AKG K340 - what do I need to know?

[cetoole]

For you, my good sir: shit

I dunno, I have never met a K340 I cared for. Now, the K1000 on the other hand...

[morphsci]

I'm gonna get so much shit from the Stax mafia from this, but I think the mids are superior to Stax at times. Just glorious when it hits the spot. AKG just plain know what they're doing with vocals IMO, I'm sure in part due to their expertise in mics. Hi hats/cymbals are also kind of mind-blowing. I think Dynamat or bitumen on the backs and then damping some of the passive diaphragms is really going to make this thing sing. Also, I take back what I said about it being bass-light: it's bass normal to heavy.

I totally agree. I'm a huge midrange fan, if the midrange is off I cannot be bothered with it. The lower end is the problem and that is where IMO they really are helped by driving them balanced and with moar power.

I actually took the whole grille off at some point and used some speaker cloth in place, but it was too fiddly because the driver baffle wasn't really secured to anything other than the tape I used. I suppose I could've devised a better way but liked the protection to the drivers the grille offered. I may eventually try drilling a few holes as a final tweak.

Take off the grill and cut out a hole in the center. Then attach speaker cloth to the ring for support. It really helps in making the frequency presentation more cohesive across the the upper- and mid-range.

[swt61]

Or send the grills to me and I'll mod them for you. I use my router table to cut out the grill section, leaving the rim in tact. Then I glue speaker cloth to the rim. Works great. Same technique as morphsci, but the router table makes it a snap.

[mypasswordis]

For you, my good sir:

I wonder if you'd like this one. I just realized why it's been sometimes making me nauseous: it's actually got a slight bass hump from 70-50Hz! Then it's flat down to 40Hz where it rolls off to pretty much 0 at 30Hz. Insane, a low bass hump. I think I've already done a good job of taming the resonances and the last step is to apply some damping to the back plate. I took off the back plates just to see the difference. Both the bass and treble became rolled off, there was little impact, and the imaging was gone. But it was more open sounding, obviously.

I totally agree. I'm a huge midrange fan, if the midrange is off I cannot be bothered with it. The lower end is the problem and that is where IMO they really are helped by driving them balanced and with moar power.

Above are my comments on the low end, so I'm pretty sure now I have a bass heavy pair. It's pretty flat except for the low bass hump, which was unexpected... looks like the passive radiators are doing their job, perhaps a bit too well. There's something a bit off about the bass that I think can be solved either by damping the resonances or possibly balanced operation. There's no doubt about the power, I barely have my receiver on 2-3 out of 10 on the volume knob with no signs of clipping or lack of power, whereas my 'stats and orthos usually reach 3-4 out of 10.

Take off the grill and cut out a hole in the center. Then attach speaker cloth to the ring for support. It really helps in making the frequency presentation more cohesive across the the upper- and mid-range.

Or send the grills to me and I'll mod them for you. I use my router table to cut out the grill section, leaving the rim in tact. Then I glue speaker cloth to the rim. Works great. Same technique as morphsci, but the router table makes it a snap.

Duly noted. And thanks very much for the offer! I might take you up on that sometime. Of course not without eventually having you hear the final result for yourself.