 The AKG K700 series has been around for years at this point in its various K701, K702 anniversary edition, etc. flavors. In fact, I picked up a used pair of K702s months ago, and I think they're great. Wait a second, hold on there Linus, you've had K702s for months and you never reviewed them? Why the heck not? Well, I've had a Moto 360 for weeks and still haven't reviewed that either, although that one is coming soon, so make sure you're subscribed. But back on topic, I haven't reviewed them because I really didn't feel like I had anything to contribute to the conversation. Their strengths and weaknesses have been well documented by the audiophile community, pricing has stabilized, and other than very minor cosmetic or sonic tweaks, which aren't really enough to justify a review of an old product, they haven't changed much. But today is different. We get minor cosmetic tweaks, yes, but we also get a little bit more bass punch, and more importantly we get a fantastic price move on what is the first ever Massdrop edition headphone, the K7XX. The Cooler Master Neptune 240M features an exclusive pump design and their new Silencio fans to provide impressive near silent performance. Click now to learn more. So we'll kick off with the package. Pretty run-of-the-mill, except for the Massdrop first edition badges and messaging on it, so I'll be sure to cover the tweaks to the product that make it special as we go along. Inside the box you'll find the headphones themselves with a pre-attached 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 inch adapter, and that's about it. No fancy carrying cases or anything like that, so it's product to our time. We'll start with the headband. It uses an elastic-based suspension system that allows it to sit exactly in place without any adjustment necessary for different head sizes, and do so without the vice grip effect of many of Sennheiser's most popular models. Great for long listening sessions. My only issue with this system is its long-term resilience. It's likely AKG is using a different elastic material than they did years ago when this one was manufactured, but I think I'd still prefer something else outright, since most elastics I've encountered, whether they're on headphones or ginch, will eventually crack and dry like this one. The band itself is an improvement over the old pair though, with the derpy ribs along the inside of it. I mean, obviously they made that for all the people whose heads are shaped like that, I guess. Instead, we get a smooth natural leather strap that can be angled a little bit for the broadest possible contact with your head. Now, often I'll complain about thin, unpadded headbands, but this design actually works surprisingly well, and basically flows without pressure points for me. Although, one of our team members with a larger head said that as the elastics engage, the pressure increases. So, there you go. I mean, this is subjective, I guess, but while we're talking about the headband, I think the black accents instead of gray ones look a lot better. The only thing I didn't like about the headband was the little made in China sticker, compared to the made in Austria printing on my older 702. But, that's the direction things are going, and if they sound great, and they're able to put the manufacturing cost savings towards improved materials in a lower price, then I guess they'll sell the way that cheaper, better hotcakes are bound to, won't they? Because they are better in some ways. On the ear cups, we see more tasteful black accents. In fact, the whole headphone pretty much is done in a sexy blackout style. We've got the same detachable three-pin cable system as before with a lock, and the biggest improvement of all. The ear pads on my old K702s are super thick, but appear to be made of the most rock-like foam that AKG could source from phone planet 7 in the Granite Galaxy. While the 7XX Massdrop Edition has thinner pads, but they're made of some of the most luxurious memory foam that I've ever encountered on a headphone. These puppies are comfortable from day one with zero break-in period required. Old star AKG and Massdrop. Speaking of break-in period, I left them for 48 hours with random music playing at a reasonable volume, and did all of my comparative listening on a geek out since I didn't have time to sit down and do it at home with my 02. And I gotta say, these sound great! Side-by-side at 80 decibels, plus or minus about 0.5 according to my RS232 X-Tech sound level meter, the most noticeable changes are obviously going to be the plus 3 decibel bass boost. It gives them a little bit more life than their predecessor, but more importantly for me, the reduction in brightness or sparkle that made the K702s a little hard to listen to for long periods for me. Yes, some folks who prefer a more analytical sound might lament the addition of a bit of a veil, but for me the extra rumble is something that the K702s sorely needed and a trade that I'll take every day, compared to every hi-hat making me cringe a little bit at otherwise comfortable listening levels. Speaking of veils, figuring out which I preferred between the K702 and the K7XX was the easy part. Where I really ran into trouble was comparing them to the Sennheiser HD600s. These two headphones sound really, really similar. Sometimes I'd swap them and feel like there was a little bit of extra clarity in the mids on the HD600s, and other times I'd be certain that the K7XXs had a bit more of a pleasing rumble to them, only to swap them out again and not be able to figure out what I was hearing before. Then within seconds my ears had adapted to whatever I was wearing and I could no longer hear any significant difference at all. But none of this is a problem with the K7XXs. If anything, it's very high praise indeed, since the HD600s are one of my favorite headphones overall, and my favorite open design for sure, with their great balance of comfort, weight, and sound signature. So if I was shopping today, it would pretty much come down to how does it fit on your head and the price. I mean, Sennheiser typically clamps a little harder, but in the long term I think I prefer a padded headband, since there's nothing to fail on it. AKG has a detachable cable though, which is nice if you ever have the need to replace it, and I could probably go on like this for a while, but for me, between these two, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other, which is a pretty strong statement. Speaking of strong statements, Ting wants to make a strong impact on your phone statement. Yes, ting.com is the reasonably priced pay for only what you use mobile provider. They're on the Sprint network, so you don't have to worry about that whole thing where it's like, oh, they're a small wireless provider. They probably have like some janky network. If you have good Sprint service in your area, then you're going to be good to go. They've got a savings calculator on their site, which they claim you can enter your last three bills in. No, you can actually definitely do that. You enter your last three bills, and they claim that 98% of Americans would save money by switching to Ting, because they buy these monster mega plans with all these text messages, minutes, and megabytes, and then it turns out that if you don't actually use them all, then you're not getting that great of a deal. So all you have to do is head over to linus.ting.com, go ahead and try out the savings calculator. If it ends up working out well for you, you can actually get $25 in service credit or towards a new device by using our link. So the only thing I don't like about Ting is that we don't have them here in Canada. So, yay, America, you guys get wireless providers that we don't have. Speaking of things we don't have, I don't have time to tell you guys about the link in the video description where you can support us. You can give us another contribution by a cool t-shirt like this one, or change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code so we get a small kickback whenever you buy headphones. Not these headphones, mind you, because they're on Massdrop, but these ones or these ones? Pretty sure I have some in my pocket for these ones. I think we're done here.