AKG K- 501 Stereo Headphones
 Audiophiles can forgive almost any
eccentricity except headphone listening. Listen to a microwatt tube amplifier with 10%
distortion and you're just a "music lover." Worship at the altar of horn
loudspeakers with a "cupped hands" sonic signature you could endorse a check
with and you "like realistic dynamic range." But confess to listening to
headphones and "you're just not a serious listener."
Go as far as I do and admit that you actually enjoy
listening to headphones and watch the eye-rolling commence.
In my case, it goes back to my roots -- in bed late at
night, I'd plug in my headphones, surf the radio bands for new music and lie there in the
warm darkness hearing R&B and C&W on the powerful clear-channel broadcasters. I
heard Muddy Waters for the first time on some long forgotten (by me) Chicago station.
Ditto real country and real gospel -- this was powerful stuff bubbling up
from the artisanal well of our country's true musical id. I wasn't necessarily sure what
this stuff was, but I knew I liked it.
So how could I not like headphones?
And let's face it, sometimes you need to listen to music --
or your TV or your computer -- in situations where the sound of loudspeakers would drive
your current lifetime companion batty. In those conditions, you just gotta get yourself a
good pair of headphones.
There are an awful lot to choose from, and they range in
price from the freebies you get with Walkman-type portables to fabulously expensive
electrostatics. The ones I've been turning to recently are AKG's K-501s, which list for
$249 and typically sell between $150-$200.
Feed Your Head
The K-501s are circumaural headphones, which means they
surround your entire ear. They employ large diaphragms which are covered on the outside
with dull gray metal screening. They use an elegant spring/leather-band mechanism that
readily -- and comfortably -- adjusts to any sized head. The round earpieces rest around
your ears on thick foam pads, which also focus the sound. Because the outer body is
screened, the phones don't block environmental sounds nor do they prevent sound from
escaping into the room. If you need total isolation from your surroundings, you'd do
better to look for an in-the-canal type of headset such as the Etymotic ET-4. But although
total isolation can be a boon in noisy environments, around the home I prefer to hear
things like doorbells and telephones.
Why do audiophiles gripe about headphones, if we all
recognize that they are so useful? Well, the audiophile party line goes, they sound
unnatural. This is true -- listen to a stereo signal on headphones and you get a weirdly
solid image that seems to emanate from the center of your head. This is kinda cool in the
same hippy-trippy way that waving your hand back and forth in front of your computer's CRT
produces "trails," but a little goes a long way.
I finesse that whole issue by using a HeadRoom Max
Headphone amplifier, which cleverly mixes a portion of each channel's signal into the
other channel and applies a precisely calculated amount of delay to approximate what your
ears do when you hear sounds naturally. With a high resolution set of headphones, it's not
quite the same as listening to the real thing -- or even listening to a great pair of
loudspeakers in a perfectly set up system. But it is better than not listening to
music because you'd be disturbing a housemate, and it can even be better than listening to
a less than ideally set-up speaker system.
Some form of headphone amplifier isn't a bad idea anyway,
simply because many headphones present a difficult load. The K-501s, for example, have
120-ohm impedance, which means that most portables would be hard pressed to drive them to
satisfying levels with anything like full-range sound. And, depending on how the headphone
circuit on your preamp or receiver is constructed, that might even be true of many of your
home components.
Late Nights At Home …
The K-501s sound marvelous. They are smooth and dynamic
with a particular smoothness through the midrange. Highs are detailed, but never etched --
in fact, they might be a little too controlled, which you may even find to be an
advantage, depending on your source material.
My only complaint is that the bottom end seems to lack slam
-- especially in comparison with my reference Sennheisers, which have an almost
whole-body-shaking bottom end.
I listened to Robert Silverman's Beethoven Sonata
cycle in many a late-night listening session with the AKGs. The distinctive sound of a
nine foot Bösendorfer was well-served -- all the lively overtones danced above their
tonic tones, which seemed rooted down to the ground. I was conscious of hearing the notes
striking the wall just beyond the piano -- gosh, that's a small room for such a big piano!
But the K-501s did not stress the details at the expense of the musical whole -- all of
the detail simply served Bob Silverman's sublime musical conversation with Beethoven.
I was able to listen for hours, not simply because they
were so comfortable, but also because they were so musically balanced. In fact, some
evenings should have ended far sooner than they did, but I'm not complaining. I was in
good musical company -- it was time well-spent.
And In the End …
My benchmark dynamic headphone remains the Sennheiser
HD-600, partially because the Sennheiser's earpiece/pad arrangement is so comfortable for
my ear/head combination. However, the HD-600 costs $200 more than the AKG K-501 and
headphone fit is intensely personal. You might prefer the AKG's fit -- a great many
people do.
This is the first in an on-going series of reviews of
headphones in the $150-$500 range. I look forward to reviewing some of the costlier units,
but I'm not naive enough to assume that each price increment represents an improvement in
headphone quality. I'd hope so, but I have to say that the AKG K-501s have set a high
standard for the others to live up to. They're enjoyably musical 'phones that are
comfortable for even the longest late night listening sessions. They're also extremely
well-built and should provide year after year of listening pleasure.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
AKG K-501 Stereo Headphones
Price: $245 USD
AKG Acoustics
1449 Donelon Pike
Nashille, TN 37217
Tel: (615) 360-0499
E-mail: akgusa@harman.com
Website: www.akg-acoustics.com
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