AKG K701, K702 & Q701 Bass Port Mod

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I finally plucked up the courage to take my AKG K702's apart and have a go at the much talked about bass mod last night. I started out very cautiously but it ended up being a breeze and once I knew what I was doing it became a five minute job. There is a long thread on Head-fi discussing the mod, how to do it and what effects it has. Oh and as long as you are careful it's easily reversible, so no great danger of doing permanent damage.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/660408/reversible-akg-k701-bass-mod

Basically you just open up the back of each cup, take a few bits out and remove a small round piece of tape that's used to cover a port into the rear of the driver. Then you put them back together again and you're done.

My K702's started out relatively bass light but have been improving over the weeks as they have worn in and loosened up. When it came to rock or electronic music though, I would still reach for my DT990's.

So does the mod work?

Hell yes! I've been up all night listening to the modded 702's with a stupid grin on my face. High frequencies don't appear to have changed at all and the mids seem to have become even flatter than they were before but the bass, instead of rolling off once you go down below 100Hz, now continues rumbling down to 50Hz and remains above the original curve all the way down to 20Hz. The soundstage is still huge and detail is still great, so it's easy to pick out each instrument and voice. The mod doesn't turn the headphones into bass monsters, it's more a case of allowing the headphones to sound how they should have in the first place.

Here are some measurements and graphs thanks to one enterprising head-fier...
http://www.head-fi.org/t/582276/q701-appreciation-thread/6120#post_10398093

When I want to listen to rock or electronic music, I don't think I'll be reaching for the DT990's very often. I'm currently listening to "Heart of the Sunrise" by Yes and Chris Squire's bass playing sounds fantastic. :)
 
This is great news, with the Q701 on the way I will for sure be trying this regardless just for comparison sake. I am in no way competitive in my gaming any more, a bit long in the tooth and pre occupied with other things these days to put in the hours and effort in all honesty.

I still want the full experience in my games and want the detail and immersion too, a best of both worlds if you will. sacrificing bass for leader board positions is a no from me and besides that I used to do just fine with the garbage headphones I started out with back in the day of counter strike and COD2/4. My eyes will let me down long before my reflex's, 'squints over at specsavers appointment!'

Looking foreword to hearing how these hold against other genres now.
 
Well I've been listening to Yes, Metallica ("The Outlaw Torn" sounds insane), Led Zeppelin, Kimbra, Norah Jones, Adele, Daft Punk, Ed Sheeran, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Lorde, Jamiroquai, Free, The Firm, Nico Vega, John Martyn and Jean Michel Jarre since doing the mod and all of them sound superb. :D
 
I don't fully understand when people refer to bass as taking away immersion from games. I have the X1 and have no trouble hearing positional audio like footsteps among the action going on.

Nevertheless I'm going to do the mod on the Q701 in a few weeks and compare because by the looks of it, the Q701 will fall very much in-line with the X1 with the mod enabled in terms of bass.

We'll see.
 
From what everything I've read it will be much closer to them... But as I say, I'll find out soon for myself.
 
And I'll confirm just how close it is once I've heard it, molded, for myself.
 
the way i understand it is bass is good for immersive gaming.

it's bad for hearing footsteps which is right because if there is grenades exploding, tanks shooting shells, choppers shooting rockets, etc, etc all happening around you, it's going to drown out footsteps, more so with big boomin bass than a can with zero or little bass.

that's why the AD700 gets recommended for competitive gaming as it's a can with practically zero bass.

this is why it's important when you talk about gaming you specify the type of gaming your doing and whether you want that extra edge or not.

if you do then your willing to sacrifice bass for that edge.
 
Unless you're into super competitive PC FPS gaming I can't see why you wouldn't just go for something in-between. Sure hearing footsteps a little clearer is nice but if it means everything else in the game like explosions and stuff sound naff because the phones have no bass then it would put me off playing.

Also depends a lot on the game, CSS/CS:GO or any valve game for that matter it's easy to make out the positions footsteps are coming from, other games not so much no matter how good your audio is.
 
this is why I prefer to use a neutral can over the X1 for gaming.

the X1 for me is a bass heavy can (it has more bass than a neutral can).

I use a HD558 as it is more neutral (and has a lot less bass than the X1).

the HD558 doesn't lack bass at all it's just not as loud or boomy as the X1's
 
^ X1 bass is not boomy in the slightest. IYeah it's very low and loud and you can "feel" it but nowhere near boomy! Boomy is the description I'd give actual basshead cans like Beats and people talk about boomy bass where the bass overshadows everything else usually.

Casual and Enthusiastic gaming is not the same as competitive gaming either! Competitive gamers will only use the best for that purpose, 1ms TN panel monitors, wired mice and keyboards with high resolution sensors and so on.

For the rest of the World, people like us, immersion trumps any competitive edge where immersive gameplay may be sacrificed.

I've been gaming with the X1 for a long time now from BF3 to Wolfenstein to TF2 and CS:GO and many others in-between. At no point have I ever sat back and gone "Oh, I totally didn't hear that guy creep up behind me and knife me to take my tags because the explosion or tank fire across the street there was too loud".

Maybe my setup doesn't over-do the bass compared to a soundcard or whatever I don't know but it's not something that's ever registered as a problem and the meatier, richer bass has always added to the gaming experience as opposed to taken anything away.

As one guy on the Q701 mod thread stated, the bass lacked some life or punch and with the mod that punch is there now. The X1s punch well out of the box and get better with use still, a bit more once you change the cable to boot.

Ultimately it's each to their own. We all know what competitive gamers are like with their preferences. we've seen in countless times before way back from even the Quake era where graphical details would be lowered to gain a competitive edge.

Sorry but my personal feeling on stuff like this is that if I'm spending hard earned money on a premium product then I want to make the most of it and get a premium fully immersive experience out of it. for that purpose I think the Fidelio X1 ticks all the right boxes and as other reviewers have said, they're a jack of all trades and that's why I've been so interested in the Q701 at the Mass Drop price!
 
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