Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro Review (headphone)

[Lotus97]

I like the treble on the Beyers . I’ll fully admit that I have hearing loss from being a musician and also going to many Led Zeppelin , Who and Black Sabbath concerts , the treble spike I just don’t really hear . Many have said the KEF LS 50 ‘s are bright to them but I don’t find this to be the case in my instance . I can only assume that those saying this have better hearing and less frequency loss than I do .

treble brightness on the ears I think is caused by underpowered amp, mismatched amp or just low quality amp like we see today from these popular digital class-d amps that offer no musicality, dynamics, layering, or any life and emotion to sound.

 

[HereYaGo]

My favorite measurement is sonarworks. Makes DT990 look even more godly:

 

[amirm]

"Blind" testing is necessary if you want to remove the influence of the bias knowing what you are hearing which is unfortunately significant.
http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/04/dishonesty-of-sighted-audio-product.html

That study involved such bias with respect to employees of a company (Harman) and their own products (an obvious source of bias). There is no generic study otherwise.

 

[thewas]

That study involved such bias with respect to employees of a company (Harman) and their own products (an obvious source of bias). There is no generic study otherwise.

And it showed how even the trained Harman testers were strongly biased negatively against! their own product when they knew its low price and category. Bias is a factor which cannot be denied and shown in so many other disciplines studies too.

 

[markanini]

I don't disagree with what's been said about bias. But there's an elephant in the room, volume! The DT990 might very well sound good to some listeners because they only listen at low to moderate volumes. Under low volume conditions the harsh highs sound more like a detail enhancement. Personally I've quickly lost interest in headphones that initially blew me away for their detail retrieval. It's something I always test for now with new gear. Does the sound disappoint when cranked? As an aside headphones that survive the volume crank test tend to have a treble closer to what I hear from speakers. That's why I don't believe that harsh or "detail enhanced" headphones really have a proper response. They don't break the circle of confusion. Detail is the job of the content creator, not some esoteric headphone model.

 

[wwenze]

https://support.beyerdynamic.com/hc...-and-DT-990-Edition-differ-in-terms-of-sound-

So there goes my hope that my 600ohm edition has better bass distortion than the pro Amir tested as they don't seem to mention such a benefit?

I wouldn't dismiss before evidence showing it. Since 600ohm means it has smaller (and hence lighter) voice coils that fit closer together. So there are physical differences involved.
https://www.headphonesty.com/2019/04/headphone-impedance-demystified/

As for the easier question, does it audibly make a difference, probably no. Even if it is measurable, but the same measurements will probably also tell you it is not audible.

 

[ishouldbeking]

You know, I changed the pads out when I modded my 880s. That treble spike is really bad and I'm not sure who would want that stock sound. I bought the Beyers specifically to mod and like how they turned out both in terms of SQ and comfort. I think it's a little weird that they're /so/ broken from the factory. Such a big name company should have figured out the issues by now and updated the product.

I don't think it's broken per se. These are clearly meant to sound the way they do, it's just that they're meant for specific studio uses where an exaggerated treble response is helpful to pick out details. They're definitely not designed for a flat response and Beyerdynamic's marketing materials acknowledge this to a degree.

 

[amirm]

And it showed how even the trained Harman testers were strongly biased negatively against!

Not that strongly actually. Here are the results:

Note the exaggeration of vertical scale that starts from 5 and goes to 8. That magnifies the differences beyond what they would normally be.

Notice that speaker T did not change its scores at all. Speakers G and D were similar in rank blind and sighted. And both where better than T either way.

The only one that changed roles was speaker s and that was a small change. From 5.8 to 6.4 or something like that. If you take into account error ranges, then that difference may not even be valid.

You are also mistaken about "trained" listeners being involved in the test. They were not. "Experienced" listeners were used:

What is the definition of experienced? The paper defines the reverse:

Taking listening tests does not make you trained. It just means that you are familiar with the protocol and perhaps are better than others in performing the task as opposed to general population.

I am confident professionally trained listeners would have produced far more consistent results than the "experienced" group did. I know our trained listening panel at Microsoft did. Vast majority of times what our teams found in sighted listening were problems that were confirmed objectively to be there and fixed. Blind tests were only final confirmation.

Mind you, if you can, blind test is better but as we have said, it is not possible to do with headphones. And the DT990 Pro results clearly indicate emulation using another headphone can produce very faulty results since this headphone is not remotely as good as what was assumed. In this case, there is no doubt whatsoever that a sighted test of this headphone would have produced more reliable results than emulation using a virtual headphone. The aberrations in this headphone are so much in your face that you would lose your "trained" badge if you scored it as anything other than bottom of the pile.

 

[amirm]

Let me be clear: the results of Harman research is absolutely valid in my book. That creating tonality in a headphone that is similar to a good speaker in a "typical" room is the winning formula (plus some extra bass). Our challenge is to work through variability of measurements to make that determination. And take into account other factors such as power capability, distortion, etc.

 

[richard12511]

In my experience, awareness of bass distortion improved a lot when I got some good speakers and headphones for the first time. I am specifically referring to the range including 60Hz-240Hz. I noticed this the most in the first few weeks of having Focal Aria 948s in my newish built-for-music-listening room with good acoustics. All prior comparisons I had made were between speakers with ample bass distortion I could hear. It never bothered me in the past; I was not even aware of it really. Now I know that most of the difference between a piano, cello, and organ and all my prior speakers is bass distortion that can be cleared up with better products. When I was used to the distortion, I thought my stuff sounded great, but now I could never go back. Before the Arias, I had a similar experience with Focal Clears, but it was higher up in the next couple octaves (250Hz-1kHz), probably because Clears don't have great bass response without EQ like I listened to them back then. A lot of manufacturers put attention into this higher range because we perceive it more accurately, but I find that lower bass range is also something worth attention. Point being, if you are used to well-constructed headphones with poor performance, you may not be aware of what you are missing. I am sure this explains the Amazon star rating, etc.

Get some giant subwoofers .

 

[richard12511]

Mind you, if you can, blind test is better but as we have said, it is not possible to do with headphones.

Why is that?

I ordered a set of AKG K371 and Shure SRH440 from amazon with the intent of blind testing them and returning the loser.

 

[samwell7]

Why is that?

I ordered a set of AKG K371 and Shure SRH440 from amazon with the intent of blind testing them and returning the loser.

Just to derail this thread for a second, have you compared the two yet? I've got a K371 and I'm interested in ordering the SRH440 as it seems (from the very limited number of measurements I've seen) to better follow the Harman curve.

 

[amirm]

Why is that?

Because listeners can tell from the feel of headphones which is which even if they can't see them. From AES paper,
Headphones Listening Tests
Martin Opitz
AKG Acoustics GmbH

 

[LTig]

treble brightness on the ears I think is caused by underpowered amp, mismatched amp or just low quality amp like we see today from these popular digital class-d amps that offer no musicality, dynamics, layering, or any life and emotion to sound.

Uh huh.

 

[LTig]

I would like to add something to this thread about these headphones. I have these same ones for over 6 years now, was running them from PC sound cards and desktop DAC/AMPs, felt something was missing or not right until one day I decided to run them off my Yamaha Intergraded Amp A-S2000 and the difference was night and day. The bass came alive, not just some typical bass, but it had thumping bass, growling bass, the mids were lush and highs sounded so much different than using other amps from sound cards and desktop amp/dac.

I am sure that the instrument will not pick these differences up but man, what a difference in sound.

It’s very likely that the Yamaha has a high output impedance which explains those changes in frequency response. Like switching in a loudness filter.

 

[richard12511]

Because listeners can tell from the feel of headphones which is which even if they can't see them. From AES paper,
Headphones Listening Tests
Martin Opitz
AKG Acoustics GmbH

View attachment 110462

Hmm, ok. I've never seen or felt either of these phones, though, so I may still be good if I let someone else open them and put them on me.

 

[Doodski]

digital class-d amps that offer no musicality, dynamics, layering, or any life and emotion to sound.

Class D are not, "Digital." They use a pulse width modulation waveform to carry the musical signal while it is amplified and then filter out the PWM waveform just before the speakers. It is very much analogue.

 

[samwell7]

It’s very likely that the Yamaha has a high output impedance which explains those changes in frequency response. Like switching in a loudness filter.

The impedance damping would probably either: boost the bass, reduce the treble or even a bit of both - this ties in pretty well with the theme of this thread.

 

[thewas]

The only one that changed roles was speaker s and that was a small change. From 5.8 to 6.4 or something like that. If you take into account error ranges, then that difference may not even be valid.

But it exactly showed the described ranking change when seeing the cheaper loudspeaker.

I am confident professionally trained listeners would have produced far more consistent results than the "experienced" group did. I know our trained listening panel at Microsoft did. Vast majority of times what our teams found in sighted listening were problems that were confirmed objectively to be there and fixed. Blind tests were only final confirmation.

Even professionals are not free of bias, thats why in all subjective related (taste) industries (like for example food) blind testing is standard, despite the testers working there being professionals doing this as a full time job.

Mind you, if you can, blind test is better but as we have said, it is not possible to do with headphones. And the DT990 Pro results clearly indicate emulation using another headphone can produce very faulty results since this headphone is not remotely as good as what was assumed. In this case, there is no doubt whatsoever that a sighted test of this headphone would have produced more reliable results than emulation using a virtual headphone. The aberrations in this headphone are so much in your face that you would lose your "trained" badge if you scored it as anything other than bottom of the pile.

My original post about bias that started this discussion between us didn't specifically refer to your DT-990 review but the post directly above it:

That being said: is it really necessary to DBT transducers? Their differences are usually fairly obvious to hear, compared to electronic devices in the chain.

I am also fully aware of the problems/limitations of the currently used headphone emulation method for blind testing, unfortunately both it and non-blinded testing have problems which are different though and it depends on the experiment which one can possible give more realistic results.

 

[amirm]

Even professionals are not free of bias, thats why in all subjective related (taste) industries (like for example food) blind testing is standard, despite the testers working there being professionals doing this as a full time job.

They are not remotely standard. A taster at the end of a bear or ice cream line is not doing any kind of blind test. Yet companies rely on them for quality assurance of the production.

We had a group of trained listeners which were used 99% of the time sighted. I know, I was one of them. When it is your work and you are detached from what you are assessing, many biases go out the window. Blind tests are expensive and very time consuming so they are used very infrequently.

It is one thing to insist on blind test where we suspect differences don't exist. It is another when differences are obvious and we are talking about professional, trained individuals. Nothing would get done in the industry if we only made design changes using double blind studies. We accept small chance of error in exchange for hugely faster development cycle using trained listeners for immediate design verification.

Also, blind tests become more critical if you are going against the grain of research. To the extent such listening tests are augmenting proper measurements, they help far, far more than they can hurt.

Anyway, follow ups should be to complaint threads as I have explained all of this many times.