OMG - I just realized that this test wasn't conducted with the AKG pads, but different brand velour. That DOES make a difference!
It's the first thing a "modder" does to tweak things - mess with the pads, and/or or the inner lining with different thicknesses of circular felt. Are those the "filters" you speak of in the 1st post? Heck, for filters, temporarily using toilet paper folded to desired thickness works too. But it's not what AKG wants.
Example: I have TWO of the AKG K240's - one at work, and one at home (the mkii's which came with oem velour). I wanted the velours for work, but decided to shoehorn some nicer appearing Beyers on them. DIFFERENT sound - actually worse than the oem AKG velour. So I bit the bullet and got the $$ AKG velours for this pair separately. Now the same sound signature from each.
I was bummed out because the Beyer pads were so nice! (The gray clashed with the overall akg "look", but I didn't care). But unlistenable. Mismatch of material densities and so forth.
Just so you know, if you take off the oem pleatherette plastic pads and look on the back they are totally solid and sealed. Guess what the AKG velours have? A singular hole in the backside.
The Beyers? If memory serves me right (been awhile) they had a bunch of holes in the back of the pad. Part of the problem is that with most of us balking at the cost of oem pads, we may be tempted to fit nice, but mismatched pads (say from Beyer) coming from the "these fit the following brands xxx -" Fit may be fine, but the material used actualy does matter.
So I appreciate this test - but unless one tests with the OEM product, like one would get if they bought off the shelf from a reputable dealer, some of this could be very misleading.
@amirm Please run this test again with off the shelf compenentry as supplied by the manufacturer. Ok, instead of barfing, you might just gag a little.
Otherwise, if we aren't testing with oem supplied pads, all we're doing is testing end-user mods.
[Update] - it's worse than I thought - but the other way around! Look at one 3rd party replacement pad for the Beyers state from the "LTYIVABHTTW" brand - at least they are honest stating that their pads will result in muffled sound due to increased comfort! KIDS - if you replace your Beyer pads, get the Beyers! They were designed for it.
I see what's happening here and why this review was such an outlier for me. Not totally off the mark, but not truly representative.
It's an easy mistake to make. I made the same mistake putting Beyer pads on my AKG 240's, and had the exact same initial response that arminm did with his pair that got submitted. Getting the oem pads, designed for the unit, brought back sanity.