The Best Earphones You'll Hear...One Day

Posted by: Mr Plus at 7:07 am, November 28th, 2011

A ‘civilian’ (a journo from the style section of a business magazine) was perturbed by the high-price of the K3003, but thinking it from a high-end perspective, £1,000 doesn’t buy you a lot of audio these days and this is Magico-grade sound without the Magico-grade price tag.

In fact, the only real limit to the K3003 is that it could well be so revealing that it will highlight the shortcomings of the source material. A diet of signal compressed, loud and dynamically compromised tracks, especially if heavy-handedly data compressed, will not be give a soft landing here.

I must admit to walking into this with some trepidation. Were these expensive earphones for the sake of being expensive or for the sake of being the best earphones money could buy. Especially given AKG has a powerful reputation in pro audio circles, if the K3003 were simply an exercise in extravagance, it could undermine a great deal of goodwill in audiophile circles. I needn’t have worried; even after only a few minutes in-ear, it’s clear these are true state-of-the-art stuff. My usual Sennhesiser IEMs sounded a lot smaller and inaccurate after the event.

I’m hoping to get a set of K3003 soon for closer investigation. They have a world-class price tag, and could well have a world-class performance too. They just need to be available around the world. Perhaps soon…

For additional information, visit www.akg.com/k3003