AKG K3003i Reference Class In-Ear Headphones

Update - unfortunately the cable is now breaking on these. I treat them tenderly so that is a big disappointment. What makes it worse is AKG (after many calls) seems unable or uninterested in repairing them. Told them I would pay and their last suggestion was go see the Geek Squad at Best Buy (a chain that carries only competitors brands). Give the original cost I am lowering my score.Very pleased with these. Excellent noise reduction and range. Like listening to music with more detail. Also I find the total construction impressive.

As an audiophile with over 50 year experience in hi fidelity products, these AKGs blew me away on thorough and comprehensive assessment.I own most of the best headphones in the world today both open and closed including but not limited to the focal utopia, lcd 4, Sennheiser hd800/s....these are up there with the very best.Wonderful soundstage, fantastic imaging, stunning mid range, unrivaled instrument separation et el.Please note, recently manufacturers of TOTL headphones have gone bonkers in their pricing in my opinion as no headphone no matter how wonderful they might claim they are is worth over $3000.However these at under $1000 I'll say is the absolute best in it's category.I'm overtly impressed at what these iems produce musically.....simply magnificent

Let me start by saying that I absolutely LOVE these headphones. The sound quality is superior to other lux audio brands, but AKG (Harman) has looked past a few design flaws. With that said, they will not last longer than a few months past their 1 year manufacturers warranty. This is now the third pair of headphones that has short circuited due to a design flaw in the chord and the shape of the leather case that comes with the headphones. Due to having a weak/flimsy outer casing of the chord, and the square shaped leather case that causes the chord to endure repetitve bending to fit into the case, which causes internal wire damage and short circuiting. I have mentioned this to AKG on several ocassions via email and received genericresponses thanking me for my input. Alas, my third pair has short circuited at 15 months old. At the price of $1,109–one would expect these headphones to have a 5 or 10 year manufacturers warranty. Let me clarify that I am not suggesting Harman (the company who manufactures the AKG audio products) replace headphones that are not cared for properly by consumers—but that they take the suggestions from their consumers on how to improve their products and work to resolve design flaws.For those who are planning to purchase this model, or those who might already own them and have not had the chord short circuit as of yet, I highly suggest buying heavy duty electrical tape and wrapping layers around the entire casing of the chord in an attempt to prevent the chord damage from happening.

These have been around for ever, which means you can now get them at around half their original price. They are a quality item. Straight out of the box, they were pretty harsh sounding, and very sibilant; but after a few hours they sound really sweet, balanced and detailed.What impressed me less is build quality, and that really shouldn't be an issue at this price. The finishing is great, but there's something up with the connection at the jack. Turning the jack in my DAPs' output socket produces static crackles and dropouts in the sound. This gets worse when I use the four pole to three pole adapter cable. The problem isn't bad enough for me to return these earphones; once I have a good connection, it's stable. But it does make me wonder about the longevity of the cable, and it's a non-replaceable one. Not really good enough in a pricey product.For me, the inline remote control is irritating. I can understand those who want it, but it would be nice to have the option of a cable without it so as to have as clean a signal path as possible.

I think you can get better sounds with much, much lower prices than this: consider some Shure or Triple.fi models. Even at this price range, individual taste determines preference to a significant degree, and you should definitely demo this before deciding to buy. Obviously this was not my cup. To be sure, it is extremely comfortable to wear and the sound quality is up there. But I did not feel sound was "filling" enough; it had a flimsy feel to me.

The AKG earphones with mic and control came beautifully packaged but I felt they were overpriced for what you get..

I just couldn't believe it. At first the reference filters were a bit too harsh with the treble for me and I almost had to return these phones for that reason until discovering that the bass filters would serve my purposes to the extent that I would find these headphones the ultimate in listening pleasure -- until one day I seem to have broken my bass filters and was forced to put in the reference ones again and so somehow adapted to those instantly and now couldn't get by without them.A dream come true, and I'm in heaven.

It sounds tereible, too much bass...I dont know how to send the picture up here, but I ll tell u, this is a fake product that looks like real. Be ware of the seller gogreendeal. I do not understant why it is rate as prime... 629 is just way too cheap for a real model.