AKGK553 MKII Closed-Back Studio Headphones

However, I feel a few things need mentioning. It's early, I work in 30 minutes or so. Intentionally, I deviated from my usual early morning routine to spend a little more time with this headphone. Before getting to far in to describing the headphone itself I want to relate the Amazon experience regarding it. I bought a brand new headphone. What I received was something that had at least been opened. The detritus of having taken it out and removed the various plastic and wire tie that held the phones together was in the bottom of the box, additionally the phones had been hastily and unceremoniously crammed back in a box that had been opened without regard to possibly returning a product. Not ripped open exactly but torn here and there in process to get at whatever was inside. I can only guess the cans had been worn at least once. The really nice 3.5mm to 6.35 mm adapter was found rolling around on the cardboard underneath the cans. I connected them to my headphone amp and queued several tracks. Looked the cans over that were no worse the wear and put them on. The sound great, no obvious distortion or channel imbalances. Got a hold of an Amazon customer service rep (ironically enough named Alexa) who was great and issued a fair recompense since I didn't want to return them exactly, I just didn't feel like paying full price for something that had already been returned at least once. This while enduring what had to be the 10,000th comment on the irony that her name is Alexa and she works customer service for amazon.Initial impressions of the cans themselves are, they're well made, comfortable with a balanced neutral sound. Detailed. I'll enjoy using them and coming back to offer more opinion.

Sound is very good with decent bass response and relatively flat perceived response from about 35hz - 10,000hz. These are sensitive enough to allow me to hear to -72db below full scale. (see audiocheck headphone test) With these headphones my ears can hear a consistent tone down to ~19hz and up to about 11.5khz.They are fairly good at isolating sound; my wife cannot hear what I’m listening to unless I really crank it, as compared with open backed headphones. So they are suitable for listening in quiet environments without worrying about disturbing others, provided you listen at normal levels.At very high levels of volume with strong bass notes these can produce an audible resonant buzz, as revealed by an online “bass shaker” test. For me though I don’t intend to play that loud, as these are more for use in quiet environments.A good test track is the first 40 seconds of Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme - Pt.II, Resolution”.https://www.amazon.com/Love-Supreme-Part-II-Resolution/dp/B000V6543Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1538246790&sr=1-2&keywords=a+love+supreme+resolution&dpID=51tekRrSbgL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srchThe greater sensitivity of these headphones reveal more texture in the bass at the first 20 seconds, as well the cymbals in the next 20 seconds than my prior favorites the AKG 240. They work well on portable devices.Except for a bit of resonance at very high volume bass notes, my only other beef is that I find the headband less comfortable than the AKG 240.Overall, I’d suggest these deliver detailed, flat response at low volumes and can be used in quiet environments without others hearing anything when not cranked.

Bass could be a little bit better.

With those headphones I checked and I confirmed that the headphone burn-in is real and is no myth.Because, at first I regretted my purchase for the hard sound and without any body that came out from these headphones but after investigating a little in internet to discover the experience of other users with the same product, I learned about the famous burn-in process and decided to try it, without using my headphone throughout the process to prevent my ears from getting used to the bad sound that was coming out of My new AKG K553 mkII.And after a week of playing through them a few tracks recorded especially for burn-in, the result was surprising and nothing to do with the initial bad sound.At first, the 20HZ, 30HZ, and 40HZ signals were almost totally indifferent to my AKG K553, but after burning they were heard as real and sharp and present as if they came from the best studio monitoring system in the world.And take into account that the new good sound after the burn-in process had nothing to do with my head getting accustomed or my ears acoustically adapted with the new headphone pads since I did not wear them during the entire burn-in process of my AKG K553, being the pads in its original state at the end of the whole burn-in process.