AKG-240M: Excellent headphones
Written: Jan 23 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: light, comfortable, great sound
Cons: not sold in very many stereo stores, high impedence needs power.
The Bottom Line: excellent.
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| tombarnum's Full Review: AKG K 240M Professional Headphones |
Sure, there are better headphones out there if you want to spend $200+, but for under $100, you can't go wrong with these.
These headphones have been a staple in recording studios for years. I haven't seen them sold at many stereo stores, they're easier to find if you go to a musical instrument store.
Cons:
- These are 600 ohms, so you'll need to plug them into a home receiver. Your portable cd player or boombox won't have enough juice to drive them.
- If you want to listen to really bass-heavy music very loud, you might push them to distortion. These are semi-closed design, a little less bass than a totally closed design.
Pros:
- Light weight. Very comfortable. They self-adjust to your head, and the around-the-ear cushions are so much more comfortable than the on-the-ear ones. You can wear these for a very long time and be comfortable.
- Rugged. The cord and connectors are very rugged. You'll have to really punish them to break them.
- The sound. Terrific. Forget about comparing headphones just on frequency response. I have a pair of Sony MDR-A30's for portable use ($20). They claim to have the same frequency response, and they're terrific for what they do well (portability). But if you listen to both, you'll learn that frequency response means very little.
A good test for a headphone is to turn it up to a comfortably loud listening level, then just listen for an hour. With cheap headphones, your ears will feel noticeably fatigued. A lot of this is from distortion. I find these headphones have very low distortion, and can listen for long periods of time without becoming fatigued.
Next, listen to the placement of the instruments and vocals. These headphones have an incredibly spacious sound that lets you hear placement front-to-back and side-to-side. Close your eyes, listen to the music and try to pick out where each instrument and voice is placed. Every sound sounds very distinctive, not two dimensional.
Next, listen to soft sounds, softer than the overall music. Notice that you can distinctly hear instruments that are much softer than other instruments. They're not buried in the mix.
Next, listen to percussive sounds. You'll hear that the 'attack' of a snare drum or cowbell sounds alive and natural. You can really hear the pick of a guitar string.
Like speakers, headphone sound is very personal, so you really need to listen for yourself. But, if you're shopping for under-$100, I think you'll find giving these a listen is worth it. These will sound better than almost any under-$1000 pair of speakers.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
tombarnum
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Location: Milwaukee, WI
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 2 members
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