Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro Review (headphone)

[Golem]

It is possible to EQ it on my pc but i have no EQ via Turntable to headamp. I am not listening to loud via headphone. Any production of Vinyl has its own issues. Selling England by the Pound is nicely done and sounds very good. Led Zeppelin IV (Remaster) Vinyl sound almost terrible on the same gear. I tried three different headphone from 24 Ohm in-ear over 80 Ohm Beyerdynamic DT770 to the DT990 it doesnt change the productio n. I am happy with the DT990. Thx for your answer.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Beyerdynamic DT990 (250 ohm) open back headphone. A member was kind enough to purchase one new and drop ship it to me due to request from membership! The DT990 costs about $160 and has been around for many years.

I like the look of the DT 990:

View attachment 109718

The pads felt hard at first but after just a couple of hours of use, they became more comfortable. Combined with light weight of the unit, they are nice to wear.

I did not care as much for the plastic cups, nor the sharp edges of meta pieces:
View attachment 109719

The cups are round and large making for easy fit not only around your ears but also the measurement gear. I have never had a headphone so easy to mount on my fixture to measure.

Note: The measurements you are about to see are preformed using standardized GRAS 45CA headphone measurement fixture. Headphone measurements require more interpretation than speaker tests and have more of a requirement for subjective testing as a result. In addition, comparison of measurements between different people performing it using different configurations requires fair bit of skill. So don't look for matching results. Focus on high level picture. Listening tests are performed using RME ADI-2 DAC and its headphone output.

Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro Measurements
Let's start with frequency response of DT 990 and comparison to our preference target:
View attachment 109720

We have some serious issues here. The headphone is tuned to produce its max bass output at around 150 Hz below which it drops rapidly. Inverse is in play above 2 kHz where we way overshoot. Predicted response then would be a bit boomy and very sharp and bright. Here is the same as relative measure:
View attachment 109721

Bad news doesn't stop there. Distortion is quite high:
View attachment 109722

View attachment 109723

The DT990 is also extremely insensitive:
View attachment 109724


You better have a very high performance headphone amplifier that can drive its high impedance and provide the required power:

View attachment 109725

Notice how 250 ohm is the minimum impedance. Close to tuning frequency of the headphone, it shoots up to 350 ohm so your headphone amp needs to also have a very low output impedance as to not impact the frequency response of this headphone. Heaven knows you don't want to mess up the response of this headphone any more than it already is!

Group delay response shows some areas you don't want to eq as usual (shown as dip in frequency response) and some fuzziness that I rather not see:
View attachment 109726

Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro Headphone Listening Tests and EQ
It took all of a few seconds to want to rip the DT 990 off my head as I always start with female vocals and this headphone shred the vocals to pieces. And proceeded to drill into your head with those shards! This thing is so bright that it brought high frequencies resonances that I did not even think were in the music! This stood out even more because there is little sub-bass energy. The peaking around 150 Hz provides a bit of help there but also can sound a bit boomy on some content.

Distortion was a serious problem. At moderately high level it would add this warbling sound to many tones from vocals and some lower notes. At higher levels bass notes would start to create ticking sounds. You wouldn't normally listen that this level though so it is an engineering failure more than audible one (without EQ).

I am always hopeful that I can fix headphones with EQ but my first two tries last night were met with failure. This headphone's main saving grace is its rather good spatial qualities. Alas, fixing the high frequency peaks and levels by eye killed that aspect and still left the nastiness that was in there at times. Any attempt to boost the bass frequencies resulted in nasty bass distortion and worse warbling sound per above.

Right when I was going to give up, I decided to use an assisted method to develop the EQ. I swept the headphone and manually dialed in EQ settings and iterated to get rid of the peaking in three high frequency bands. This was the result:
View attachment 109727

Focusing on the left, I had dialed in some 6 dB yet the effect was minimal in response. I pushed that up to eve 10 dB and the graph simply did not change indicating the driver is out of gas. Audible effect of that bass boost was horrible with distortion galore. So I took that out. I then found the sound to be rather dull and spatial effects compromised. So I dialed in a shelving filter that boosted the entire range. This was the final result:
View attachment 109728

You can mess with that shelfing filter (Band 5) to your taste. On some content I wanted it higher, on some others, less. The latter is what I am showing here.

I must say, I was surprised how this finally salvaged the headphone sound. I am listening to it as I type this and it almost sounds "normal" in a good way! Mind you, if you turn up the level too much, the warbling sound comes to haunt you but that is likely not your everyday level.

Conclusions
While the DT 990 Pro is a comfortable headphone to wear, it has a seriously flawed design with poor frequency response which exaggerates the heck out of highs and dumps a bunch of distortion in there for good measure. It also lacks deep bass reproduction. Careful equalization did manage to salvage it at the end but took a lot of doing.

I am not going to recommend the Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. It is just too broken. Even though EQ helped a lot, it is still an inefficient headphone with high distortion. If you have one, use my EQ and comment on how you like it. Otherwise it is a pass with or without EQ. Let's hope we can find a headphone as comfortable as this but with much better engineering.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Amir’s comments seek to negate certain issues with 5 bands of PEQ.

The WiiM streamers only have 4 bands.

Would anyone care to translate Amir’s 5 band solution into 4?

Many thanks.

 

[staticV3]

Amir’s comments seek to negate certain issues with 5 bands of PEQ.

The WiiM streamers only have 4 bands.

Would anyone care to translate Amir’s 5 band solution into 4?

Many thanks.

You can use https://autoeq.app/ to calculate the ideal 4-band EQ.

Simply select the DT990, then choose Custom Parametric EQ and enter the WiiM's PEQ constraints.

AutoEQ won't calculate the ideal combination of filter types, so best to experiment with this yourself to find the combination with optimal results.

 

[Golem]

You can use https://autoeq.app/ to calculate the ideal 4-band EQ.

Simply select the DT990, then choose Custom Parametric EQ and enter the WiiM's PEQ constraints.

AutoEQ won't calculate the ideal combination of filter types, so best to experiment with this yourself to find the combination with optimal results.

Can you explain that for a noob like me? How do i enter the WIIM PEQ constraints and what are those constraints? I never did that and i have the 990 and the 1990 as well. I only complain a bit about the sharp heights.

 

[staticV3]

Can you explain that for a noob like me? How do i enter the WIIM PEQ constraints and what are those constraints? I never did that and i have the 990 and the 1990 as well. I only complain a bit about the sharp heights.

Once you select Custom Parametric Eq, you can scroll down and type in the minimum and maximum frequency, gain, and Q value for each filter band, as well as the type and number of available bands:


To find out the constraints, simply open the WiiM App and experiment with the PEQ menu to find the lowest and highest values that it allows you to enter.

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Nice one.

 

[Cosmos09]

I would be careful blindly following EQ recommendations. In general, I'd say you're okay up to around 5k. Above that, your HRTF will move those peaks around, so it's best to run sweeps yourself.