In celebration of the holiday season, we've discounted the Superlux HD681 AIR Studio Monitoring Headphones - the ULTIMATE affordable audiophile cans! Listen to your music the way it's meant to be heard, and get these for $39 delivered, only for a limited time!
What are you talking about?
The fact that these headphones are a AKG ripoff
These have been around for probably 15 years or more, nobody cares.
Wearing these right now
These are actually really good headphones, have owned two pairs, sound is right up their with midrange 3-400 dollar headphones. Clean detailed and low base. Apparently the drivers are oem akg from same factory, just the case is knockoff. Some versions have a slight 8khz bump that can produce sibilants on female vocals, but plenty of guides online on how to add a couple of layers of tissue paper to even that out. These are hands down best can for the buck, def audiophile standard and worthy of a dedicated headphone amp.
Just correcting you: Superlux don’t use AKG drivers. Not sure where you heard that from.
If you look at the Superlux website they’re an OEM themselves, who design and build headphones that are meant to measure and look similar to other models. Apart from AKG, they also have imitations of Sony, Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic. Superlux are likely the OEMs for brands like Samson and select Monoprice models.
Of course they don’t sound the same as those manufacturers, because they are using different components. From my personal experience (having owned the Superlux HD668B), they do sound decent for the price but they are not competitive with the actual brand they’re imitating.
Anyone who’s heard an AKG, Beyerdynamic, Sony, etc will probably agree that they sound better than the Superlux headphones. I’d say that unless you’re on a strict budget, you’ll get much better sound by buying from a manufacturer who doesn’t feel the need to copy other manufacturers.
The 668b high base versions did not sound great to my ears, less detail, anything labeled extra base, even Sony, is to be avoided. By clean non muddy base I mean tight tonal variations at the low end, as opposed to the tub thumping mono pitch of lower end Bose and Sony cans. People get swayed by brandnames too easily, and some cheap no name models can be real gems, but not many are, and the audiophile and camera review sites are full of speculative or un tested opinion by wine snob reviewers. I stand by my claim that these are really good headphones outright, and brilliant for the incredibly low price.
Clean detailed and low bass
I've had these for around a decade, and have to massively disagree with this.
Very little in the way of bass, and the 'clean' impression is given mainly by too much treble. Very unbalanced headphones which give the impression of detail.
They are certainly great for what I paid for them (maybe US 20 back then) but they are not audiophile headphones or monitors. I use them as cheap occasional gaming headphones or knock about wired headphones for the kids- they've been very durable.
worthy of a dedicated headphone amp.
Just no. These do not justify a dedicated amp that will cost multiples of the headphones- I've tried just out of curiosity. Keep some perspective and don't drink of the cheap chifi Kool aid.
EQ and toilet paper is about as far as it's worth to go with these.
EQ and toilet paper is about as far as it's worth to go with these.
I have these headphones too. They sound great so maybe you need to get your ears checked?
What else do you own to compare them to?
@rumblytangara: I have some DT 779 Pro's and HD600 which are definitely better, but to my not 'super audiophile' ears, the HD681's are still really good and damn good for the price.
@stealthpaw: You have a much looser definition of 'great' than I do.
Great for $39, sure. Great in absolute terms, no. And they certainly don't have 'great' bass.
@stealthpaw: They are great for $39.
They are not "Clean detailed and low bass".
And they won't respond well to amps, they are very low impedance and don't need it. They are good value cheap headphones, throwing a hundred or more dollars on amps is silly Reddit headphone nervosa.
Which were the specific points I was responding to.
@rumblytangara: Fair enough and yeah, you -could- plug these into an amp but they are not going to benefit from it due to the low impedance.
What's the difference between the HD681 and HD681 AIR?
From descriptions online it looks like the ear pads have been changed out, but curious if it affects the sound compared to the original.
If you were interested in these, probably better off spending 6 dollars more and going for the original HD681 from AG themselves.
https://www.artistguitars.com.au/buy/Superlux-HD681-Studio-M…
Apart from the physical changes,
"The sound of the HD681 has changed over the years. Below the change in tonality over the years is evident. The original HD681 was a lot brighter (1-3kHz range) and sibilant/sharper (6-10kHz range) than the later version that had darker rings and different lettering/looks. This newer (2024) version has undergone even more improvements in the mids/treble. It still has too much treble but where the previous models needed EQ or a passive filter to sound good the newer version can be damped enough using simple toilet paper ‘modifications’."
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024…
https://diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com/headphones/measurements…
Thanks for the links, very easy mod to do. Re the comfort replies, these have pretty hard pleather look pads, so not great for long wear, but some versions came with additional set of felt pads that were way more comfy and soft, easy enough to track down better pads. Re isolation, these are open cup design, so wont noise block and will leak some sound out, so not great for noisy or work environments, but the payback is an excellent wide sound stage with thrilling details you never knew your recordings had with gorgeous non muddy base. (Even cheapish Bose cans have muddy base) yes you can do better and with active noise cancelling, Sony xm4, sennhieser mid rangers etc etc, but for $39 delivered you simply cannot do any better
Great sounds, terrible comfort/isolation
agree on the comfort, also original version's sound was not exactly great (tho celebrated). looks like that's been addressed
Takes a lot of effort to make these work well on a comfort scale, and you've got great cheap wired IEMs in this price range now, and higher quality HIFIMAN options from $70-$80 on AliE.
This is a classic referral/margin grab product these days, I wouldn't be surprised if Superlux have been trying to clear a warehouse full of these for 5+ years now. It's a skip.
I've had these for ages, still like them for what they are. Much prefer them to IEMs for comfort, throwing a pair of Taobao fabric pads on them was very cheap.
Would I buy them again if I needed cheap, decent and durable wired headphones? Definitely.
First time I spent a hundred dollars on budget HiFiMan planars on an OzB deal was the last time I spent money on HiFiMan. Easily the most dead sounding wired headphones I've bought in the last decade, outside of a wired Jabra audio conferencing headset.
Can you be more specific about which HIFIMAN headphone it was? Because most of their tunings are bright.
The budget planars. 400SE?
They certainly weren't bright compared to Superlux.
@jasswolf: Can't remember. Didn't keep them for long.
A PC jack. And an Eddie Current solid state amp.
@rumblytangara: I mean in theory the Eddie Current probably has enough power if it's working order, but I don't know how your amp behaves in terms of driving upper frequencies under load. Older amps tend to fall on the side of rolling off.
The onboard DAC/amp from your PC would be deadening the sound a lot on its own as older DAC designs also have a tendency to roll off (though usually not before 15 kHz).
@jasswolf: Let me put it this way (while continuing to veer wildly off topic):
With an apples to apples comparison using my standard use cases using my standard gear, the budget HifiMan planars were easily some of the worst sounding headphones I've experienced. It was quickly and easily established that there was no point trying wasting time messing with equipment, tweaking EQ, or 'getting used' to their sound.
I liked the Superlux/Samsons more, regardless of the Superlux being half the price and too bright.
@rumblytangara: I understand that, just explaining a big reason for why that is should you wish to move into higher grade audio products in the future.
@jasswolf: I'm running an EC prototype amp, ten or less were ever produced of this specific model. I am fairly happy with where I've settled with audio.
The HiFiMan purchase was disposable, and made just to satisfy curiosity. I had low expectations of the product, but was still disappointed by it. The best thing I could say about it was the packaging was nice.
Thanks Op, got one.
I bought 2 for my sons many years ago. Still going strong. Good quality headphones!
At some point clones aren't "homages". They're just low effort rip-offs. Right down to the bend in the headband being in the same spot.