Quote:
Cabling will NOT change the basic character of any cans. It's only a refinement.

Completely agree Dave, and I wasn't meaning to imply otherwise. However it is a 'tweak', a realtively (relative to what you can spend on a source component or an headphone amp that is) cheap way to change the sound, hopefully for the better. Some of us enjoy tweaking just for the fun of it; I know I am not the first to observe that this is a very male-dominated hobby .

Maybe your goal is to get your system to some optimum state and just kick back and enjoy the music? If so, great, but it certainly isn't mine. My system is a journey that I hope will never arrive at a final destination, I am enjoying the journey, tweaking and listening to great music all along the way.

I believe Matias has a Benchmark DAC 1 which is by all accounts a very happy place to be camped out on the diminishing returns curve. A significant improvement in either source or headphone amp from there is going to cost mucho dinero, at least compared to a replacement headphone cable. I found that swapping out the stock cable on the Sennies wrought a really substantial improvement (as did removing the sponges, which was free!). I certainly can't think of any other way I could have similarly improved on the sound of my system with those cans for anything like as little money. If you know different please let me know!

My K701 already belongs to another person, so the recabling is not an issue for me anymore.

I'm thinking on trying the HD650, but not now, maybe later this year. Rumor said that there will be an updated one, let's wait and see/hear.

Been a rumor for about 2+ years now

I like the HD650's and some people still seek out the HD600's for their sound. Changing the cable is easy, and there are easy mods by taking out the foam. And with the right amp they can really sing.

Oh and back on topic... the K701's sound good too, just not my sound signature.

Cheers,

I have the 650s and the 701s and found the opposite. The only thing that I use my 650s for now is on location recording monitoring(I record classical primarily)
the 701s are amazing.. just amazing.

I use them with a Mytek D to A.. divine

Quote:
I'm actually not a big fan of the 701's. I found them to be dry and lifeless. I like the Sennheiser 650's much better. I liked the 501's better too, although not nearly as much as the Sennheisers.

I got the AKG K701s yesterday and spent last night listening to them instead of testing out a new bed with the wife (much to her obvious disapproval)... I drove the 701s directly from a Squeezebox Classic (playing Apple Lossless files) as I don't have a headphone amp yet (I'm considering either a Benchmark DAC1 or Musical Fidelity X-CAN V8)... I also tried driving them with the headphone output of my laptop but it sounded vastly inferior to the Squeezebox ... To say that I'm thoroughly impressed with the 701s so far is a major understatement... I finally understand the reason some people prefer headphones to loudspeakers as the value for money is so much better...

Ooh, a little too much info there about testing the new bed with the wifey but glad you like the 701s! Wait til you get a proper amplification for 'em... besides, they'll start sounding even better after about 300 hrs. The bass will open up even more, without losing that natural sound. Congrats on the score! (Not the kind of the "score" which occurs on the bed - obviously )

Welcome to the club Ajani.

Dave

Quote:
BTW, white noise doesn't seem to break in the 701s, I used 150-hours of bass-heavy music.

agreed. I had great success with about a week of playing the ISOTEK System Enhance disc straight, alternating with Jean Guillou's Organ Spectacular (the most wicked bass having organ cd ive ever heard.. it was previously issued on the formerly defunct DORIAN Label..amazing stuff!

Quote:
Ooh, a little too much info there about testing the new bed with the wifey but glad you like the 701s! Wait til you get a proper amplification for 'em... besides, they'll start sounding even better after about 300 hrs. The bass will open up even more, without losing that natural sound. Congrats on the score! (Not the kind of the "score" which occurs on the bed - obviously )

TMI? My bad... I guess I shouldn't mention how I made it up to her the following morning... ...

Seriously though, the phones are amazing so far, even with only about a dozen hours on them and very very modest source/amplification the sound is truly impressive... Details galore... even the soundstage is starting to open up and give the impression that the music is not starting somewhere in my ear, but that it is coming from outside my head... Bass is clean and can clearly go deep (but so far, definitely not for bass lovers)....

So far I'm very happy with the AKGs

[quoteBass is clean and can clearly go deep (but so far, definitely not for bass lovers)....

I believe Dave replaced stock AKG cables with Cardas and that apparently raises the performance level significantly, especially in the bass. As for me, AKGs sound good enough to not feel the need to change.

I think that the biggest improvement in bass came via break-in in my case. The Cardas added dynamics and clarity at all frequency, but the first 150-hours of break-in solidified the extension and impact of the bass.

My in-ear-monitors, the Ultimate Ears Triple.fi 10 Pros, beat the AKGs in ultimate bass extension, but only by a little and they're not quite as stress free and clear in the upper frequencies. The UEs are still breaking in and will probably improve more, since I didn't run them through a specific break-in period (saving my Woo's tubes). I suppose that I should think about just pushing them with the iPod for a couple of hundred hours. That would help both the iPod and the UEs.

Dave

I'm sure bass will improve with burn-in as you guys have stated... but even if it didn't, I'd still be happy with the bass performance of the K701s... I like to hear deep bass when it's meant to be there, rather than the exaggerated bass that many people like...

I am very happy with it too. The way I see it for most companies is that , well... they have a team of folks who are well versed in audio/engineering etc and probably knew what they were doing when they designed the products, same thing with these headphones. I did have my 650s recabled, foolishly, because I didnt notice a single change. i believe that too many people move to different products/upgrades/ whatever before spending an adequate amount of time with what they have, this goes for hifi gear, microphones, mixers, monitors.. ..it is impossible to determine the strengths/weaknesses of a particular piece in a short amount of time(this is why magazine reviews of gear are worthless to me)..but people do make snap judgements, put out misleading information, and the whole thing spirals into a snowball of clusterfucked misinformation...trends develop, designers adjust for these trends, and we suddenly have products that are inferior to products from "the old days" ... in the early days, equipment wasnt being pimped by every person with a closet to put gear in, or reviewed by joe everyman from backwater bfe. . folks spent a LONG time with the gear(they had to!! ) and learned about the strengths and weaknesses from spending a proper amount of time evaluating, taking notes... and real progress was made.

now we have changes but no real progress. just variations on the same suck ass theme.

Quote:
I'm sure bass will improve with burn-in as you guys have stated... but even if it didn't, I'd still be happy with the bass performance of the K701s... I like to hear deep bass when it's meant to be there, rather than the exaggerated bass that many people like...