Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro Review (headphone)

[markanini]

え?!

Sorry but at this point I am convinced that there is some kind of communication problem/language barrier at work here.
I'm not aware of having any problem with the review itself. Oo

You are unaware of your own statement?

 

[lordhumungous]

Funny thing is I like this headphone much more than the acclaimed Sennheiser HD650 which i find boring as hell.

I guess i like the hot treble . Go figure.

 

[pavuol]

Considering these comfortable velour pads, I'd be curious what materials are they from, does anyone know? Somewhere I noticed "viscose", but I guess it's more like a composite fabric "polyester-viscose-..." (?)

 

[Jimbob54]

Are memes allowed on this forum?

Yes.

 

[bobbooo]

It's all fun and games until everyone's reminded that (if @flipflop 's sleuthing is correct, which it looks like it is) the DT990 Pro's frequency response was among the top preferred 5 of the headphones in Sean Olive's study with an average score of 91/100 as rated by listeners in controlled, double-blind tests, which of course eliminate confounding variables from sighted listening such as potential subconscious bias from knowing a headphone's measurements or reputation beforehand. A caveat though - the DT990 measurements here and by Oratory do differ somewhat from those in Olive's study, notably in the treble of the latter:

Now this could be down to unit variation, or maybe due to the custom pinnae the study used, or a combination of both. The other issue that I suspect is at play here is listening volume. Due to the equal loudness contours, the (relatively) boosted (mid)bass and treble may be too much for those who listen at very loud volumes, for which our ears become relatively more sensitive at these frequencies, whereas conversely it may act as a rudimentary loudness compensation for those who listen at more reasonable levels, such as Oratory, who I seem to remember saying listens at moderate volumes, which is likely a necessary (and sensible) precaution to prevent hearing loss given both his profession as an acoustic engineer, and pastime as an audio engineer in the studio, and so could explain why he prefers the DT990 with new rather than old earpads.

 

[solderdude]

The DT990 in Olive's study is an emulation of the DT990 sound based on measurements taken on a specific rig.
One can 'assume' it sounds the same as the real DT990 but something tells me an emulation is not the same as the real headphone.

 

[bobbooo]

The DT990 in Olive's study is an emulation of the DT990 sound based on measurements taken on a specific rig.

I know, that's why I was careful to say "the DT990 Pro's frequency response was among the top preferred 5"

 

[amirm]

It's all fun and games until everyone's reminded that (if @flipflop 's sleuthing is correct, which it looks like it is) the DT990 Pro's frequency response was among the top preferred 5 of the headphones in Sean Olive's study with an average score of 91/100 as rated by listeners in controlled, double-blind tests, which of course eliminate confounding variables from sighted listening such as potential subconscious bias from knowing a headphone's measurements or reputation beforehand. A caveat though - the DT990 measurements here and by Oratory do differ somewhat from those in Olive's study, notably in the treble of the latter:

There are two headphones in the study with the price of $200, the DT990 Pro and Sure SH840. So his reverse engineering of which is which from this price graph has 50% chance of being wrong:

I looked up SHR840 measurements and the one that I found is from Crinacle:

This sure looks like HP26, pun intended.

I can ask Sean as well but let's see if we can figure this out before I bother him.

Adding on, if the other $200 headphone is DT990 Pro, then its score is a terrible 30 or so based on that graph.

 

[Feelas]

The DT990 in Olive's study is an emulation of the DT990 sound based on measurements taken on a specific rig.
One can 'assume' it sounds the same as the real DT990 but something tells me an emulation is not the same as the real headphone.

I'd say that it must sound MUCH better, since the THD is better on K712. Oh, yes, and there's different treble since there was 12k modeling cutoff.

 

[Sean Olive]

The saga continues.
"

"
Who needs asr when you can have broscience?

"You just have to suffer a few months of shrill treble to be rewarded " LOL

 

[MZKM]

There are two headphones in the study with the price of $200, the DT990 Pro and Sure SH840. So his reverse engineering of which is which from this price graph has 50% chance of being wrong:

View attachment 110200

I looked up SHR840 measurements and the one that I found is from Crinacle:

This sure looks like HP26, pun intended.

I can ask Sean as well but let's see if we can figure this out before I bother him.

Adding on, if the other $200 headphone is DT990 Pro, then its score is a terrible 30 or so based on that graph.

And that ~30 is the human rating, for the human vs calculated rating:

I think the Beyer is HP26 and that Shure is HP29.

I got 83 for HP26 & 48 for HP29.

Using WebplotDigitizer, for the 2 $200 models, I got real/predicted scores of ~91/87 for HP26 and ~31/29.

So, my score for the digitized HP29 curve is a good deal off, likely due to the resolution used (~120 points).

 

[LTig]

Just added @amirm's EQ setting to the RME and listened to the DT990 - it certainly is an improvement.

 

[LTig]

I know for the 770 (closed back version from the same overall DT family), the 80 ohm version (which I own) supposedly has different internal damping and has less treble and more forward sub-bass. (The 80 ohm 770 even comes in a second version, called the 770M, which has the bass ports sealed in order to offer maximum isolation for monitoring live tracking of drums; these sound notably horrible for music reproduction and you'll often see people buying these at crazy discounts without realizing what they are and then rightly hating them.)

I second everything about the DT770M. I bought it for my e-drum because it had the best isolation (suppression of sound hitting the mesh pads and rubber crash pads). But the FR was so way off especially in the bass (totally overblown, like a dead cheap 8 Ohm headphone of the 70ies sporting a simple speaker driver) that it was impossible to fine tune the drum sound. The drumkit sounded either good in the head phones and bad on speakers or vice versa, so after 2 days I returned it and got an AKG K271 Studio instead. It's isolation was much worse but the sound was much better, but still nothing to write home about.

Maybe I just don't like closed headphones. The only one I could live with is the HD820s but I'm not going to pay such an obscene amount of money for this one (or any other headphone). The HD800 was at the uppermost financial limit.

 

[digitalfrost]

Maybe I just don't like closed headphones.

NAD HP50 were the first closed headphones I liked. Maybe give them a try.

 

[gypsygib]

[Grabs popcorn] The battle of subjectivity vs objectivity for determining product superiority for pleasurable activities is back on. This will bleed into amps and dacs too. Should be interesting.

 

[maverickronin]

The only one I could live with is the HD820s but I'm not going to pay such an obscene amount of money for this one (or any other headphone).

I really wanted a pair of those too. Most open soundstage I've heard in an current production headphone.

I couldn't bring myself to spend that much money on one either though so I 'settled' on a Aeon 2 closed for ~1/3 the price.

 

[artburda]

View attachment 110131
PS: this is how I imagine Amir accelerating his headphone burn-in process with some powerful HP amp he got

Or with a pre 2012xxx S/N L30

 

[amirm]

[Grabs popcorn] The battle of subjectivity vs objectivity for determining product superiority for pleasurable activities is back on.

??? My subjective reaction after extensive listening tests match the objective data. People arguing otherwise are in a battle with both types of evaluations. There was no pleasure for me in listening to this headphone.

 

[MZKM]

broscience

That term is reserved for this man:

 

[wwenze]

What kind of arguments does toe-in invoke?

PMC speakers