Admittedly these aren't the latest headphones from Altec but then again I don't feel that something has to be the latest cutting edge product to be considered great, plus you can still find these babies sealed in box, or like new and opened.
The AHP512i's were among the best mid-level headphones that you could buy in 2003/4, I know that may seem like an eternity in the audio world but even to day people still lust after 30+ year old AR's and Klipsch speakers... but getting back to the subject of the headphones. I recently had the chance to borrow my friends $80 Acoustic Research ARW300 headphones and decided to do a side by side with my own Altec headphones.
The Specs
ARW300:
Over the ear
20hz-20Khz freq response
Weight 1 lb
Impedance 32 ohm
Drivers 2 35 mm Neodymium
Sensitivity 110dB (I will dispute that)
AHP512i;
Over the ear
20hz-20Khz freq response
Weight 1 lb
built in inline amp
Impedance 32 ohm
Drivers 2 40mm Neodymium
Sensitivity 19db
Ok now that we have all those pretty little specs out of the way we can take a look at how they preform under that same situations.
Test Equipment:
Sansui QRX-5500 Reciever
Sansui SR717 Turntable with Ortofon 10 cartridge
Van Halens 1984 (Vinyl)
Miles Davis Kind of Blue (CD)
The Altec's
I originally bought these new off of new egg in 2003 or so for a sum of $23 and was rather impressed with their sound quality and I still am. I first tested them on Van Halen's 1984. They seem to have a small sibilance issue with some of Roth's vocals (actually fairly typical of Altec headphones for the most part) but over all they present the album in a pleasing way. The second test was Kind of Blue and boy things were different gone was the sibilance issue (probably because of the lack of vocals) and in it's place was near audio perfection. Despite their rather small size of the driver they are able to develop a nice amount of bass without distortion and are able to do so with out compromising music depth by obscuring the mid's or highs. The entire sonic frequency is presented nicely.
The AR's
My friend purchased these last week at best buy for a total of $83 and for some reason lent them to me. The test began the same way first up was 1984 and I could definitely tell that these weren't the Altecs and not in a good way. The smooth rich bass which the Altecs had so easily developed at both mid and high volumes was gone. In it's place was a very ill defined kind of rumble sort of noise that only got worse when I tried to adjust the bass any were above 0 (the Altecs were happy up to +3 at high volume). Though I can say that the sibilance issue was resolved but the glaring lack of bass and fairly weak mid's made that point moot. It was basically the same story on Kind of Blue nice clear highs but very muddy and ill defined bass and mids made even this audio jewel almost un-listenable.
After a few more run throughs with some other albums I was able to arrive at a fair conclusion, in my opinion it would be good to steer clear of the ARW300 (unless Ar does some huge overhaul or drops the price significantly) and look else where for a pair of headphones. Though I would like to say buy a pair of AHP512i I know thats a little easier said than done seeing as they've been out of production for about 4 years or so but I've seen newegg selling some new old stock from time to time and they do appear on ebay and amazon from time to time in new or like new condition. So if you can find them and their affordable then jump on them you won't regret it.
