Visited the JBL Concept Store at the Bonifacio High Street earlier this week upon the invitation of their rep who showed me a new line they’ve recently introduced in the Philippines — the AKG Personal Audio collection.
Frankly, I am not very familiar with AKG and this is the very first time I’ve seen their products (mostly microphones and headphones). The local distributor only got the permission to release the AKG line just this January.
I also learned that AKG was actually bought by Harman since 1994 and they’ve been in the audio business for over 60 years.
One of the items they demoed to me and eventually lent out was this AKG K830 BT which is a wireless Bluetooth headphone. The headphone can be paired with your iPod, iPhone or any other music player or mobile phone that has built-in Bluetooth.
Device pairing is pretty easy and simple — just press the button in one of the headphones for 8 seconds and it will show upon your media player or phone and ready to be paired. Pressing it another 8 seconds will also turn off the power of the headphone.
One pretty nifty feature of the AKG K830 is the embedded microphone hidden in one of the earcups. That allows you to make and receive calls when paired with a mobile phone — just press the receive button and you’re talking hands-free in an instant.
Audio quality is impressive, IMO. Sound is pretty sharp and crisp even at significant distance from the streaming device. Bass is good but not that very emphasized though you can feel the omph when the music calls for it. Volume control is also found in one of the ear cups. I reckon you can do as much as 10 meters between the headphone and the music player and still get good sound quality with minimal attenuation (the Bluetooth transmits over a 2.4GHz radio link using the Kleer technology).
Tried the built-in microphone and got good reception despite it’s odd position in the headphone. Had some problems with my iPhone 4’s Voice Control — was having a hard time making the device correctly recognize my voice commands.
The AKG K830 is a neat, light-weight and portable headphone with good audio performance both for streaming music and handsfree phone use. Just could not figure out how they priced this at Php12,990 which, IMO, a bit on the expensive end.
Meron ako nito .. 2nd hand… kaso sira na yung mga foamies nya .. pagawa ko nalang sa egg head .. got it for 5K only ^_^ di na masama… solid ang tunog at sobrang tagal ng batt life
The last paragraph (where i learned the price!) was a bummer! haha … super mahal! kainis!
I have an AKG K450 ordered from Ebay.. from Hong Kong to Philippines.. The Best Portable Headphones I ever have.. The Bass is not just powerful.. but it is very detailed.. you can hear the waves of the deep Bass and not just the Bass(you know what I mean). The Mids are buttery thick (which sometimes can be mistaken as Muddy.. but it can be tuned down with an EQ)… The only lacking is the Highs.. But all the details are there and it’s satisfying..
One more important thing.. the sound leakage is minimal.. even if you turned the volume up to 2/3s (loud enough).. This headphones are also loud! Very sensitive..
this AKG brand is not that familiar here in Phils. but I been using one,the AKG K414P which I really like so much,cause it really delivers a very satisfying bass even if you’re using a cheap player.
wow nice wireless headset!
@Paul – there’s a 581 DJ actually, *too bad it’s already discontinued*. as per some forums, the 518 DJs is a toned-down successor of the 581 for the lower-end market. I haven’t auditioned the 518 DJ if it’s comparable to the 581.
erickkkk I think you’re talking about the AKG K518DJ. I’ve seen some in Bonifacio HighStreet JBL store.
AKG! hanggang grado lang ako hahaha
Obviously, most of the people here aren’t familiar with d AKG brand. U cant compare a Philips/nokia ETC on it. It’s like u r comparing a honda civic against a lambo. It will both get you where u wanna be. But the question is how u will get there. It’s like driving with fame and quality. For it’s price. Yes it’s expensive. But on it’s target market? it’s cheap. Thanks YT.
it work very satisfying bro,try one even the AKG K581 and you’ll see what I’m saying here,I’ve got one, the AKG K414P for quite a long time but it really impressed me when it comes to sound quality.
AKG! (drooling) must.. have.. 581 DJs! good to know that we now have a distributor for AKG – been waiting this for years. i have auditioned this once – been looking for this everywhere. 581 DJ where art thou!?
if you’re tight on the budget better get a nokia bluetooth headset instead..like the BH-503. it’s good value for your money.
12k? No thanks. I’m already quite satisfied with my Philips SHB9000. Exceptional audio quality and more than half the price of the AKG.
It costs 12,000 pesos and there isnt even a decent on off switch? You have to press the button for 8 seconds to turn it off?
WTF! Bad engineering
Seems a lot of people who visit this site aren’t familiar with high-quality audio :)
In all fairness, considering the quality, AKG is a very respectable brand; much more than Beats and Bose and other more well-known brands. Their former products like the K81DJ have gained respect throughout the headphone community.
Like mr8382004 said, these are very high-end. Someone who is used to good quality music would easily notice the difference between this and, say, a nokia BT headset.
Though, not counting Bluetooth 3.0, I wouldn’t consider Bluetooth as a very good channel for audio, considering the probable precision loss.
Too expensive!!!
The Philips is the closest thing to that, but I don’t trust Philips since I bought a LOT of earphones to them but they are just too frajile
Mga sir, high end po yun AKG headphones, they are for professionals and audiophiles. I think the 12k price is cheap compare to the Shure earphones which cost 20k plus for the higher model. But still I don’t know the performance of this particular model but most of their products are highly praised by audiophiles.
expensive. I’ll go for nokia bh 503