I’d go as far as to say that they offer the best isolation of any high-end studio headphones I’ve tried, while being among the most comfortable to wear, which is no mean feat.
#LEMO CONNECTOR FOR AKG K812 DRIVERS#
The K872s, by contrast, feel like they are barely touching the sides of your head, and the drivers sit perhaps an inch or more away from the ears yet the extent to which they cut out background noise is pretty extraordinary. Other headphones I’ve tried that offer above-average levels of isolation, such as the Sennheiser HD25 MkII or Focal Spirit Professional, tend to achieve this by clamping themselves vice-like against the ears. Fully enclosing the ear, rather than sitting on top of it, AKG’s “sound sealing” earpads do exactly what their name suggests, and they do it remarkably well. These advantages are obvious as soon as you put them on for the first time, in fact. Not so the K872s, which aim to capture the same sonic virtues in a closed-back design, with clear advantages relating to spill and isolation. For this reason, ‘reference quality’ headphones intended for critical tasks such as music mixing are usually open-backed, including all of AKG’s own high-end models to date. In the world of headphone design, goals such as an extended, flat frequency response and low distortion are more easily met in open-backed designs than in closed-back models.
#LEMO CONNECTOR FOR AKG K812 FULL#
At the other end, it terminates in a slightly incongruous mini-jack, to which a screw-on adaptor can be added if you need to go full size. Only one cable is supplied: it’s 3m long, straight, and attaches via a Lemo connector on the base of the left gimbal. This arrangement is very comfortable, though the frame itself is noticeably resonant and ‘pings’ audibly if knocked, and the K872s don’t fold or collapse in any way to facilitate transportation. As with other high-end AKG ‘phones, the weight of the K872s is carried not by the metal frame itself, but a soft padded strap that sits inside it.
This freedom to rotate independently in two planes means they sit flush against the side of the head, and the “all-metal cardan hinges” on which the gimbals pivot are smooth and silent. Rather than attaching directly to the frame, each earcup pivots fore-and-aft on a metal ring, which in turn pivots top-to-bottom on a second ring. It’s also obvious from the first that some serious engineering has gone into the physical design of these headphones. If the idea of dropping a four-figure sum on a pair of headphones appals you, stop reading now. And they have a price to match their flagship status. They ship with a “ballistic nylon travel case” that looks and feels as though it should keep your investment protected for years to come. They come in a box large enough to inter the family dog. The model number is at least 60 higher than any previous pair of AKG headphones I can think of. It’s obvious from the first that AKG’s latest pair of “master reference headphones” sit at the top of the company’s product range. Stereo plug – 3.5mm (1/8-inch) with 6.AKG’s new flagship headphone design offers the benefits of open-backed ‘phones in a closed-back format.
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