General Asylum: REVIEW: AKG Acoustics K1000 Headphones by Jon L

Model:	K1000
Category:	Headphones
Suggested Retail Price:	$600.00
Description:	Earspeakers
Manufacturer URL:	AKG Acoustics
Manufacturer URL:	AKG Acoustics

Review by Jon L ( A ) on May 12, 2003 at 10:12:48
IP Address: 162.119.232.100

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for the K1000

Headphones are a tricky beast. The good ones can do some things that no speakers can, but it's hard to get the pure enjoyment of listening to good set of regular speakers. It's the combination of lack of bass you actually "feel" and lack of soundstage/imaging. Some manufacturers go for brute force, making the bass of headphones go lower, a bit too powerful, etc, but you still get no physical bass sensation. In fact, many such headphones gives you too much bass that muddies up the midrange.

I had my disappointments with the Grade HP-2's and decided that I will completely forgo "trying" to match speaker-bass with headphones. Instead, I will get headphones that realizes its limits in bass, yet excell elsewhere. Enter K-1000.

Fed by chain of Resolution Opus 21--> VAC renaissance 30 amp--> K1000, I can't believe how real music sounds. They are not electrostats, but sure sounds just as fast, if not faster, and WITHOUT that plasticky, wallflower type of electrostatic sound. I hear everything, and I mean everything in the recording and upstream, except for low-bass. Unfortunately, this includes the 10-foot long cable of questionable pedigree, which has been reported to add some thinness/brightness to sound.

Even with these limitations, the phones are just drop-dead fantastic. proper extension up-top, oodles of detail (my kind of sound), spooky realism, and speed to die for. No lean or overblown midrange, and upper bass to mid-midbass is well-delineated and super-clean. Top-end doesn't have that slight softness of my Esg3 ribbon tweeter of my regular speakers, and you do get that single-driver coherence as a bonus.

I'm quite happy with these, and since my DIY soul can't bear to cough up around $170 for the Stefan Audio extension cable, I will be making a DIY cable. I imagine a nice solid-core copper cable in air or teflon dielectric will nicely complement the K-1000 sound. Stay tuned...

Product Weakness: see above
Product Strengths: see above

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	see inmate systems
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	n
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	n
Speakers:	n
Cables/Interconnects:	n
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	n
Room Size (LxWxH):	n x n x n
Room Comments/Treatments:	n
Time Period/Length of Audition:	n
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	n
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner
Your System (if other than home audition):	n

Product Weakness:	see above
Product Strengths:	see above