Great thread! It's a great way to promote music players and headphones I will promote my pair of headphones in this thread as well. Why? Because my headphones are greatly underrated and deserve much more love.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you; the AKG K518 DJ.
Did I just say DJ? Yes, I totally did. These AKG headphones were originally created for DJs, but they are so much more than just your regular Skrillex gadget. I purchased these headphones in 2010 when I bought my first guitar, mainly for using it on my amp so I wouldn't disturb the neigbours with my horrendous playing. After I got bored with my guitar after only a week, I started using the headphones on my music player.
I noticed how great these headphones were when I used them on my iPod Touch and my MacBook Pro. These headphones + my MacBook's sound card + a 320 rip = ultimate eargasm. Not to mention that they sound great on my iPod as well!
The thing about AKG is that they make headphones that are mainly rock-oriented, which is also the reason you hardly hear the name of this brand when people speak about headphones. The advantage of this pair is that even though it is designed for DJs, it still has that rock-oriented sound that AKG is known for. It has a stronger bass than most AKG headphones because of the DJ design, but it's not like the Dr. Dre BEATS, that just drones the bass like an idiot and completely forgets about all other elements a song has. The bass is stronger and more audible, but melts in more with the rest of the instruments. That way you can still distinguish the bass lines in a song, but they won't be up front too much.
With a good audio rip, these headphones can give you enormous eargasms. They make the different song layers audible, which makes sure you can hear every little thing that is going on in a song. For an album like D's 7th Rose these headphones are perfect and make the album even better than on an initial impression. I can hear everything, from HIDE-ZOU's little gimmicks to Tsunehito's enchanting bass lines.
When it comes to comfort it might get a little tricky. The AKG K518 DJ is easy to adjust to fit in the height of your ears, but if you just bought the pair they might start to press on your ears or the top of your head a bit too much. However, once you've owned them for a little while, that will disappear.
Another disadvantage might be the length of the wire. That thing is enormously long, but like I said, they were originally designed for DJs. Just watch out you don't trip over them when walking around wearing them on your head. That might also be a nice thing to know: the AKG K518 DJ does a great job at cancelling out noise from the outside. Sitting in a Ryanair airplane with these headphones on pretty much blocks out all the noises that the aircraft makes. Also, you can listen to it on a pretty high volume and no one in your direct surroundings will be bothered by it. Great sound isolation.
They are easy to carry around because you can actually click the headphones to a small bundle. It's a nice little feature that avoids them getting broken when you carry them around in your backpack or bag.
Now the price. For the great quality that you get with these headphones, the price is astounding: 50 euros, around 65 dollars. Yes, under 70 dollars for a pair of great quality headphones. My pair partly died last week unfortunately, after going through hardships with me for two years (luckily my dad had the same pair and he didn't mind using half-broken headphones lol). Now that I have the exact same pair again (yes, got another pair of the AKG K518 DJ) you can definitely hear that the sound quality of the headphones goes down a bit after long and continuous use. I'm actually surprised they survived for so long.
One disadvantage is that AKG is not a very famous brand, therefore not many stores sell their headphones. The K518 DJ model is also really hard to come by nowadays, especially since most stores that do sell AKG sell their more expensive ones. No clue why, because clearly even the more expensive headphones are inferior in quality to the K518 DJ. For 10 euros more, you can also buy the limited edition. There is no change in quality, just the fact that they have a cooler design that come in six different colors. If you don't care about looks, then the regular edition should be just fine.
So if you find a pair while browsing the stores for new headphones, I'd definitely recommend you to buy them. You'll be very happy with them and they'll stick around for a pretty long time.
