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The AKG K371 is one of my favorite headphones. It was one of the best headphones I reviewed in 2019. Its sound signature sticks closely to the Harman acoustic target, the result of a multi-year scientific study to make headphones sound exceptional. To this day, it’s one of the best-performing headphones on the market in terms of sound reproduction at any price.
I’ve been excited for the Bluetooth version since its announcement, but I’m rather late reviewing it because of…everything that’s happened in the last year. This isn’t the first notable attempt at a Bluetooth version of a classic studio headphone; that distinction belongs to the M50XBT. However, there’s still plenty of room for the iconic sound of studio pairs in the wireless headphone world, and I had high hopes that AKG would deliver. After all, the industrial design of the K361 and K371 already looked like it was secretly made for a Bluetooth headphone when compared to other popular models.
The K371-BT keeps essentially everything that makes the original version great, but then throws in many puzzling changes and tweaks that feel like they came from a different design team.
I bought the pair reviewed here with my own money. None of the links in this piece are affiliate links.
OVERVIEW
At a price of $179 (official site here), the K371-BT comes in at just thirty dollars more than its wired cousin. That’s a great way to start, as the market standard “Bluetooth Tax” is usually $50-$100. In the box, you get the headphones, a nice carrying bag, a 6.3mm adapter, and three aux cables with a 4-pin mini-XLR plug on one end and a threaded 3.5mm connector on the other. Both a 1.2m straight and coiled cable are included, alongside a 3m straight cable. Rounding out the package is a micro-USB charging cable, which feels like a lost relic from the past considering how ubiquitous USB-C now is.
If you click through to that official page above and scroll around, you may notice that there’s a quote from my…
