I replaced the pads on my AKG Q701 headphones today for the 4th time. It made me realize that I’ve used these headphones for at least 40 hours a week for 14 years straight. I’ve had to repair the left side speaker solder joint a few times, but they’re designed to be easily torn down and repaired. Truly BIFL headphones.
I’ve heard that the newer AKG K702 headphones are identical but I can’t vouch for that. They go for around $250.
Little bit of dremeling and most headphones can be changed.
Stock K550’s didn’t have a detachable cord. Later variants did. I usually recable them so I can use them with all my amps.
Not the prettiest cause my hand slipped and made a gouge and time has scuffed it from plugging/unplugging but it’s been fine for 10+ years.
I also swapped out the 3 pin for 4 pin on a similar set as the OPs as well.
Pardon my ignorance, please.
What are those connectors?
They are 4-pin mini-xlr on my headphones. The Q701 had a 3 pin variant originally. Most headphones wire the ground wires from both drivers together. 4 pins instead keeps them separate. I can then use different cables to either keep them 4 pins or merge them again into three pin.
The reason for this is I have certain amps that only work with them being separated.
That’s quite interesting. I can see the benefits offered by each arrangement, curious to me that they opted to swap pin functions from 3-to-4 (as opposed to adding the extra ground on the extra pin and keeping everything else the same,) but I suppose this also ensures that things don’t ‘half-work in a weird way’ if someone uses the wrong connection method.