Customer Reviews

AKG K 330 In-Canal Bud Headphone - Scarab

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought the AKG K 330's after reading one review, which I am convinced now is a plant. I was impressed in how nice these look and the fit is great. The problem is I purchased them to listen to music (silly me!). I can't tell you how dissapointing the sound quality is. I have $20 buds that sound way better. These are painfully tinny and even with a graphic eq they don't get any better. If you can get the bass balanced it is past muddy - completely distorted. I have a full sized, over the ear pair of AKG's and they are the best phones I have ever owned. It's hard to believe these are even from the same company. Tried them on an ipod, iphone, pc and high-end MP3 player. They're just plain bad.

I was excited when I got these headphones. They sounded really nice when I got them, though I got a crackling sound when the cord moved some times. I chose to ignore that. I tried using them again last night & I can't get much sound out of them. Guess I will be throwing these expensive things away since I can't return it anymore. :(

I used to be a old fan of AKG. My first AKG headphone is K14p. I can still remember the clean and acoustic sound. And I could hear so precisely which instrument is coming from where, I became an AKG fan. Years later, I bought their K314p. This headphone didn't fail me also. So two months ago, when my old headphone broke, I felt like there was no need for any second thought or checking reviews and just buy K330 directly. Because I thought AKG ONLY sell one of best headphone in the world.

It turned out that I am completely wrong. This is the worse headphone I ever bought.

I am a fan of trying different headphone produce by different company or same company but different type. I tend to identify what kind of character this company's headphone is after. The average life expectancy of a new headphone to me is 6 months to 10 months. Because I listen to music from iPod at least 3 hours a day. There are some bad deals I made during this long long try out for new headphones, but never I think about returning them. Because although their performance might be mediocre or unsatisfyable, I always thought it just the matter of personal taste.
But K330 is harmful. When I'first plug it to my iPod and listen, there are certain super high end frequency buzzing so loud that my ear could not stand it for 3 min. This never happen when I listen to the same music with the same iPod and different headphones. So I warm up the headphone with non-stop playing for 40 hours. And the buzz still there. My ear started to feel aching when I used this headphone more then 5 min., and when I unplug them after 10 min. I ears have tinnitus.

So let me say that again. DO NOT BUY THIS HEADPHONE. It will KILL your ears.

I'm utterly disappointed by this headphone that AKG made. I couldn't understand at all with all the knowledge and technology they have, they still manage to produce such a unbelievable harmful headphone - with all its' pretty appearance and not-at-all-cheap price. So please do not buy the headphone, unless you just want to wear them as a pretty earplug.

Would like to state that I bought these from an electronics store near my workplace (I'm currently located in Singapore), and at a much lower price than advertised on Amazon - this might explain the 'value for money' rating I gave it.

I just purchased these yesterday to replace my Sennheiser CX300 earphones which I had to retire due to wear/tear issues. I initially wanted to get the K340 for the volume control, but the store happened to run out of stock for that model, so I settled for the slightly cheaper K330. (Told myself that I'll save myself the hassle of mechanical failure from the moving parts of the volume slider.)

Sound-wise, I've been listening to my iPod to test the phones out, and so far I'm liking what I hear. Compared to the CX300, the K330 blocks out sound a lot better, and produces music that is very crisp (to my ears, at least). Bass-wise, it's not very boomy, but it does pack enough punch to satisfy my bass cravings (I'm a bass player).

In terms of fit, it does take a bit of getting used to. My ear canal is kind of between sizes - the small earbuds are too small, while the medium earbuds are a bit too snug. I decided to use the medium ones and get used to them. I'm happily on the medium ones now.

I was actually planning to get black earphones (cos black is ... well, black) but there's only Scarab (white) and Wasp (yellow/gold). No competition there, it was definitely the Wasp for me. But I suppose this is subjective - my colleague commented that they reminded her of this vacuum cleaner she saw in the store last week...

Can't comment on the durability, as I've only had it for just over a day now, may come back and update this review if I remember to!

Overall, astounding sound quality for a really worthwhile price!

Please note this is NOT A PLANT unlike the moron claiming his "$20 earphones" are better.

I bought this because my friend was whining about how good AKG was and that it was a great company but not much of a brand name (think Audi compared to BMW and Benz). I bought them totally ignoring the price because I was going to kick his ass if they were not worth the 90$ I paid and just went with it. When they first arrived, I tried them on and compared them to my old Skullcandy crap headphones (I recently broke my Sony's and was using Skullcandy as a temporary set) and the difference was instant the minute I hit play on my iTouch. The Skullcandy is nothing but BASE and feels like its vibrating your head during a song and tend to be more like miniature speakers rather than in-ear headphones. The AKG on the other hand are outstanding for the price due to the fact that they have AMPLE base but don't become SPEAKERS. The sound quality is superb although the 'crackling' one of the other reviewer's heard also does the same thing for me except its when you move the jack around too much. The durability is somewhat lacking considering how easy I lost the rubber earbuds (they are a bitch to put on and stay secured but will fall off if you tend to yank them out of your pocket a bit rough). The style is great although the wire feels very weird and tends to rub off on your clothes and become sticky (static). Overall I would recommend this to ANYBODY who honestly is looking for a great pair of earphones for below 100$. I kind of wish the Wasp and Scarab was the same price, ($10 to get silver instead of yellow? WTF)

Simply put, these earbuds are amazing. The moment i started listening to my music through these earbuds i was speachless. the bass was nice and heavy. the highs and lows were wonderful. For the price, worth every penny.