have ever worn. They don't pull downward and the leather band works perfectly in that regard. The website images look like metal components but these are mostly a type of plastic. Still, they appear well built.

I haven't stepped on or yanked the cord so far..:listeningmusic:
 
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