AKG K245 Review

[isostasy]

@IAtaman are you still using these?

I still just have the stock pads but decided to get them out again and try to improve my EQ.

I decided to try physical means of reducing the 7-8kHz peak. A sheet of toilet paper brought the peak down to a couple of dB above the HD6XX which is perfect for me as I usually give the HD6XX a small bump in this area with EQ anyway.

Then I've been trying a new filter around 4khz to fill in the dip. Slightly changed the other filter in the lower mids but doesn't make much difference.

The bass is really great. With EQ I think I prefer it to my HD6XX for some bass-heavy tracks. Shown the measurement in REW down to 10Hz just for fun!

Preamp: -4.2 dB Filter 1: ON PK Fc 190 Hz Gain -2.0 dB Q 1.000 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 1.800 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4040 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 3.000

Can also play around with a low shelf if you want to get crazy: Filter 4: ON LSC Fc 40 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.400

n.b. microphone is new so not comparable with previous measurements in the thread.

n.b. 2: Just realized the narrow dip between 4-5kHz seems to be very similar to the dip in the HD660S2.

n.b. 3: Noticed also another headphone Amir recently reviewed which resembles the K245.... the far more expensive ZMF Caldera but with bass!

 

[IAtaman]

@IAtaman are you still using these?

I do! I had them all week last week in fact. I love them So much so, I ordered a second pair just to have back-up.

I still just have the stock pads but decided to get them out again and try to improve my EQ.

Stock pads were not very comfortable for me I am afraid. I don't like when things touch my ears. Any plans to try them with the Brainwavz pads?

I decided to try physical means of reducing the 7-8kHz peak. A sheet of toilet paper brought the peak down to a couple of dB above the HD6XX which is perfect for me as I usually give the HD6XX a small bump in this area with EQ anyway.

Then I've been trying a new filter around 4khz to fill in the dip. Slightly changed the other filter in the lower mids but doesn't make much difference.

The bass is really great. With EQ I think I prefer it to my HD6XX for some bass-heavy tracks. Shown the measurement in REW down to 10Hz just for fun!

Preamp: -4.2 dB Filter 1: ON PK Fc 190 Hz Gain -2.0 dB Q 1.000 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 1.800 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4040 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 3.000

This is really interesting. You have a 4dB gain filter at 4K while I got a 8dB notch at 3K. Do pads make such big difference?

Can also play around with a low shelf if you want to get crazy: Filter 4: ON LSC Fc 40 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.400

View attachment 339140

n.b. microphone is new so not comparable with previous measurements in the thread.

n.b. 2: Just realized the narrow dip between 4-5kHz seems to be very similar to the dip in the HD660S2.

n.b. 3: Noticed also another headphone Amir recently reviewed which resembles the K245.... the far more expensive ZMF Caldera but with bass!

What microphone you got?

 

[isostasy]

I do! I had them all week last week in fact. I love them So much so, I ordered a second pair just to have back-up.

Lucky, they seem to be sold out and I haven't seen many listed used since I got mine.

Stock pads were not very comfortable for me I am afraid. I don't like when things touch my ears. Any plans to try them with the Brainwavz pads?

You're right they're not the best, I have to wiggle them around to get my ears in and even then I can feel my earlobe squished at the bottom. I had some velour brainwavz pads to test with Fostex RP mods at some point but annoyingly sold them before buying my K245. My experience with Brainwavz pads isn't great though, I always found they messed up the treble too much. Do yours mount on the headphone properly? I measured and I couldn't find a Brainwavz model that had the right dimensions.

These look quite interesting, though I'm suspicious they'll change the sound too much as well.

This is really interesting. You have a 4dB gain filter at 4K while I got a 8dB notch at 3K. Do pads make such big difference?


What microphone you got?

Pads make a massive difference. Here's my old measurement from a previous post about some unbranded perforated pads I have:

Just using a sonarworks measurement mic. Not much of an upgrade on my previous setup as it's still not really the intended purpose but at least it's calibrated now.

 

[IAtaman]

Do yours mount on the headphone properly? I measured and I couldn't find a Brainwavz model that had the right dimensions.

They do. I was using the Brainvaxz XL pads I linked previously. I ordered another pair which arrived yesterday.

Here are two photos showing them on the cans. Black ones are the XL pads. They are a bit larger and deeper. New ones are the red /maroon pads. They are less deep but deep enough that my ears don't touch the drivers. I switched to the red pads, they are comfy and look a tiny bit better than all black in my opinion. I will measure and EQ them to HD600 later tonight.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SOULWIT-Re...17d-9235-00e3a19d2e82&pd_rd_i=B0CHB5B4MJ&th=1

These look quite interesting, though I'm suspicious they'll change the sound too much as well.

Does it matter if they do? You can always measure in-situ and re-tune them with EQ no?

 

[IAtaman]

I measured with my in-ear mic on my own head with the perforated red pads and EQed to match HD600 + bass shelf (graph below).

Red is the K245 and green is the HD600.

Have been listening for half an hour only so can not say conclusively all is well yet, but so far so good.

And here is the EQ that ended me with the FR above:

Preamp: -3dB dB
Filter 1: ON HSC Fc 60 Hz Gain 3 dB Q 0.7
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 900 Hz Gain 4 dB Q 0.2
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1180 Hz Gain 2 dB Q 3
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1620 Hz Gain 2 dB Q 2
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2680 Hz Gain -6 dB Q 1.4
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 5310 Hz Gain -5 dB Q 5

FYI, I only measured and EQ'ed up to 8K.

 

[isostasy]

They do. I was using the Brainvaxz XL pads I linked previously. I ordered another pair which arrived yesterday.

Here are two photos showing them on the cans. Black ones are the XL pads. They are a bit larger and deeper. New ones are the red /maroon pads. They are less deep but deep enough that my ears don't touch the drivers. I switched to the red pads, they are comfy and look a tiny bit better than all black in my opinion. I will measure and EQ them to HD600 later tonight.

View attachment 339589 View attachment 339590
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SOULWIT-Re...17d-9235-00e3a19d2e82&pd_rd_i=B0CHB5B4MJ&th=1

Wow the XL ones are big, guessing the smaller red ones fit on the headphones a bit better too?

Does it matter if they do? You can always measure in-situ and re-tune them with EQ no?

This is true but I quite like a reasonably neutral response before EQ for a few reasons:

- The less variable the treble is the more comfortable I am with EQing it. Hence why I was happy to find I could reduce the 7-8kHz peak with just tissue paper (and confirmed with listening it sounded better).
- Without being able to do reliable distortion measurements I'm not sure how far I could push things.
- I can use them on devices without EQ without suffering too much

 

[IndieSynth]

I picked these up on sale from Amazon a few months ago and am really impressed. I've played around with a few EQ attempts but overall prefer as is. I do think it would benefit from some new pads. Any recommendations for pads to enhance the fit and possibly sound quality with no EQ?

 

[isostasy]

I picked these up on sale from Amazon a few months ago and am really impressed. I've played around with a few EQ attempts but overall prefer as is. I do think it would benefit from some new pads. Any recommendations for pads to enhance the fit and possibly sound quality with no EQ?

See above for pad discussion.

With stock pads I find at least the following EQ filter is required to fill the big hole in the mids: Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 1.800

 

[IAtaman]

I picked these up on sale from Amazon a few months ago and am really impressed. I've played around with a few EQ attempts but overall prefer as is. I do think it would benefit from some new pads. Any recommendations for pads to enhance the fit and possibly sound quality with no EQ?

I have tried 2 sets of pads so far, and both of them required large corrections to sound great. I don't think a pad only solution without EQ would work.

 

[IndieSynth]

Thanks for the responses, sounds like I need to explore EQ again.

 

[isostasy]

@IndieSynth n.b. I find searching for "K540", "K545" or "K845" pads comes up with more results as they are more popular AKG models which use the same pads.

 

[stalepie2]

I had these for a while. From what I understand, though I remember it being denied by someone else prominent in the headphone community (metal571 on reddit), that it was some of the last project of the old guard headphone designers at AKG before they went off to form Austrian Audio, and there was speculation it was like a prototype of the K371 in terms of following the Harman response (of the time)? It was delayed in release, and was often selling for less than $80 after it finally hit the market and was overshadowed by K371 and K361, but those are closed-backs.

The newer DT 900 by Beyer has a warmer response than usual for an open-back, and a Head-Fi post I read compared the bass in it to the K245, saying it reminded him of that, but also perhaps at the detriment of a sense of airness or soundstaging effect, which both seemed to be lacking. So the extra bass gets in the way of that illusion.

The later posts at Head-Fi are often discussing aftermarket pads, by the way @isostasy, @IndieSynth. Read on from here:

New AKG headphones K175, K245, K275

Hey! I've had these for a few days now, these are my absolute first "proper" headphones and for the price I paid (50$) I'm absolutely amazed. At first I was terribly afraid that my pair came faulty with perceptible channel imbalance (Left speaker seemed 3-4dB louder). In the process of...

www.head-fi.org

or some of those later Pages (i don't remember, but they were trying to find the best ones to try on)

A comparison of the sound from these headphones and others can be had on this site (use machine translation, if needed):

ヘッドフォン試聴部屋〜百聞は一聴にしかず

ヘッドフォンの音は実に個性豊かです。いろんな機種の音質の違いを聴き比べてみてください。<br> ※音声置き場が手狭になったためYouTubeへ移しました。

hporz.blogspot.com

 

[FTB]

Hey,

Does anyone know how it compares to the AKG K371 ?
I saw some graphs with similarities : elevated bass, peak in mid-highs.
Coult K245 be a cheap K371 ?

Thanks

 

[isostasy]

I had these for a while. From what I understand, though I remember it being denied by someone else prominent in the headphone community (metal571 on reddit), that it was some of the last project of the old guard headphone designers at AKG before they went off to form Austrian Audio, and there was speculation it was like a prototype of the K371 in terms of following the Harman response (of the time)? It was delayed in release, and was often selling for less than $80 after it finally hit the market and was overshadowed by K371 and K361, but those are closed-backs.

I have no idea about this but some of the posts on head-fi are a bit strange. The member whose post you linked has some strong convictions which are provided without evidence.

The newer DT 900 by Beyer has a warmer response than usual for an open-back, and a Head-Fi post I read compared the bass in it to the K245, saying it reminded him of that, but also perhaps at the detriment of a sense of airness or soundstaging effect, which both seemed to be lacking. So the extra bass gets in the way of that illusion.

I'm fairly confident saying the K245 is probably warmer than the 900 PRO X. Measurements of the latter I've seen look like a straight line or even slightly downward sloping on GRAS or flat-plate couplers. The K245 has the same mid-bass as Sennheiser HD650 but keeps climbing below that and only rolls off (on a flat-plate coupler) below 40Hz, and even then only a little. I would guess on a GRAS coupler it wouldn't be too far off the Harman 2018 bass shelf.

The K245 sounds closed in due to the shortfall in the mids. You really need to boost ~1.5kHz by at 4dB or so to fix this.

The later posts at Head-Fi are often discussing aftermarket pads, by the way @isostasy, @IndieSynth. Read on from here:

New AKG headphones K175, K245, K275

Hey! I've had these for a few days now, these are my absolute first "proper" headphones and for the price I paid (50$) I'm absolutely amazed. At first I was terribly afraid that my pair came faulty with perceptible channel imbalance (Left speaker seemed 3-4dB louder). In the process of...

www.head-fi.org

or some of those later Pages (i don't remember, but they were trying to find the best ones to try on)

A comparison of the sound from these headphones and others can be had on this site (use machine translation, if needed):

ヘッドフォン試聴部屋〜百聞は一聴にしかず

ヘッドフォンの音は実に個性豊かです。いろんな機種の音質の違いを聴き比べてみてください。<br> ※音声置き場が手狭になったためYouTubeへ移しました。

hporz.blogspot.com

Thanks. Do you know what they are using to measure frequency response? First graph I'm guessing is flat-plate but second is captioned "old dummy-head" (translated off course).

 

[isostasy]

Hey,

Does anyone know how it compares to the AKG K371 ?
I saw some graphs with similarities : elevated bass, peak in mid-highs.
Coult K245 be a cheap K371 ?

Thanks

I haven't heard the K371. They are fairly different despite using presumably similar 50mm drivers, due to K371 being closed and K245 open. Different shaped pads and cups too.

K371 measurements look better to me. I would try one if it had the headband and folding mechanism of the K245.

 

[stalepie2]

I have no idea about this but some of the posts on head-fi are a bit strange. The member whose post you linked has some strong convictions which are provided without evidence.

Well, there was just further discussion on the latter pages in that thread about pad replacement, since people seemed unsatisfied with the pads chosen, and that they tear over time, and since it's probably a little-known discontinued product by AKG, i thought there just may be more information over there with what they'd tried.

I'm fairly confident saying the K245 is probably warmer than the 900 PRO X. Measurements of the latter I've seen look like a straight line or even slightly downward sloping on GRAS or flat-plate couplers. The K245 has the same mid-bass as Sennheiser HD650 but keeps climbing below that and only rolls off (on a flat-plate coupler) below 40Hz, and even then only a little. I would guess on a GRAS coupler it wouldn't be too far off the Harman 2018 bass shelf.

The K245 sounds closed in due to the shortfall in the mids. You really need to boost ~1.5kHz by at 4dB or so to fix this.

Probably is warmer. I remember it being that way... that the treble, even the mids, seemed sliding downwards, a bit out of reach of hearing, which made for a "pleasant" listening but I like something a little more upfront. (The new measurements in the Japanese blog seemed to support what I say, as well as the one at Headphonecheck.com, though the one that someone on Head-Fi did shows a flatter, more neutral look. I always find it difficult to understand measurements and how they differ between rigs and compensation methods.

Thanks. Do you know what they are using to measure frequency response? First graph I'm guessing is flat-plate but second is captioned "old dummy-head" (translated off course).

I don't see it said, but it's talked about on the User Guide page here:

ご利用ガイド

サンプル音声について サンプル音声（動画）の音質は収録環境に依存したものであり、また再生環境によっても大きく異なって聞こえます。よって 特定機種のサンプル音声を批評しても全く意味がありません ので、必ず複数サンプルを横並びで比較参照し、それらの出音傾向の違いを確認するといった具合...

hporz.blogspot.com

Google translation:
"The frequency response graph is posted for reference only, but in the past, the measured value of the artificial head that also served as recording was posted, but later switched to measurement on a flat surface. Those with both data are listed together, but only the old artificial head measurement data is posted for models that were released before the switch, and only the plane measurement data is posted for the latest models.

In addition, there is a pseudo-ear measurement environment, but it is meaningless for recording the playback sound of the device and investigating the playback characteristics (rather incorrect because it becomes a duplicate filter), and this is not done because it causes confusion because it is accompanied by a unique curve and a graph that is difficult to understand."

You could try asking him in a comment under an individual post, or at his message form on his other blog, using the web browser to translate or write him something in Japanese. (If that isn't ill-advised)

メッセージ

FMうおぬま「兄貴 with YellowGate 晩方ロック」へのメッセージフォームです。

ygmusicroom.blogspot.com

 

[IAtaman]

I got another pair as my back up pair was taken by a friend who liked it. Got listening to them stock once they arrived. Man, are these a fun pair of headphones out of the box. Highs are a bit boosted so they are not the most tonally accurate headphones, but they are still somewhat well balanced. They provide a sense depth to me, which I really enjoy, and the bass extension is always surprising given these are "open back" headphones. Love them.

 

[isostasy]

I got another pair as my back up pair was taken by a friend who liked it. Got listening to them stock once they arrived. Man, are these a fun pair of headphones out of the box. Highs are a bit boosted so they are not the most tonally accurate headphones, but they are still somewhat well balanced. They provide a sense depth to me, which I really enjoy, and the bass extension is always surprising given these are "open back" headphones. Love them.

Do you mind giving these filters a go with the stock pads and let me know what you think?


Preamp: -13.1 dB Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 100 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.800 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 1.800 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4830 Hz Gain 13.0 dB Q 4.000

Low shelf to taste as you know bass is good on these already - the above just brings it to Harman OE2018.

n.b. I've got a single ply of tissue paper in front of the driver (behind the pad) too but it only brings down highs around 8kHz very slightly - would be ideal if you try the same but shouldn't make much impact on your preference regarding above filters.

 

[IAtaman]

Do you mind giving these filters a go with the stock pads and let me know what you think?


Preamp: -13.1 dB Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 100 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.800 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 1.800 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4830 Hz Gain 13.0 dB Q 4.000

Low shelf to taste as you know bass is good on these already - the above just brings it to Harman OE2018.

n.b. I've got a single ply of tissue paper in front of the driver (behind the pad) too but it only brings down highs around 8kHz very slightly - would be ideal if you try the same but shouldn't make much impact on your preference regarding above filters.

I did give them a try with the stock pads and no tissue paper. They increased three dimensional effect of the headphones. They did not sound sharp either, contrary to my expectation based on 13dB filter at 4.8K. I don't think I will continue using them though as the vocals sounds very distant to me with these settings. As if they are singing in another room behind some thin dry wall.

 

[IndieSynth]

Do you mind giving these filters a go with the stock pads and let me know what you think?


Preamp: -13.1 dB Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 100 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 0.800 Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1430 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 1.800 Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4830 Hz Gain 13.0 dB Q 4.000

Low shelf to taste as you know bass is good on these already - the above just brings it to Harman OE2018.

n.b. I've got a single ply of tissue paper in front of the driver (behind the pad) too but it only brings down highs around 8kHz very slightly - would be ideal if you try the same but shouldn't make much impact on your preference regarding above filters.

Just FYI I'm using this EQ right now and enjoying it. Out of curiosity, how closely does it track Harman OE2018?