Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro Review (headphone)

[solderdude]

Looks like gdgdggdrrere is our familiar DT990 aficionado Nouvraught again under a new alias ?

 

[hockinsk]

Interesting thread. Been using DT990 since the 80's and bought a second pair this year after many years good service in the studio. Not really ever one to bother with FR, if it sounds good it is good, but the human brain is the greatest ever EQ and so will always compensate anyway. Running them through any correction curve simply doesn't sound right to me, all the correction sounds dead and you can't hear the tiny imperfections in the mix anymore as there's no high end to make judgements with. IMO, you need them to sound like the first pair you bought in the 80s, that the point Beyer of not changing them. I must say though the latest DT990 is a fair bit different in separation although taking them apart there's been some fairly big changes to other drivers it seems, but overall signature is pretty translatable between 80s and 2020 model to me..

 

[staticV3]

@AudioPlanet how many more accounts do you have to create on ASR before you're satisfied, Nouvraught?

 

[Jimbob54]

@AudioPlanet how many more accounts do you have to create on ASR before you're satisfied, Nouvraught?

When the entire membership acknowledges the supremacy of the 990s.

 

[Hagan66]

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/

Just bought a pair of these for £114. They may not measure well, but personally I love 'em. Using Node 2i as a source and a Chord Mojo DAC / headphone amp (another bit of kit that does not measure well objectively, certainly for the price...lol). Terrific value for £££ imho.

 

[hockinsk]

Just bought a pair of these for £114. They may not measure well, but personally I love 'em. Using Node 2i as a source and a Chord Mojo DAC / headphone amp (another bit of kit that does not measure well objectively, certainly for the price...lol). Terrific value for £££ imho.

Standard equipment for BBC both open and closed model. Every other recording studio on the planet probably has a pair. I've tried so-called better performers and I always return to Beyerdynamic, it sounds correct and it sounds like I can hear where my mix is going wrong sooner, which is all I care about if working on headphones.

 

[Robbo99999]

Standard equipment for BBC both open and closed model. Every other recording studio on the planet probably has a pair. I've tried so-called better performers and I always return to Beyerdynamic, it sounds correct and it sounds like I can hear where my mix is going wrong sooner, which is all I care about if working on headphones.

I know, I've noticed these all over the place in the BBC when I've been watching TV, especially that political televised radio panel program where the two presenters interview a guest or two right there in the studio. I never really understand why a frequency response like that would be useful during music creation, as it's so far off neutral.

 

[hockinsk]

I think it's primarily familiarity as they've changed very little in the 30+ years I've used them, although only on my second pair. All that's really changed is the latest ones seem to be wired a bit differently and have slightly more stereo separation. When you mix on them they translate very well. I have tried others like the HD600's and 650's, but for 3x more money I didn't seem to quite get the same results. But the human brain is an amazing thing, I think you just learn to know what good sounds like in any headphone if you use it consistently and over many years perhaps? All I know is when I run any correction eq on them, they sound average and you really have to push eq more than you otherwise probably would and that sometimes reveals itself in the mix with flatter headphones.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think it's primarily familiarity as they've changed very little in the 30+ years I've used them, although only on my second pair. All that's really changed is the latest ones seem to be wired a bit differently and have slightly more stereo separation. When you mix on them they translate very well. I have tried others like the HD600's and 650's, but for 3x more money I didn't seem to quite get the same results. But the human brain is an amazing thing, I think you just learn to know what good sounds like in any headphone if you use it consistently and over many years perhaps? All I know is when I run any correction eq on them, they sound average and you really have to push eq more than you otherwise probably would and that sometimes reveals itself in the mix with flatter headphones.

Well you do get brain burn-in from using a certain headphone for a period of time - in other words you normalise it's frequency response (for all it's pitfalls) and it becomes normal - then if you switch to another headphone you'll notice the differences between them. But during your music creation, you don't use it to check tonality right? It would be hard to check tonality is correct on headphones anyway, but certainly ones with some wild frequency responses like this Beyer?

 

[markanini]

It would be hard to check tonality is correct on headphones anyway, but certainly ones with some wild frequency responses like this Beyer?

It's possible with reference tracks, basically a commercially release similar to the song you are working on that you A/B. But I agree DT990 is not optimal for this and final mixing decisions are done on speakers.

 

[hockinsk]

Yep, tonality is checked on them, Everything is checked on them, That's what I mean though, I know what a good engineered piece of music sounds like from others and myself on them, so it doesn't really matter their frequency response isn't meeting someone else's idea of what correct / flat is, the brain just knows when something is right and obviously to a certain extent how that will sound when through the monitors too because you've done it 1000's of times already. I really think it's not as important as people make out and I'm sure we are not all hearing the same. I mean I know what e.g. a personalised HRTF of my own ears, head and torso does to the tonality compared to the shape of someone else's head, so we are all hearing tone differently as soundwaves are being filtered even by our own body but we all perceive natural sound as being, well, perfectly natural to us, yet fundamentally we are hearing relatively large difference, certainly as much as headphone difference once above a certain expected performance level ayway.

 

[xeizo]

Fun read, tried Amirs PEACE curve on my own DT990-250, became subjective better for sure. I added -2dB @ 80Hz Q2 to tame the low bass resonating. It's not a super-fi can, but very comfortable and with Amirs curve somewhat correct sounding when skipping through a Tidal HiFi playlist. Not great, but entertaining

 

[AustreV]

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/

Its not "broken", its fun! As Other Beyers. After sitting on r70x for years, I miss dt 990 (250). They are relaxed, very light with pleasuring bass region with rumble. Yes the bass section feels "not that heavy as it should be", but its very smooth deep and that very soft, small rumble. Beautiful. At least I think that was made with purpose.
Even those deleting some info from ears, still love them for its character and very light weight (almost a champ).
While flat tuned headphones sometimes can fell without any character, can be boring sometimes.
Maybe I will buy used 990 (600Ohm) cause I got a tonn of amplification power not used at all.. But ppl said 250Ohm and 600Ohm versions sound very different.

 

[jonUK]

I've owned a pair of these for some years now, used on the computer through a Yamaha audio interface. I've used them for both gaming and listening to music (my taste is mainly towards things like various types of electronic dance music with a bit of 80's pop) and I am surprised to find these measured as badly as they did! I've always found them very comfortable to wear over long periods and love the OEM silver pads. Still I accept that they are what they are, and my ears and critical listening ability is probably not very good! I've had no problems driving them to the levels I like to listen to with the audio interface (I have same 250 ohm version), although they've always been useless with mobile devices.

Anyway, after reading this I decided to try the suggested EQ settings. I use Foobar2000 for listening on the computer, and installed a Parametric EQ VST through the standard VST host component. You can turn the EQ on and off seamlessly and it definitely makes a difference - primarily I think cleaning up some aspects of the treble. The main thing I've noticed is what sounds like more "sparkle" in the high frequencies and for example, snare drums in tracks seem to be much clearer with the EQ on, which is perhaps counter-intuitive as the EQ settings significantly cut some of these frequencies.

 

[Alchemist_]

There is a nuance in amplification, I always thought that dt990 / 250 play well from the phone. I can't check now
But 770/80, if you add an equalizer in the phone, in the "AIMP" player, at medium volume, at low frequencies, the speakers distort the sound, as if the speakers sometimes wheeze.
Through the "UA VOLT1" sound card, with a similar bass boost, the headphones can play much louder without distortion, I could not even bring them to distortion.

 

[justzeN]

Hi im new here, i put these correctly?

 

[TheBatsEar]

Hi im new here, i put these correctly? View attachment 307153

Preamp was set to -2dB, but that's probably not a big problem.

Welcome to ASR

 

[Golem]

I know you should not take taste into account. I was reading this review and after that i thought why have i bought such bad headphones and why is everybody saying that they are good?

I really like to use the DT990 on playing games when i need to hear footsteps and have a correct angle to where they come, here the DT990 with 300 Ohms really shines. I miss the deeper bass sounds when i fire a weapon but the exact orientation in the world is phenomenal.

When i listen to music i prefer IEMs because they have more bass, but i start to enjoy the 990 more and more. The orientation is great, i can hear subtle sounds and voices but i also hear every imperfection on vinyl, i hear every imperfection of the recording. At first they sounded really flat but my ears where trained to cheap IE headphones listening to spotify via Notebook and PC. Now with my better DAC, Turntable and the tube headphone amp + phono amp i think the 990 has a sweetspot where they sound right, but you have to listen louder but not to loud. Here i can enjoy listening to "Selling England by the Pound" or the Album "Wish you where here". A tad lower and i miss the bass tones, a tad louder and the middles are a bit messy, almost squished.

But there is also a tiny voice in my head ater reading this review that tells me they are bad! But i rather like them even if i am far away from beeing in a Studio and they are maybe not meant for casual listeners or game players. I guess what i want is a headphone with sharp heights, ompfy bass and cristal clear middles. I guess they are not available between 300-500€.

 

[bodhi]

But there is also a tiny voice in my head ater reading this review that tells me they are bad! But i rather like them even if i am far away from beeing in a Studio and they are maybe not meant for casual listeners or game players. I guess what i want is a headphone with sharp heights, ompfy bass and cristal clear middles. I guess they are not available between 300-500€.

You have to understand that a headphone judged "bad" in hobbyist forums doesn't necessarily mean they sound like nails on a whiteboard. I'd bet most here would rather listen to 990 pro than nothing at all or even some piece of junk from grocery store.

It's just that when you are used to quality headphones with nice, neutral FR, then something with wonky FR is a hard pass, especially when you can get a better pair for the same price. There is no reason to buy them. But if you already have the, and it works for you then just continue using them. If you are curious you can test something like Sennheiser HD560 and you might just feel that it's not that much different.

 

[solderdude]

I guess what i want is a headphone with sharp heights, ompfy bass and cristal clear middles.

Most will comply to that IF you use EQ.

The DT990 is a good sounding and comfortable headphone when EQ'ed.
Some even like it without EQ, others may hate the treble peak.
It just does not adhere closely to what has been determined to be preferred by the majority of listeners but that does not mean it sounds poor or one cannot like it.

It is not recommended to use it at and above uncomfortable loud levels due to higher distortion at those levels.