AKG Q350 In Ear Headphones, Quincy Jones Signature Line

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $149.00
Sale Price: $69.95
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I am one of those people that constantly buy earphones this is over the last 10 years. My most recent aquisition before the Q350's, was the Klipsch S4i wich are exellent headphones as well and award winners. The Q350 headphones when compared to the S41's have better overall range. You can hear midrange with ease when compared to the S4i's and just about every other in ear headphones that I've ever used or owned and I've owned quite a few. In ear's from Sony, Klipsch, V-moda, Skull Candy, Apple and Bose. Most in ear's that I've used have decent low's and highs with little in between. The S4i's, for instance, have very solid thumping base, ok midrange and exellent high's. The Q350's have good bass (not as good on the low end as the S4i's), exellent mid range and treble and a better db rating than just about any othe in ear headphones on the market. It's kind of hard to describe exactly how the Q350's sound. They have big headphone presance. You can more easily pick out intruments and back lines in a composition than other in-ears, and some full sized headphones I've used. You'll never know what you have been missing until you listen to these headphones.

Pro's

Exellent construction

Exellent sound (not as bassy as some)

Big headphone presance 121db

Cord seem's to have a good design and protection.(more durable than the S4i's,wich lasted 8 months, V-moda's lasted 2 months, Sony lasted 6 months, for me)

Microphone and controls also seem good.

Cons

Short cord,long enough to place in your pocket.(not really a con for me)

Can be chalenging to get in your ear with good a seal. (easy enough to figure out though)

A bit lager than most in-ear headphones

I've only had these for 1 month

and will update if needed.

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This is the best in-ear earphone so far. i used to have the S4i(Klipsch, it was good at its bass but not so good on the mid and low, the bass sometimes try to overtake the mid or maybe u cant hear it at all) but once I insert this Q350 into my ear, u can feel a huge difference already, i've tried sampling some in ear earphone available in the market but so far none can match this yet. I guarantee those who bought it will start enjoying hearing music again like first love.. i cant describe it very much, because "listening is believing". to me this earphone is the masterpiece so far and glad to have more once i got my paycheck :) for backup in case the controller broken.

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As a reference, I've been using the Sennheiser CX300-B In-Ear Stereo Headphonefor the past year or two. At first I wasn't convinced there was much of a sound difference between the cx300's and these AKG's. However, after some more dedicated listening, there definitely IS a difference.

The AKG Q350's put out much better bass response. I listened to a variety of music from classical to pop, vocal, and rock, and what I found was that the AKG's opened up the low end to the musical notes of low-frequency instruments like bass guitars and cellos, as well as providing extra punch for drums and other percussion. The Sennheiser's were noted in some reviews for their good bass response, but there really is no comparison to the AKG's. For non-critical listening, you might not notice the difference, but once you take time to carefully listen to the same material using lower quality headphones compared to these, you won't want to go back. You find notes, sounds, echos that you hadn't heard before. The music has more depth and a fuller, more realistic presence. For me it was more noticable on instrumental pieces than with rock/metal. The latter does benefit from the extra punch.

The AKG's also have really nice treble response, and I felt like I could better tell where instruments were placed. Overall, with the AKG's I could clearly tell that the quality of the MP3/iTunes encoding was the limiting factor of the sound quality not the headphones themselves. If you get a set of these, you might want an audio player that can handle a lossless codec to get the full benefit.

They are very comfortable more so than the Senn's. I wore them several hours at a time without discomfort. They block out office and home sounds well on par with other earbuds. Cable noise is less than those of the Senn's and they have equal-length cable ends.

Quality is very nice. At the earbud end, the strain relief is molded onto the cable which provides a stiffer feel and gives you something to grab onto when putting them in or out. The wire is a bit thicker than that of the Sennheisers. The included case is a clamshell style, closes with a zipper and has the hard foam exterior and soft-cloth lined interior. The case is big enough to fit a small mp3 player, an iPod suffle or the Nano G6. *See the product pictures I uploaded for more what the case looks like.*

The inline mic and controls work well for my ipod. They allow you to control volume as well as pause the music even if the hold switch on the iPod is engaged. So you could lock the iPod and put it in your pocket, then still be able to control the volume and playback.

With my blackberry, it functions as earbuds, but I was not able to use it to control hands-free features. I'm not sure if it's supposed to or not the documentation wasn't really clear on this. I also have to insert the cord partway into my blackberry until it picks up the sound, then push it in the rest of the way or else it doesn't work. My guess is that this is more of a blackberry issue (mine is 2.5 years old and pretty beat up). Although the inline controls don't do anything during music playback or while on a call, it does work as a headset for talking on calls. The left/right indicators are very small on the earbuds, and can only be seen when looking straight at the part inserted into your ear. Therefore, the inline control makes it easy to see which is left/right. These do not include a shirt clip, so it does fumble around when on a call.

This is the most expensive pair of headphones I've owned, so I can't directly compare them to others at the same price point. The price difference between my old Sennheisers and the AKG Q350's is pretty substantial, however, if you desire higher quality sounds where you can actually hear and almost feel those low-end notes, these are worth the investment. Also, the lower cord-noise effect makes them better for working out, even if you don't necessarily need the extra audio quality.

Other Items:

Mine did not come with a cable winder or any of the headphone adapters (airline, 2.5mm or 6.3mm). I also believe the product description (as of 12/2010) mistakenly says these have detachable cords that's the higher end model. I'm not deducting any stars for this, as I received the black & green version free through the Vine program and sometimes we get "pre-release" versions vs. the true retail version. Since these are offered in 3 color variations I'm posting this review for each. Update: I received a reply from my inquiry to AKG about this. They state that the Q350's should only come with the case and cord winder. Mine only had the case, though.

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BOTTOM LINE: These in-ear headphones are a vast improvement over any stock earphones you might get from a retail package of an iPod, or any mobile phone, although you can probably find other products that are comparable or even better in performance given the price point of these IEMs.

The sound on these guys are great. The bass is clearly there for all the bass-heads (sufficient without being overwhelming), and the mid-range is excellent. There is something quirky with the treble though, the highs almost seem a little warped like they're being distorted to be overly clear and sharp. At the beginning, I was a little bothered by this. But, after close to 30 hours of burn-in, I'm actually pretty satisfied with the way they sound (whether this is from burn-in or my ears becoming adjusted to the slightly funky treble I can't verify, but either way I'm happy as it is). My opinion is that these provide a balanced sound PROVIDED that your source is of at the very minimum 192kbs music (320 kbs preferable), because let's be honest, you will be hard pressed to find a set of IEMs that can produce good sound when playing source music that is a compressed 128kbs.

I know some people have complained about the tips not fitting well, but the tips that were already on the buds out of the package fit perfectly for me. As far as insulation goes, getting a proper seal will insulate fairly well and zone out ambient noise, but if you're looking for some serious noise cancellation or insulation IEMs, I would say that these are in the middle of the pack and you'd be better off looking elsewhere.

As far as construction goes, for $99 I have to admit it definitely feels a bit cheap with the plastic-y touch (granted, that's what makes these light, which is a plus for carrying around). The style points are obviously there, with the lime green wire and the black buds but dropping a hundo, one would think that AKG could afford to put a little more effort into sturdier construction. The cord is a little on the short end, but still sufficient to have it reach your ears from an ipod in your pocket. These do NOT come with a case winder just a light hard/soft shell case for carrying it around in.

Overall, a great pair of IEMs that really raise the level of performance over stock equipment. I am OK with these guys since I got them for $50, but if you are paying retail $99 for them, I would say that there are probably better bets out there like the Klipsch S4/S4i/S5 (although I hear these are bass-heavy) for cheaper. But, if you can snag these guys at a discount I would say they are definitely worth every penny, and as far as style goes these are one of the best looking budget sets out there!!

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For the most part I have not been happy with the quality of sound that comes out of in-ear headphones, but Q350 headphones have really impressed me. They are much more expensive than your average in-ear headphones, and I was wondering if the higher price was really justified. I like to listen to music all the time, but I don't consider myself much of an audiophile I rarely pay attention to the subtleties of sound, especially if I am listening to pop music. However, even my untrained ears were instantly able to appreciate the high sound quality that these earphones delivered. When listening to some of my favorite movie soundtracks I was able to hear sounds and nuances that I never noticed before. When listening to recordings of classical music performances I could clearly hear the slight shuffling of the musicians and other "unintended" sounds. This made the listening that much more vivid. The high notes were particularly crisp, the low ones rich and reverberating. As far as the sound quality is concerned, these headphones definitely deliver on their promise. Anyone who is interested in amplifying his or her music listening experience, regardless of the level of their musical sophistication, will certainly appreciate these headphones.

These headphones seem to have some kind of passive noise-canceling functionality, although for some reason I didn't see any of the promotional material advertising this fact. This seems unfortunate, as the noise canceling feature is also better than anything I had come across before in headphones, passive or active. Even just having the headphones stuck in your ears will ensure that a large part of ambient noise is blocked.

I have tested these headphones with several iOS devices iPhone 3G, iPhone 4 and the first generation iPad. They worked well with all of these devices, replicating all the functionality of the standard Apple headphones. However, despite what the description for these headphones says, they do not have track skipping functionality. However, in every regard that I could think of these headphones are far superior to the Apple ones they are more stylish, more durable and, of course, provide much superior sound quality.

The headphones work well for telephony. From my experience with other noise-canceling headphones I was apprehensive about the muffled sound that such headphones give to your own vice while calling, but this turned out to be just a minor issue with Q350s. Still, if you are primarily interested in headphones that will be used as a headset for your phone then Q350 may not be the best option for you.

The headphones come with three different sizes of ear pads. The medium sized ones will probably fit most ears, and they are also very comfortable. I've had them in my ears for hours at a time, without any noticeable discomfort. However, if you intend to use these headphones while engaged in a physical activity you may notice that the most comfortable size of ear cushions may be too loose. In that case one size larger may do the trick.

The earphones come with a carrying case, which I don't see myself using at all. They, however, do not come with the cable-winder. This is not such a big deal for me, but I do wish they didn't include the mention of it on the box and on the Amazon website.

Overall, these are really great in-ear headphones that will be appreciated by most music lovers.