Headphone Reviews

Sound Quality
This type of headphone is particularly difficult to make sound good because the small, sealed enclosure behind the driver makes them prone to significant coloration. Additionally, the small earpad surface area against the ear does not readily achieve a good seal, which leads both to loss of bass response, and poor isolation from outside noise. These types of problems are readily apparent with the Q460.

The bass, if you can get the headphones to seal well, is surprisingly good. That's a big if though, in real use bass response is likely going to be a bit hit or miss as they move around on your head. Nonetheless, the Q460 has bass that hits pretty hard and clean.

The mids and treble were the big problem for the Q460. The mids sounded boxy and congested, and the treble significantly recessed. The combined result for me was a bit of a muffled and honky mess. Not enough to make me run away screaming, but no need to go on listening to the details either. On to the measurements.

Measurements

Raw frequency response (bottom traces of FR graph) show some significant changes in the lowest octave when changing position. I was fairly careful to get a good seal during measurements, and was quite surprised at the low frequency response of these cans. Good bass response can also be seen in the nearly straight-line tops of the 30Hz square wave. I think actual performance of the seal of these headphones, and therefore the bass response and isolation, will vary a lot from person to person with these.

Compensated and averaged frequency response (top traces of FR) shows flat response from 500Hz downward to about 40Hz. This is pretty good for a headphone this small. Unfortunately, above 500Hz the frequency response is a downhill roller coaster to about 8kHz and then it flattens out with the treble 20dB down from the low mids and bass level. The uneven response between 500Hz and 8kHz is responsible for the congested character I heard on these headphones, in my opinion. There's simply too much going on here to sound good.

The treble quality is okay as it doesn't exhibit any nasty spike in the frequency response, and there isn't any overshoot on the 300Hz square wave. The problem is that it's just too low in level. Weak impulse response is also indicative of the rolled off highs.

THD+noise shows little distortion in the low frequencies, indicating yet again potentially good bass performance, but elevated distortion between 700Hz and 3kHz along with the uneven frequency response is worrisome, and may be related to the congested sound I heard.

Isolation is good for a headphone of this size, but again may be due to a lot of care on my part positioning the cans. Regardless, if you get a seal on these cans, the isolation is pretty good.

With 23mVrms to achieve 90dBSPL at the ear, these headphones will play quite loud on portables. Coupled with a good seal, they will work well as a headphone to use in loud environments ... but I had a hard time keeping a good seal reliable while active.

Summary
I think AKG and Quincy Jones should have picked a different headphone: the AKG K518LE is very cool. It already comes in multiple colors including a nice green; it's a only a little larger than the Q460; it's got better isolation; and it sounds a lot better than the Q460. All they would have had to do was slap a "Q" and a green cable on a green K518LE and it would have gotten a big thumbs up from me. Oh well.

I think the sound, ergos, and price just don't line up for the Q460, so I afraid they don't get my recommendation. I would however suggest the K518LE (or K81DJ --- same headphone in gray) at less than $90 if you're looking for an AKG headphone similar in type, though a little bigger.

If you're looking for a really great and very small sealed headphone, check out the Sennheiser PX 200-II ($89), which sounds great and folds like sunglasses to easily slip into your pocket, purse, or backpack.

Right, time for the video, but first a big thanks to HeadRoom for the loan of the K81DJ and K518LE to play with for the review!

Resources
AKG Quincy Jones Q460 Product Page.