AKG K-701

After all the fun of making your own music, producing a final mix can often seem a thankless task. Especially annoying is to fine tune everything to perfection, only to find it becomes a totally different piece of music as soon as played on any other sound system, like home audio, in the car, or worst of all on your phone!

We don't all have acoustically perfect rooms or speakers to mix with, and this was my solution - step up the budget a bit and see what I can do with a decent set of reference headphones. What a difference!

Basically mixing in these cans creates a soundscape that almost always sounds near identical, even on tiny laptop speakers, and definitely recognisable on anything better. No more lost instruments, fuzzy, boomy tracks caused by trying to get a great bass sound in inferior headphones etc.

Pros:
Great value for the price.
Very comfortable to wear for long periods.
No feeling like your ears are sealed in a plastic bag.
Strong cable attachment if you stand on the cable while moving around.
Fantastic results for mixing down complex tracks.

Cons:
They're white - doesn't stay white long in my environment.
The case they ship in is like an altar to bow down and worship in front of. Super sturdy, but made me feel I could have saved 20 bucks if they came in a normal box.

These headphones sound excellent when driven by a good amp and look quite stylish in a retro kind of way. They are only 62 ohm impedance so they need plenty of current. A decent solid state amp with low output impedance is ideal (I use the open source O2 from Epiphany Acoustics) - a tube amp with high output impedance could interact with the low impedance of these headphones and cause anomalies.

The only criticism I have concerns the headband as many have commented on before. The underside has eight hard bumps which start to dig into my bald head after a while and become uncomfortable. I corrected this by sticking some light foam over the central few bumps which contact the head and they are fine now. Comfort rating is 2 stars vanilla and 5 stars after my low tech mod. Non baldies probably won't notice anyway.

The sound signature is very different from my Sennheiser HD650 - the K701 is much "clearer" to me. They have a reputation for being bass shy but if properly driven (see above) there is plenty of deep bass when needed. Both headphones sound great, just very different. I like the K701 particularly with smooth jazz, acoustic guitars and vocals. They are also good for games as the transients have great "punch" for gunfire and explosions. Sonically the K701 is the same as the K702 and Q701 just different aesthetically and with a fixed cable.

Hope this helps Christopher

AKG K701 (Open)
Powerful amp required to make these come alive. No EQ / colouration - Pure flat-line reference phones ; what you hear is what’s on the CD / music.
Very capable of giving high impact bass, sub-bass, and treble. Mids and vocals are excellent too. Separation of instruments is amazing, you can sense the space between the different instruments / sounds.
Due to no colouration they may seem dull compared to other non-reference, more coloured phones as these are reference in the truest sense of the word.
Due to their precision and lack of colouration other genres may sound more clinical, harder to enjoy, I put this down to the mastering process of music simply mismatched for these headphones. Suits ALL genres provided they are well produced, with jazz, classical and vocals it is supreme.
Music has a crystalline sparkling clearness and power that engages and enthralls, and is the closest headphone I have ever heard that makes me feel actually there with the artist/s. Just for perspective I have tried the Sennheiser HD800’s and they are given a run for their money by the K701’s. Considerably less expensive at about ? of the Sennheisers.
I have trouble finding an adjective to sum them up, the closest I can get to a description is spacious, crisp, punchy, phenomenally articulate / lively and an absolute pleasure to listen to.
I think they are from an advanced alien civilization, absolutely awesome!

I will confess that I've not used any other posh headphones, but, these ones certainly are good. They give an incredibly detailed account of the music. At first, it was a little unpleasant to hear things with such clarity, but now, a couple of years later, I'm so accustomed to it, anything else sounds muddy and wrong. I'm agnostic about the "burning in" theory, but at first they did seem quite shrill. Not any more - just really detailed, and there's plenty of bass if it's there in the mix to begin with.

They're extremely comfortable even for longer sessions, and the cable is nice and long. Really well made, I've dropped them several times and they don't complain.

Be aware that, in order to achieve their sound, they are open-backed, and hence not suitable for recording, because they leak a lot (you end up recording what you're playing along to, which is a problem if it's a metronome). With a guitar on high gain, you can actually take them off and use them as speakers in a small room (if playing alone, I mean).

Anyway, for what they're intended as - mixing headphones - they're fantastic.

Just to start with, I can say that I know fair bit about headphones.
I do build my own headphone amplifiers for many years and do own more that few various headphones to spoil myself.
I have to say that these are my favorite to the date.
Believe me, that even my HD800 are not used that often as these here,they K701 are just fantastic.

One thing need to be said though, you do have to drive these properly, without enough juice you will not hear its full potential, but just providing enough current and these do sound phenomenal, its a class for itself.

These are no new to the market, and have proved to be trusted choice for many. Providing you can give them what they need, and you will love them.
The bottom end of the spectrum is where these can show their true capabilities when you can feed them with enough power. Highs, and middle are just majestic, and every type of music and recording sounds just natural and organic. Can't fail them for anything.

I also believe that they are fantastic value, to the date these are best you can buy, not spending crazy money for the pair of headphones. I own/ed many far more expensive headphones, and some of them are not even close to these, where it comes to the sound quality and tonal balance. You will not be disappointed with these, they are just worth the listen.
I have also K7xx (limited edition) but 701 are far more natural and organic for me and my accompanied headphone amplifier.

Give them a try and have fun, out there.

As a sound engineer I listen to my mixes through these headphones for a second reference. I find these headphones to be very detailed, and they do not colour a mix as much as other headphones do. I guess they will never have a headphone that is completely flat, but this one comes close enough to flat. It hasn't got and exaggerated bass response like most models. It has a little bump in I think around about 1 1/2 - 2 K and that I learnt to get used to by listening to a lot of mixes, and the bass response is a little bit on the cautious side, but like every sound engineer you will have to get acclimatised to the headphones you are working with, these headphones are my choice because of the clarity they deliver, and they work perfectly for me as a second reference.