AKG K371-BT
Can AKG’s wireless headphones deliver the goods wirelessly on the commute and via cable for pro music-makers?
Austrian headphone company of renown AKG has undergone significant changes in recent years, not least of which involves far closer ties with Samsung, which gained the brand when it purchased Harman, and soon took to bundling AKG buds with its Galaxy phones — a massive expansion for AKG.
Meanwhile the brand’s distribution here in Australia is complicated by its more professional studio-style entering through one channel, while more consumer models appear on Samsung’s website. And this K371-BT falls somewhere between those categories — you’ll find them mainly in music stores as a closedback headphone for cabled studio and DJ use, so they come with three mini-XLR to (perhaps surprisingly) minijack-terminated cables, including a three-metre coiled cable. Yet they also have Bluetooth onboard so can be used wirelessly, though in this regard they lack any noise-cancelling, or USB-C quick charge, or app support to provide battery life information or EQ alteration.
These are sizeable closed-back over-ears; slip them on and your ears are fully covered, with plenty of cushioning, a healthy yet not overpowering clamping force, and pleasing levels of physical noise isolation.They have large 50mm drivers which deliver an impressive claimed 5Hz to 40kHz response.
For use on the road the AKG K371-BT has Bluetooth 5.0 support for SBC and AAC codecs, though aptX or aptX HD are seemingly overlooked here. The included microphone means you can take hands-free calls when connected via Bluetooth, and they offer a quoted whopping 40 hours of wire-free listening between charges. Their size does work somewhat against easy portability, but a brushed aluminium slider mechanism on the headband allows the substantial yet slender earcups to click up and down and swivel backwards all the way up into the headband for storage in the supplied fabric bag, though there’s a potential weak point where the slider and the headband meet.
When used on Bluetooth the AKGs’ left earcup supports gesture controls: double-tap for play/pause; swiping left or right is supposed to skip forward or go back a track, and swiping up and down ought to increase or decrease volume. However, commanding the K371-BT this way proved erratic, working something less than half the time during our testing, so that we found control via our phone to be rather more reliable.
Via cable, however, operation is simplified to simply plugging them in, while their sound at home should delight both the hi-fi enthusiast and those seeking a dedicated tool for recording and mixing. There’s transparency, neutrality, a sound that’s open, detailed, faithful and uncoloured by stylised tuning, lag or poor integration. You don’t need app EQ when the sound is so right in the first place.
Listening to a high-res file of Fela Kuti’s Zombie, picked bass strings were textured, crisp and three-dimensional, and as the layers build, the AKGs proved a dab hand at separation, delivering space around the cowbell and other metallic percussion instruments which can be lost through lesser headphones. The sound was nicely open, and also expansive through the low end, though nicely natural, and not in any way with exaggeration — which would disqualify the K371-BT as a mixing headphone. This clarity makes extended listening or production sessions a pleasure rather than a headache, and overall these headphones deliver a sonic level above the sound from AKG’s consumer Y-series headphones, though of course those come fully equipped with such street-friendly functionality as auto-off, ambient mode and USB-C charging rather than the micro-USB charging here. There’s also an argument that street headphones need a little bass emphasis to overcome the rumble of the outside world. We reckon the balance here, whether wired or wireless, is beter suited to indoor use, whether for office listening or in a home studio.