I have been happily using the AKG K702 reference headphones for a few years and can fully recommend them – especially for the price. However, there are two small maintenance related things, that I want to highlight using this platform:
Once you have to replace the velour ear pads, go with third-party leather ones. Bought a set of Geekria pads from Amazon and have been pretty happy with them. Paying around 40 EUR for a set of official velour replacements from AKG that I personally find uncomfortable is hard to justify when there are cheap leather ones available for the price of one official pad. The leather ones can easily be wiped, making them a superior choice, in my opinion.
The other pain point are the elastic straps on the headphones. The design is pretty elaborate and accessing the elastics is a bit of a pain. Do not use a tack to try and get the grills removed, as one often reads on the internet. If you have an iFixIt kit that came with pointy end tweezers, use these tweezers instead. Remember to twist the grill counter-clockwise to remove it. It does not take a lot of force – but requires good “grip”.
