I had a Q701 and that happened too. Made in China.

All AKGs are made in China now, except the K712.

I bought mine a couple of years ago (serial number 077457) and I haven't had any issues.

That said, that plastic piece is known to break sometimes even on the old Austrian made ones. It's relatively rare but it does happen.

AKG build went downhill a while ago, i myself and many others have had bad experience with it. For me AKG is a brand to avoid, their phones sounds great, but longevity is missing. I advise to check comment section on amazon, this is pretty common btw

I have a K701 (China), two K702s (one China, one Austria) and Q701 (Austria). The build quality on all of them is identical. Only issue I ever had was the Austrian K702 went dead in the left channel that was easily remedied in 10 minutes with a little phillips screwdriver & soldering pencil.

I just love it when people make anecdotal pronouncements or dubious ‘facts’ with no actual or extended experience. Take this for what it’s worth, but for me the AKGs have been audio nirvana for over six years…in spite of having tried countless other headphones.

PS: I tried the K712 twice and found it an awful disappointment — a dumbed down AKG with a bass boost that bleeds into the lower mids for a murky experience. A waste of K7 progress that was probably intended to appeal to the hip hop/metalheads.

I'm talking from experience, my K553 fell from hip level and the hinges broke, while i mistreat my DT770 the way Chris brown mistreated Rihanna, and they are brand new. K712 also had an issue with the earcup that would get loose. So yeah i'm talking about my proper experience with them, and notice how i said "for me". as in "my own opinion" to which i'm entitled to btw

This has always happened regardless of where they are made, it's just an issue with the cheap design, people think because it's made in china the quality has gone down hill but it's not true it's always been the same flawed design.

Happened to my AKG k7XX, it's unfortunate the K6 and K7 series have this design flaw as well as the elastics eventually wearing out. They are great headphones otherwise.

If you want solid build quality I would look into Beyerdynamic headphones.

Now you’re making more sense than your previous generalizations. Almost everyone in the hobby gets a lemon, but to generalize that a brand is “going downhill” is like me saying that Sennheisers are poorly built because my previous HD800 headphone had a cracked headband (true occurrence) is the same thing. Cheers!

I had a few Beyers before. Their cables suck, they are heavy and clamp to hard for my liking.

I still have a AKG K400 and K500 lying around here. None of them have any problems like that after 20+ years.

Good to know, that the Chinese quality isn't any worse. I still would prefer a European made one, when I get my exchange unit (same supply chain as the old made in Austria ones, so I know what I am getting).