AKG K701 Headphone Reviews (China and Austrian Made)

[Presently42]

Sorry I should have mentioned this. Without EQ I didn't think spatial qualities stood out. With EQ I got some of it but still not enough for impress me. BTW, shortfall in 1 to 3 kHz region is a sure of way of NOT having good spatial qualities in my experience.

How interesting! You're certainly the dissenting voice amongst the crowd!

I really must think of some way of measuring and predicting spatial qualities. I'm not yet not convinced, that it doesn't have to do with delay at certain frequencies....

 

[Robbo99999]

Well! Colour me saddened! The AKG K701 were my first audiophile headphones, used in conjunction with a diy Beta22 amp, Sigma22 psu and Buffalo Sabre dac I'd made. Before I discovered eq, I thought I had the best system money could buy. I now see, that I was right - iff we base the metric on enjoyment of music. I ended up giving the K701 to a friend after I replaced them with the HD800. Anyway, many fond memories of music I have with them. I had them for ten years or so, so a lot of music (and my thought on how music should sound) is based on their sound. To wit, it took me several months to get used to the Harman target curve.

One thing I notice @amirm didn't remark upon in his review, were the spatial qualities of the K701: they have a reputation for having a delisciously large soundstage and whatnot. For my own part, they are only bested by the HD800 in that field, of the headphones I've heard. I still wish we'd a more solid metric for measuring soundstage!

I agree re soundstage. I have the K702 which is very similar and they have great soundstage for me. I have 3 units of those, the older one with the deeper pads has the best soundstage, it's less impressive in the two newer K702 I bought in 2021 and 2022 - these latter versions have a thinner pad where I can feel my ear touching the driver lightly. Strange that Amir did not really notice the soundstage element, I've not tried the K701, but they're so similar to the K702 you'd think they would have the same soundstage potential.

 

[Snarfie]

Some channel balance datapoints over decades.

K400:

K500:

K500(2):

K501:

K612:

K701: (Austrian)

K702 (Chinese):

K712 (Slovakian):

K7XX:

K812:

They more or less looks the same are they making use of the same drivers/speakers.
I have a AKG K514 MKII but i have the paramatrice filters for the AKG K514. Using them on the MKII version (and a bit tweaking) it sounded much better than whithout. I guess that their frequency response are also more or less the same.?

 

[solderdude]

The 514 drivers are different from the regular series afaik.
Only way to find out is to send them to me to have them measured.

From K601 and upward the drivers did not change much. These all seem to have little to no changes.

 

[kombajn]

@amirm
"I can't recommend either version of AKG K701 without EQ. With EQ, they are fine."
That's your opinion sir. For me K701 where one of the most enjoyable headphones I have ever listen to. Without of any EQ whatsoever. Why? Because of simple fact that everyone hearing is different. We literally percept different frequencies differently. On top of that there is also that soo much depends on taste and individual expectations. Some preferer a lot of bass others a lot of treble. Some like it neutral. Some liked Harman curve. Others like V-shaped and so on. To my mind reviewing headphones based on graph and how well you can bring them using EQ to specific sound profile you like... is a bit pointless.
I highly respect your equipment (dacs, amp etc.) measurements. but headphones review is a bit .... Its like talking about art in my humble opinion.

 

[solderdude]

That's your opinion sir. For me K701 where one of the most enjoyable headphones I have ever listen to.

That's your opinion too sir, based on your personal findings only.

 

[kombajn]

That's your opinion too sir, based on your personal findings only.

Yes. I also have different headphones with different sound signature. Sometime I like airy sound of K701 and sometimes I like heavy bass of Fostex T20Rp mk3. I do not try to bring every headphones to some common level. Instead I enjoy using headphones while letting them be best at aspects they are best at. There is enough different headphones sound profiles to choose for everybody. IMHO there is absolutely no need to change that using EQ.

 

[solderdude]

Most people use headphones this way. Fact remains that most headphones can be improved with some EQ which basically costs nothing.
One can base that on scientific measurements or personal taste.
That doesn't make Amir's nor other measurements nor targets pointless. Its just that you and many others don't see the added value.

 

[staticV3]

It takes some effort to get good at EQing. Just slapping oratory's settings on is not enough in the majority of cases ime.
Every single one of my headphones and IEMs sounds better and more faithful to the artist's intention (I think, haven't asked) once EQed. I would never forgo EQ if I had the choice. In my opinion, they're not different sound signatures, or different flavors for different moods. Just flaws keeping me from experiencing music as the artist intended.

 

[kombajn]

It takes some effort to get good at EQing. Just slapping oratory's settings on is not enough in the majority of cases ime.
Every single one of my headphones and IEMs sound better and more faithful to the artist's intention (I think, haven't asked) once EQed. I would never forgo EQ if I had the choice. In my opinion, they're not different sound signatures, or different flavors for different moods. Just flaws keeping me from experiencing music as the artist intended.

For critical music listening I prefer flat tuned headphones. But there are many others use case scenario other then listening to music. BTW if you like me is a fan of music from 70 and 80 then will you use current reference headphones or ones from the period to listed to music "as intended by the artis"? Because they for sure didn't use anything tune to match Harman curve. It is all relative . As for using EQ - I prefer new, different pads and adding or removing dumping material to re-tune headphones. But that require a lot more trials and error and knowledge of what modification will do to sound signature.

 

[Robbo99999]

For critical music listening I prefer flat tuned headphones. But there are many others use case scenario other then listening to music. BTW if you like me is a fan of music from 70 and 80 then will you use current reference headphones or ones from the period to listed to music "as intended by the artis"? Because they for sure didn't use anything tune to match Harman curve. It is all relative . As for using EQ - I prefer new, different pads and adding or removing dumping material to re-tune headphones. But that require a lot more trials and error and knowledge of what modification will do to sound signature.

The problem with physically modifying headphones is that you don't know for sure what changes you're making to the frequency response, whereas with EQ you do know. The other problem is that physical modifications can cause unwanted side effects like increased distortion.....so physical modification is a difficult way to go about it.

 

[Luke Lemke]

For critical music listening I prefer flat tuned headphones. But there are many others use case scenario other then listening to music. BTW if you like me is a fan of music from 70 and 80 then will you use current reference headphones or ones from the period to listed to music "as intended by the artis"? Because they for sure didn't use anything tune to match Harman curve. It is all relative . As for using EQ - I prefer new, different pads and adding or removing dumping material to re-tune headphones. But that require a lot more trials and error and knowledge of what modification will do to sound signature.

Frequency response in headphones vary so much that I don't know what people mean by "flat" anymore. I've heard people saying the DT 1990 is "flat" or "neutral" despite the huge treble peak at 8k. What do you mean by flat?

 

[Mardel]

Interesting review.
I read it and listen musics (S21 Ultra connected through ddHiFi TC03 OTG to NX4 DSD + UAPP + Tidal Hifi Plus) on a brand new China made K701 and I really like it.

 

[zepplock]

I would really don't recommend removing the sticker. It raises not only the bass, distortion raises too. Even more than if you just EQ them.

When that sticker, purposely placed there by AKG, is removed something else besides the amount of bass also changes. And not for the better. The distortion, especially the more audible 3rd, 4th and 5th harmonic.
At 40Hz the 3rd harmonic increases from 0.5% to 4.5% ! (disregard 50Hz, there is a hum component in the measurements)
This can’t be explained by increased bass amplitude as the plot also shows a distortion plot taken using the old analog equalizer (Realistic) which even extends bass even further. That distortion is hardly higher with EQ.
So those contemplating whether or not to perform the ‘bass port mod’ I would say don’t. AKG engineers aren’t idiots and installed that damping material with good reason.
diyaudioheaven

yes, there's no free lunch!
I remember doing it, maybe in 2015? It was before I started actively using EQ on most of my headphones.

 

[staticV3]

Actually, the opposite, making your ears too warm and sweaty is a real comfort Issue on some headphones. The K701 may fare good for comfort, not so much for winter! And now the science question: is the heat isolation of a headphone correlated to its acoustic isolation? I would answer no… except for the obvious closed vs. open back criteria.

Your question intrigued me. Luckily, rtings.com does a lot of tests, including breathability and noise isolation.
Out of 666 headphones and IEMs tested in total as of the time of this writing, 185 fulfill the following conditions:

• Type: On-ear or Over-ear
• Test Methodology: recent (v1.4 & v1.5)
• Test results for both breathability and isolation available

Using these 185 data points, here are a few scatter plots:

No grouping:

-> some correlation visible. How strong is difficult (impossible) to tell due to rtings' non-transparent scoring system.

Open vs Closed vs Semi:


Over-ear vs On-ear:

 

[xaviescacs]

Hi. These are the only "serious" headphones I've owned, so they are my only reference. Can someone with more experience tell me if they have what people call "soundstage"? To which degree this "soundstatge" is equivalent to what amir calls "spatial qualities"? How they compare to, let's say, the HD650 or the HD800 in this regard? Thanks!

 

[Luke Lemke]

Hi. These are the only "serious" headphones I've owned, so they are my only reference. Can someone with more experience tell me if they have what people call "soundstage"? To which degree this "soundstatge" is equivalent to what amir calls "spatial qualities"? How they compare to, let's say, the HD650 or the HD800 in this regard? Thanks!

As far as I know, spatial qualities and "soundstage" means pretty much the same thing. The AKG K series (K701, K702, K712, etc.) is known for having a very good and wide soundstage. Compared to the sennheiser's you mention above, the 650 has less spatial qualities compared to the AKG k701 and the HD 800 has more of it. The HD800 is known as one of the best if not THE BEST headphones in terms of spatial qualities.

This will be debatable for a long time as there's no accurate way of measuring this and people hear soundstage in different ways apparently.

Rtings tries to measure this but I don't know the technicalities behind it (some other people here know a lot about this).

AKG K701 => 7.7

HD 650 => 6.9

HD 800S => 9.2 (I could not find the measurements of the HD800, but they should be pretty similar to the HD800s).

 

[xaviescacs]

As far as I know, spatial qualities and "soundstage" means pretty much the same thing. The AKG K series (K701, K702, K712, etc.) is known for having a very good and wide soundstage. Compared to the sennheiser's you mention above, the 650 has less spatial qualities compared to the AKG k701 and the HD 800 has more of it. The HD800 is known as one of the best if not THE BEST headphones in terms of spatial qualities.

This will be debatable for a long time as there's no accurate way of measuring this and people hear soundstage in different ways apparently.

Rtings tries to measure this but I don't know the technicalities behind it (some other people here know a lot about this).

AKG K701 => 7.7
View attachment 188627


HD 650 => 6.9
View attachment 188628

HD 800S => 9.2 (I could not find the measurements of the HD800, but they should be pretty similar to the HD800s).

View attachment 188629

Awesome! Haven't noticed before this "Passive Soundstage" at Rtings. I see the Hifiman Arya has a 8.9 in that regard, which matches subjective impressions read here, so looks this score is really capturing something.

 

[solderdude]

That's because the Arya measurements were the basis on which the passive soundstage rating was created.
They found Arya had good imaging (likewise the HD800) and wanted something that could 'rate' it with a number and this is what they came up with. Its why Arya and HD800S score high...

 

[xaviescacs]

That's because the Arya measurements were the basis on which the passive soundstage rating was created.
They found Arya had good imaging (likewise the HD800) and wanted something that could 'rate' it with a number and this is what they came up with. Its why Arya and HD800S score high...

It's an Arya socre then! They don't have the Utopias nor any Dan Clark to check other examples. Do you find that score reliable (edit: correlated with subjective assessment)? My knowledge of headphones doesn't allow me to asses that.