AKG Pro Audio K812 PRO Over-Ear, Open-Back, Flat-Wire, Superior Reference Headphones

CAVEAT - This review is for Classical Music audiophiles only.Having auditioned the K812 in detailed comparison tests with AKG K702 and Sennheiser HD800, I found the K812 to be vastly superior in 2 of the following 3 categories --Chamber Music: Mozart's Horn Quintet K.407 shows the 5 instruments in precise laser-cut 3D layout, with the horn in stage center. You feel you are on the same stage with the musicians, or at least in the front row. With the K702 you get the same stage width but zero depth or separation of instruments. With the HD800, the sound is very warm and somewhat distant, as if you're sitting 5, 6 rows from a large stage.Lieder/Vocal Music: Cecilia Bartoli sings "Se Tu M'ami" Bartoli with the piano located clearly to her right rear, the soundstage is close and intimate. On the K702, both the singer and the piano are right next to each other. The HD800 again sounds distant and not laser-sharp like the K812, as if Ms. Bartoli is singing in a cavernous hall like the Met.Orchestral Music: This is where the K812 ties with HD800 depending on your preference for either orchestral details or the romantic sweep of the music. K812 wins hands down in the 3D clarity department -- the opening of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" clearly shows offstage trumpets and foreground timpani. In Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Second Movement), ample bass is clearly noticeable in the string pizzicatos and the lower strings. More bass can be heard not only around each lower instrument but all around the entire soundstage as well (though not as pronounced as the HD800). The HD800, on the other hand, presents a beautifully balanced sound picture from a few rows back, maybe even higher up in the auditorium. The clarity of instruments, the 3D imaging are both still there, but with the added air enveloping the soundstage and the individual instruments. The bass, even more visceral and palpitating than the K812, never seems excessive and gently floods the entire soundstage with warmth just like in a live concert. Mahler's Second sounds epic in scale on the HD800. Organ music also sounds huge on this headphone! Sorry if I left out the K702 --- it sounds shockingly 2D and flat in comparison. In this category alone, HD800 beats out K812 by a small margin for me.In the final analysis, if I am to keep only one headphone for all times, the K812 would be it. It also happens to be the most comfortable of the 3 for long periods of critical listening.

I've got a pair of AKG K702 headphones, but the K812PRO are a step way above the 702's !!! There is no way to truly describe the sound from these cans, but my high resolution files ( WAV, etc.) are a 'new' experience with them !!! Since Amazon has a return process, then all I can say is if you have excess cash to put out for these, then give them a try !!!

I've been using these headphones for mixing pop-rock and filmic-style music tracks avocationally with Sonarworks average correction for about a month. They are very revealing and especially useful for catching glitches and hearing things like reverb tails, inadvertent pops and clicks, background noise, etc. They're essentially bright, and I'm not quite sure how much to trust them in identifying harshness, so I use other headphones such as the Sennheiser HD650s and my monitors to further evaluate those sharper frequencies between 2-5k, and to round out the picture generally. They have an exceptionally wide "soundstage" which may or may not be helpful in the final mix, but is additionally revealing when pinpointing various aspects of a track.I would not recommend these as primary mixing headphones as they can be fatiguing, but they are the best headphones I've used for honing in on individual details in a mix. I think they're quite good in the low end as well, and the overall clarity throughout the spectrum is perhaps unrivaled. These have replaced my Shure SRH1840s -- with which I'd had very good mix results over the past three years, but had read about some problems with distortion in the low end which could be misleading when mixing certain styles (I'm not completely convinced of this assessment however, as, with any headphones or monitoring source, it's necessary to become familiar with the idiosyncrasies and make adjustments to achieve good mixes in any case).The frequency graph of these headphones is all over the place. I wouldn't use them without Sonarworks or some equivalent compensating EQ curves, but, as I've said, they can serve an important purpose in audio production due to their exceptional clarity.

i think this time akg will not let audiophile down. This is the most headphone I think the best! I have hd600-800 gs1000e k712 65th. But, this is the most one i like!!!

Great headphone at a good price.

Masterpiece!