Oh man has it been awhile since I’ve last published a blog post. This one is going to be writing in praise of my AKG K271 headphones. And also one that exposes some of my thought process before any large item purchase.

For this pair of headphones, I purchased them way back on February 24, 2014. From an Amazon retail price of $140, I remember excitedly being able to bring the price all the way down to $54.35 by using a crazy combination of discounts and my credit card points. If you were to look on Amazon as of the writing of this post, it seems like the price has increased to about $178.99. By now I can say that these headphones have gone through their own version of High School or a “Bachelors Degree.” This is technically the third pair of “good headphones” I’ve gotten, since starting with the Superlux 668B and then the White ATH-M50s. Both have since been retired to the top of my headphone mounts but the K271s are still going strongly during everyday use!

In the time during my ownership of them, I’ve replaced the headphone cable itself at least 5 times. This area is typically where a lot of headphones always fail, and because there are other companies that make a replacement cable (braided even!), it’s been an amazing boon for anyone owning a pair. I’m glad to AKG has also stuck to using the same kind of connector for most of their models, since I’ve seen it on the Q701 and on the Massdrop K7XX. You can see in the photo above, the cable is an easy item to replace, simply unlatch the connector and put in a new one. In the years that I’ve owned them, commuting around the city and around the world, they still work fine. I’ve bent the 3.5mm headphone jack a few times accidentally from my phone. I’ve used them while playing games on Nintendo consoles, on the plane to block out the loud ambient noise, any and every time I get on a subway or train, in a hospital to block out the light and nap in a barely-comfortable chair, they’ve returned their worth in utility many many times over.

And with the arrival of a package from Amazon, I’ve finally had a chance to get replacement earpads. The K271s still run so smoothly and have been without an issue that could not be easily remedied. Had this been a different pair with parts one could not replace, I would have wasted money buying new pairs continuously because of how much roughness they experience in their day-to-day use. I’ve had this very experience before with Skullcandy earbuds back in high school through early college. They would always fray around the jack or the cable would start to wear down towards each earbud. In this case of the K271, the fact of only one cable carrying both the left and right channel prevents chances any tangling between two cables.

Between the pads in the photo above you can see how my sweat and usage over time has caused the velour to bunch up and stiffen. (The top pad is the new one, the bottom one is the one that originally came with the headphones.) The color has faded and the foam is no longer as “plush.” You could even see some slight cracking due to the overall build-up of stuff and the loss of the velour material. (P.S. Velour is an amazing material to use for my ears, especially compared to leather/pleather for a sweat-prone dude like me.)

When I look for “devices” to buy, I want to be able to repair them or replace parts when they wear out. Whether it be due to my own curiosity to troubleshoot the item, or the desire to frugally save more money not buying entirely new items all the time. In the case of the AKG K271s I bought back in 2014, the conclusion is that they have held up extremely well and will still hold up will in the future should a part happen to wear out (or if I accidentally break it)!