I am so enthralled by my AKG K340 modified and optimized, that the idea to replace them seems preposterous...
I feel so lucky...
Small room acoustic is hard job if you go this road, just some panels is not enough...
I recommend headphones for average consumers loving good sound....
I did not recomment my K340 to passive consumer beginners, it takes me 6 months to figure out how to drive them and modify them to reach optimal S.Q. with no defects on any count...
The bass kill anything i ever listened... Before owning them i underestimated the acoustic necessity to have 25 hertz bass very extended and clear and NO BOOMINESS no contagion between mids and bass ... Most headphones suffer from that in a way or in another, and if not they lack bass or are tuned towards the high frequency...
The two cells of the K340 not only gives balance, because extreme of bass register and extreme of high register are driven by specialized cells but the working together at 4KHZ, a critical treshold of "presence" for voices or pianos, made them natural as a real sound in a real room...
Headphone is the simplest and less costly road to high end sound...The problem is all 9 headphones i owned were if not bad very, very artificial, and limited on range frequencies extension.. ...
Then i cannot advise people on headphone... Yes they are the solution for me...But which one is really natural, 3-D volume experience, out of the head or speaker like experience...With deep bass and celestial non fatiguing highs ? ...My only one pick is the only one i cannot generally recommend to everyone... Hifiman susvara or Raal ? i am not sure at all that they could compare to mine... I never listen to them... But because i perceive no limitations nor any defects with mine, i will never buy one as upgrade...
Will it be possible to listen 30 hertz bass note of Bach organ with my feet and body as if the organ was in my room with the Raal ?
The Susvara will give me holographic 3-D volume separation of each instrument with high frequencies exquisite ?
I doubt it... 😁
i Pay my headphone 100 bucks, i could not take the risk to buy any other headphone and regret it probably...Anyway why? people who want upgrade feel insatisfaction for some specific limitations they perceive or guess.. I did not..
The K340 was the flagship of AKG in 1978... Some prefered it to the Stax Omega... And those people listened to a new K340 not an old one like mine but their K340 was not modified and optimized as mine is...
No other headphone on the market work with hybrid two cells and 5 passive tuned resonators, then his soundfield cannot be compared with anything on the market at any price... I pay it 100 bucks...😉
Then i will never go back to dedicated acoustic room because of higher costs and the long work it takes to control a room acoustically...most people had no idea of how difficult the acoustic job is, they buy panels and forget it... 😊
Viva headphone.... At least mine...