I've compared these against many headphones side by side, including the entire Audio Technica ATH-M series, the shure SH Series, beyerdynamic DT series, and I can tell you these are probably some of the worst headphones I've ever heard which is weird because I absolutely love Harmon and akg in general. I have the akg k712 pro's and they're great. A little lacking in the bass, but that's what I have my beyer's and my studio subwoofer for. Anyways, the reason I don't like these is because they have very little bass response and my ears were massively fatigued by the treble in them. It sends like there's a huge bump around the 15k range. But they have some pros too. The headband is well constructed, and the have nice ear cups. Over all though, I could not recomend these. Figured I'd throw my two cents in for anyone looking. I work as an audio engineer, mixer, and mastering engineer.
MiclainIt's good to know someone else was as disappointed in these as I was, and you've described their problems perfectly. I keep giving them a chance, just hoping I missed something the first 20 listens. But they're probably my worst pair of headphones, no matter what type of music I listen to, or what I drive them with. Heck, my practically-disposable $30 entry level Sennheiser HD428s are superior in every way sonically.
Every time I listen to the AKGs, I wonder if there's something wrong with the pair I got, or if I just have way, way different hearing than the people fawning over them on Massdrop. Hollow, tinny, distant, cold, fatiguing. It's such a shame, because they're wonderfully built headphones. And because I really miss my $120.
MiclainI have the AKG K712 pro's and I found the highs too sharp and fatiguing. I actually prefer the 553's over them. Strange that we had completely different experiences with the same cans.
MiclainSub-bass is quite pronounced with these. If you don't hear extremely low-end reproduction from rap or edm then you probably do not have a good seal.
There is a treble spike - measurements on changstar showed it as being around 8k - but due to the gradual slope down from 20hz to 4khz it just brings a small range of highs up to the output level of the lows, and keeps the overall impression of the set from being excessively dark.