Members WRGKMC Posted December 22, 2014 Members Share Posted December 22, 2014 Figured I'd treat myself to some new Bones. Found these AKG K240 Studio headphones on sale for $19 with free shipping on Amazon. They normally sell for around $100. Hope they are as good as all the reviews I've read. I used AKG's before a long time ago and I'm not sure what models they were. They seem to be as popular in studios as Yamaha NS10's Near field Monitors are. I also read that even though these are open backed cans they are great for tracking vocals so long as you don't use a condenser that's cranked up too much. I can deal with a little bleed so long as they do sound good. I have a bunch of other brands. I've had a set of JVC for a good 30 years I've used mostly for tracking. The other setts are for guests but most either sound colored or are uncomfortable. I do wear eye glasses and over ear phones suck having the ear piece pinched by them. Over the ears like this can be better but its a matter of how soft the padding is. These are supposed to be ultra comfortable so we'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 22, 2014 Members Share Posted December 22, 2014 I owned two pairs over the years. 2 gripes… They sound good but the volume on them is severely lacking. Granted, I don`t mix at loud volumes but there are times when I want more volume, thats where the 240s fall short. With that said, they are a steal for $19. I think you`ll enjoy them. The other issue, they will fall apart. The rubber around each ear piece will become loose and fall off but it cannot be removed unless you have some industrial scissor. Again, it`ll take a year or two but it`ll happen. It happened to 2 pairs of mine and just about every studio I have ever been to, had similar issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted December 22, 2014 Author Members Share Posted December 22, 2014 Is the loudness and issue with the Headphones or what you're using to drive them? I do have some powerful headphone amps including a Hi Fi amp with headphone jacks. I can see if you're using a mixer preamp or something similar that may be a cause. The headphones are also low impedance so it may be a matter of just properly matching the phones to the amp. If its because they are low SPL, then there probably isn't allot you can do. I don't wear phones allot. I had to use them for a good 15 years when I had small kids but I was liberated from that when they got older and haven't missed the cauliflower ear syndrome you get from wearing them. I really don't need or like loud headphones myself. My ears are old enough without having to kill them any more then they are now. If they can produce 80db or so I'll be happy enough. If I needed something to be loud because its a noisy environment then I'll probably want to use others with closed backs and isolate the sound well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted December 23, 2014 Members Share Posted December 23, 2014 I own a pair of those. They're my favorite cans. I prefer them to the Sennheiser HD280's I own. I wish I had seen that advert. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 23, 2014 Members Share Posted December 23, 2014 Is the loudness and issue with the Headphones or what you're using to drive them? I do have some powerful headphone amps including a Hi Fi amp with headphone jacks. I can see if you're using a mixer preamp or something similar that may be a cause. The headphones are also low impedance so it may be a matter of just properly matching the phones to the amp. If its because they are low SPL, then there probably isn't allot you can do. I don't wear phones allot. I had to use them for a good 15 years when I had small kids but I was liberated from that when they got older and haven't missed the cauliflower ear syndrome you get from wearing them. I really don't need or like loud headphones myself. My ears are old enough without having to kill them any more then they are now. If they can produce 80db or so I'll be happy enough. If I needed something to be loud because its a noisy environment then I'll probably want to use others with closed backs and isolate the sound well. I used them with several amps, they were never loud. They`re good phones, just not my first choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted December 23, 2014 Members Share Posted December 23, 2014 I own a pair of those. They're my favorite cans. I prefer them to the Sennheiser HD280's I own. I wish I had seen that advert. The HD280s suck. Owned them for 8 years, used them at first for a good year before I got sick of them. Then they sat in my studio collecting dust until I had the courage to trash them. The ATH-M50s are my go to these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted December 23, 2014 Author Members Share Posted December 23, 2014 I thought about AT's but I've never used them before so don't know much about their product line. I do have a set of their drum mics and judge the quality to be pretty good. It is funny how we judge a companies products based on other products we purchased. We expect one piece of gear whether it be good or bad and associate their other products to it. Its often quite stupid because most companies have a whole range of gear from budget to high quality and if you base that opinion off something less expensive you're limiting many options you may have never considered. I did the same thing with Senheiser. I had an old set of headphones maybe 30 years ago that were supposed to be pretty good. I thought they sounded awful yet on the other hand their MD421 II were an excellent mic I liked using for studio and live work. I never bothered trying their lower end mics because I feared they wouldn't come close to their higher end mics, and I never tried their better headphones because I didn't think their more expensive ones would be that much better. Its a bias you develop from experience but you really don't have much else to go on besides advice from others to go on. I was lucky enough to be an electronic tech that repaired gear for many years so I had the opportunity to judge quality and design from the inside out. I still buy allot of used gear and refurbish it. I don't think there's one piece of gear I own I haven't at least inspected the inside and judged the quality of the build. Again this is kind of dumb too because in actual use, it doesn't matter what it looks like inside, just how well it does the job, How well it takes abuse and how durable it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted December 24, 2014 Members Share Posted December 24, 2014 The HD280s suck. Owned them for 8 years, used them at first for a good year before I got sick of them. Then they sat in my studio collecting dust until I had the courage to trash them. The ATH-M50s are my go to these days. I hate 'em too. I just bought a second set of HD280's despite hating them. One was falling apart. The AKG's are fantastic and durable in my experience. For some odd reason though, the HD 280's sound as crappy as my Alesis M1mk2 monitors. So I mix with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted January 2, 2015 Author Members Share Posted January 2, 2015 Just a recap. I got the headphones in new years eve and had a chance to try them out. Comfort wise they aren't bad. No problem wearing eye glasses with them. I was surprised at how light they are. The AKG headphones I've used in the past were much heavier. I used them for 4 hours and had no cauliflower ear syndrome. The only thing that did bug me was the cord being on the left side which plays havoc for a guitarist. My other headphones were like that so I rewired the jack to swap sides. I suppose I can use a switch to swap the input leads to me headphone amp when using them. I believe they can be wore either way unlike other custom fit bones. Sound wise they did sound pretty good. Compared to the M-Audio BX5 monitors I been using they are almost an exact match in response. When I put them on its like sticking my head between the near fields with maybe a tad of extra presence. I did some tracking and mixing with them to check the results and the mixing I did was pretty close to what I would have done using the monitors. I also tried them for tracking vocals. I didn't seem to get any bleed over from them I could notice. I still have to mix those songs so I'm not completely sure what the final results will be. Loudness wise, they were sufficient. They didn't have the compression or resonant peaks you get with backed headphones. The sound was quite airy and smooth. I can see where these can be used for long periods and not cause ear fatigue. Over all I think I made out well for the $19 I paid. I'll likely have to find another set so I have matching sets for guests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted January 2, 2015 Members Share Posted January 2, 2015 Yes, as I mentioned, for $19 they`re a steal. They`re also very comfortable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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