While you speak of music and travel, you ought to have a pair of good sounding headphones, and there are plenty of them in market! So what to do and how to choose? Here in this post I shall be comparing the similarly priced two pair of classic headphones with legendary sound signature of the most favorite Herman – AKG sound, yes – I am comparing AKG Y45BT vs AKG Y50BT bluetooth over ear headphones within price range of around $80 to $90.
What’s great about AKG headphones?
Well going back to the basics on AKG headphones, the company which was founded in 1947 (Vienna, Austria) has long term reputation on high quality microphones as well as audio equipment’s such as radio stations, theaters and jazz clubs around Europe
With more than 60 years of experience, they have filed more than 1500 patents!
To my knowledge AKG brand is one of the most famous in the world of professional audio microphones, headphones as well as studio technology for radio, TV stations and opera houses.
Reason of giving this short history about AKG is to tell you that, AKG Herman will surely remind you of the old classic sound quality, they may not be the contemporary looking compared to the high end headphones, but surely they will be best sounding headphones in this range of $80 to $90.
Why compare AKG Y45BT vs AKG Y50BT?
Now once you are sure to spend $80-90 and shortlisted the AKG Herman headphones, you have two close choices of over ear headphones, the 45BT and 50 BT.
Since they are closely priced it becomes important to compare the specs and features to check which one will best suit the requirements and where do you spend your money for?
So let’s look at common aspects as well as differentiating aspects of both headphones one by one and finally you will get an idea of which one you can choose for what reasons –
Design
Both these AKG headphones are well made, with an impressive quality of fit and finish.
The controls are traditional type buttons which are packed onto the right ear-cup alone. Buttons are pretty responsive.
There’s also a microphone for phone calls during the music.
Functionally they are foldable type over ear headphones, so best for those who travel frequently, goes inside the backpack easily.
While you wear them you can flaunt with the AKG Herman logo along-with the model number prominently displayed over the ear-cups.
I can’t say that they can be fashion statement, but surely the brand AKG is respected in the music industry from years, so flaunting it surely makes you proud of.
Comfort
There are two important parts of any headphones, one is comfort and other is sound quality.
In terms of comfort, both these models are provided with soft and comfy pads, ensures fit connection to the head with nominal clamping force.
However my personal experience is that wearing them for more than an hour is slightly difficult (for me) due to clamping pressure on ears/head, as against this I can keep wearing my in ear headphones for longer period of time. Now this may be because of ears are completely covered and also gets heated due to the isolation (I mean no air flow)
And that is the reason I don’t use them in office for the whole day, but I do use them during travel to office and back home.
Surely they stay in place while I move around at home, office or during travel, however you can’t wear them during running or exercise!
Note : If you wear glasses, this may not be comfortable to you
Sound Quality
Personally I like pure sound, not overblown digitally for any reasons, so to me the sound of AKG’s 45 or 50BT is surely superior to both the Bose 35 and the Sony 1000x! Again its my personal opinion and sound quality is purely subject and a personal matter of choice!
Both 45BT and 50BT are tuned slightly to give you more bass, you will surely not feel the bass too heavy but warm and focused.
Both features 40 mm drivers which delivers perfect balance of direct mid range with crisp highs, demonstrating perfect balance of sound signature.
Theoretically the AKG Y45BT will provide you more lower frequency range as compared to the AKG Y50BT, however looking at the construction and same 40 mm drivers practically you get almost the same feeling of lows.
The sound-stage is not massive, but it is organised.
Both delivers perfectly resolved musical experience with each instrument to be listened with pleasure.
Sound Isolation
Both are designed to provide good quality of sound isolation, so you can speak without fear of being heard over by someone sitting near to you.
Further to it, they are noise isolating type (physical isolation based on fit to ears) and not digital noise cancelling headphones, but mind it that the isolation works great even in subways, highways, busy airports.
Bluetooth
Barring the fact that latest Bluetooth technology has reached to BT 5.0 which provides massive data transfer speeds of 50 Mbit/s over longest range of 240 meters (800 ft), these old school headphones feature Bluetooth 3.0 with limited speed of 25Mbits/s, up to a distance of 33 ft.
[Read more on latest Bluetooth technology]
However they surely provides a stable and strong connection to your iPhone or iPad without any dropouts.
The range is also good for personal listening at home or office or during travel (remember the basics about Bluetooth which expects headphones to be in direct line of sight of the source phone or player)
It’s a strong, stable connection and we have no complaints about it. Not once did we experience dropouts and the range is good.
And in case you don’t want to waste iPhone battery over Bluetooth, then go ahead and wire the headsets with mobile phone using 3.5 mm jack.
[Note for latest iPhones without jack you can use splitter]
Coming to the pairing with phone, both BT45 and BT 50 uses Near field communication (NFC) which speeds up the pairing process.
Battery
I think this is one of the area where both the AKG Y45BT vs AKG Y50BT differs.
Mainly the Y50BT latest headphones gives whooping music play time of 20 hours as against Y45BT of 8 hours.
I could not get more details on what is specifically done to get more than double battery life, but surely its not the Bluetooth since both features old BT3.0 which is not Low Energy protocol.
Anyway both headphones feature auto shut down feature which saves battery while they are not connected to any device (the time is around 15 minutes)
The battery charging time is somewhere around an hour or so … which is perfectly fine for me.
Charging takes place on the left ear-cup. Here you’ll find a microUSB slot, which lets you charge from any USB source.
Specification & features comparison of AKG Y45BT vs AKG Y50BT
AKG Y45BT |
AKG Y50BT |
|
Best offer |
Best Buy AKG Y45BT |
Best Buy AKGY50BT |
| Type | Portable, on-ear headset with quality AKG sound, styling, function and Bluetooth®-enabled connectivity | |
| Design | On-ear headset with Bluetooth® – 3D-Axis, fold-flat mechanism | |
| Color | Black with Grey accents, White with Beige accents | Black, White, Blue, Silver |
| Noise cancellation | They are noise isolating type and not noise cancelling | |
| System | Dynamic | |
| Bluetooth version | 3 | |
| Bluetooth type | AAC and aptx | |
| Speaker Nominal Impedance | 32 ohms | |
| Drivers | 40 mm | |
| Maximum input power | 100 mW | 30-50 mW |
| Speaker Frequency Response | 17 Hz to 20 kHz | 20 – 20 kHz |
| Speaker Sensitivity | 120 dB SPL/V | 113dB SPL/V |
| NFC enabled | Yes | |
| Ear-cup-mounted controls | volume/remote/mic to easily manage music and calls |
|
| Battery life | 8 hours | 20 hours |
| By-pass cable | 1.2 m detachable audio cable | |
| Main connection | Jack plug 3.5 mm | |
| USB cable | 1.0 m | |
| Net weight (without cable) | 149.5 g | 140 g |
Bottom line
The AKG Y45BT and AKG Y50BTs are not super perfect, however the price-point of $80 to $90 makes them perform impressively. A perfect value for money composition.
They are classic, portable, comfortable and well made, they sound good too.
Which one to buy out of 45BT and 50BT?
Finally it boils down to selection in between the style and battery life.
Y45BT with its White color with Beige accents looks classy rich and Y50BT in the same tone looks contemporary.
Y50BT scores high on the super battery life of 20 hours, but Y45BT with 8 hours music playtime also makes good choice even for a long flight of 5 hours!
So mainly I feel its a style which wins, so go ahead look at them personally and make a buying decision, barring other technical factors as per me Style wins.
Hope this helps!
Cheers!!
References for writing this post – Technical specs are taken from official website
https://www.akg.com/Headphones/Over-ear%20%26%20On-ear/Y45BT.html
https://www.akg.com/Headphones/Over-ear%20%26%20On-ear/Y50BT.html