Beyerdynamic T5p

I remember the day I listened to these. They looked gorgeous. They were lightweight and fit beautifully on my head. I thought I was in for a treat. I just wanted to first try with my cayin n3. It sounded very tizzy, hazy and unrefined. I thought maybe I was underdriving them. Tried plugging into multiple sources and powerful amps and still the same sound. Yikess!!

How do I describe the sound these make? Some coarse ragged treble and distorted mids. Like I've never put anything on my head that sounded this bad. I just can't believe this product was actually sold in a retail stores. The pricing is a joke. I think some cheap 5$ thrift store iem like skullcandies sound better and will measure objectively better.

Now I honestly was thinking I listened to a borked pair. However innerfidelity charts showed the same I was hearing. Not that I trust a graph or anything, but in this case I have to agree that they sounded like they measure.

Now here's the deal. There apparently are unicorn units that sound good. I can't comment on that without trying other units.

However the unit consistency issues are so bad that it's looks like a serious prank on consumers. Good game, beyerdynamic. Maybe gen2 is better in this regard? But honestly, this deserves a video in the style of what tyll did to the original beats.

Let me know where to search for a good unit. Because it was the most dazzling looking and among the most comfiest things I've put on my head. Just the sound was terrible - beyond description.

    
 
 
Beyerdynamic has been a tried and true brand for me over the years. In fact, their T70p was my first ever headphone I purchased over $200 (how the times have changed). Their quality and craftsmanship has always impressed me and this continues to the T5p model that lays here before me. I’ve some prior experience with this headphone, but it’s thanks to a subscriber of mine who reached out to me and asked if I would review a few products for my take on them, that I’m now comfortable enough to write a full review of them. So without further adue, allow me to introduce, the Beyerdynamic T5p.
 
 
 
 
 
The Opening Experience
 
 
      
 
 
 
    Yet again I find myself overly impressed with how Beyerdynamic presents both themselves and their products. Starting with the box. The T5p’s are beautifully simplified. On the front you’ve only a picture of the product in Beyers traditional white and gray background with a introductory details. The side introductions of the their Tesla technology. Then the back gives the technical details and some pictures of what’s inside. Or in other words, the box is saying ‘I’ll let my abilities speak for themselves.’
    Now, opening the box, you’re presented with a super high grade aluminum box that is the true headphone case. Not only is this highly protective, but it’s also quite stylish as well. Other elite class products provide something like pelican cases which are super protective sure, but they’re hideous, imho. Lastly you’re also given the warranty and product information booklet that’s also in full color and or premium quality paper. A very small touch but one I personally appreciate, especially since this product costs more than $1k.
    Lastly, as you open the aluminum container the Beyerdynamic T5p’s are laid out inside a universal headphone cut out with a cloth pouch holding a 10ft. extended cable that’s terminated in a 3.5mm jack but it equipped with a 6.5mm adaptor.
    Beyerdynamic may be shooting themselves in the foot by continuously providing me with firm “handshakes,” but it’s also a reason I keep finding myself returning to their brand. They always go above and beyond to present themselves with the competence they have displayed over the years.
 
 
Construction
 
                                                                                       
 
 
    As stated earlier I’ve always been incredibly fond of the craftsmanship displayed by Beyer. However, craftsmanship is not the same as durability. The T5p’s, though are built using premium materials, don’t feel like they’re super sturdy. The frame holding the Tesla drive units don’t feel very firmly placed and to occasionally slip out of their indention when not on my head. This is a quick fix by simply sliding them back (usually) up, but not an issue I’d expect to have in a product breaking the thousand dollar USD threshold. Moving down we’ve the ear pads which don’t feel premium by any stretch of the word, in fact they feel like they came off a $30 throw away. The driver housings are very well built and sturdy aluminum they both feels and looks exquisite. I will still stress the importance of taking care of these because I believe that would be rather susceptible to scratches, dents, and so on.
    This last thing however has always been my biggest complaint with early generation Beyerdynamic products and THANKFULLY this has been corrected with the new generation 2 line. But firstly the cable that Beyer has chosen feels inexcusably cheap and flimsy. Now rather or not they are cheap is out of my knowledge but they do feel this way. Also, and by far my biggest complaint, they’re not detachable. This opens, no, this blows open the door of potential issues that may arise. From shorts appearing in the cable or even more common, a house animal uses it as a play toy or you snag it on something and it tears. Any of which have potential to impose very high repair charges to the individual that could be have been easily avoided if only the cables would’ve been detachable.
    So unfortunately, though the Beyerdynamic’s are beautifully hand crafted, to very pride filled employees, they’re just not built so a degree that I personally believe a product in this price point should be. A product being made out of premium materials doesn’t go far if their weakest links aren’t built to the same standard.
 
EDIT: And go figure. As I was completing the final edits on my YouTube video of these, Phoenix, my dog, somehow found his way into my office and munched end of the cable. Luckily everything else above 2 inches from the end was untouched but now I’m stuck with the fact of paying a very high premium so fix this. I couldn’t be living my own arguments for detachable cables anymore if I tried to right now.
 
Comfort
 
 
 
 
    This I will say is something I’ve very little complaints for, and even the one I do is more of a personal issue vs. a product one. And it’s simply that where I have above average ear size I have to wiggle my ears inside the housing to get an ideal fit. Anyone with regular or smaller ears will have no issues whatsoever.
    The clamping force, getting back into the positive aspects, is terrific. It hugs my head with just enough pressure to stay put; nothing more. Though the pads look and feel cheap, they’re honestly rather comfortable on the head; course then again, so are a lot of $30 headphones.
    All in all I believe Beyerdynamic did a great job on making these very comfortable to wear for long extended listening sessions, that even I will vouch for when I use these for gaming.
 
Sound
 
    Here we are. The section the vast majority of you scrolled right down to BUT FRET NOT. I’m not mad so long as you take away something from my review in some form or another. Anywho’s. The T5p’s sound, though not one I personally seek out, is super impressive and definitely deserves on the top tier shelf among portable products.
    As to not leave you on a cliff hanger. The soundstage of the T5p’s, though rather small for a semi open headphone, is still quite impressive and respectably distant. Combine this with the spatial awareness of the positional ques and imaging abilities and you’ve the recipe for an immersive experience that’ll probably make even the most veteran of audio enthusiasts grin. Keep those notes in mind for I’ll come back to them later. But as of right now I’d like to discuss the individual aspects so that you can hopefully get an idea for what these generally sound like.
 
Treble
 
    The highs are most certainly the area that I believe Beyer focuses most strongly on. The treble in the T5p’s are grimacingly high (if the given songs extend out that far because these most certainly can/will match it) but yet still complete with control. I really hate using the word control in the treble range for it describes bass much better but I really can’t think of a more befitting word.
    What more, is that the detail retrieval present in the T5p’s are also that of great competence. I can very easily make out ever scratch that goes across a symbol and even things going on in the background of videos I’ve watched dozens of times over.
    The only negative I have to say about the treble, and it because I believe they have such long extension, is that they do get sibilant on songs with very strong, bright treble presence.  A great video to hear  what I’m referencing is my AK T8ie mk2 review. Yes, this could potentially the mic in my phone picking up interference, but it’s something I’ve experienced nonetheless.
 
Mids
 
    My favorite subsection of the sound. So how are the mids produced by the T5p’s? Overall they’re incredibly clean, accurate and full bodied. While listening to a well recorded track the Beyer’s to a truly hat tipping presentation with the liveliness and realism presented to me in the mids. They do however bleed into the treble biased by slightly increasing the tone/pitch of whichever artist you were to be listening to. Other than the slight tone increase, when I close my eyes and fully delve myself into what I’m listening to I can very easily and vividly see the artists perform and my goodness the reverb of the strings of acoustic instruments, especially the higher pitched ones.
    Now, unfortunately I couldn’t fully enjoy any and all musicians I listened to. Particularly male performers with very low sounding voices such a Trace Adkins & Chris Jones. They still sounded great sure but they lost the accuracy of their voices. So I guess that these are a headphone that really show off female voices and are alright with male.
 
Bass
 
    This is definitely going to be a make or break area for a many of users. The bass on the Beyerdynamic T5p is beautiful. It’s tighter than most any other dynamic headphone I can think of and has stupid good control. The potential break it for people is that I foresee is that these don’t have much of an impact to them which makes them quite bass light. In fact, so much so I would actually call them a bright headphone. This is rather unfortunate because these overall are a great sounding piece of equipment. But a very strong reason why I cannot call these a reference class headphone is because even on songs that I KNOW were specifically designed to be a heavy bass song, the T5p did little more that portray a giant spotlight on all the minor details present in the song. This is fine and good to an extent but, at least for me personally, I like to enjoy music for it being music and not dissecting it for every nook and cranny.
 
Addendum:
 
    Remember earlier when I told you to keep my mention of the soundstage and it’s positional accuracy in mind? Well here’s why. For those of you like myself who love to play online, these headphones are unbelievable. Never (and I really dislike using that word), have I felt so inside a game before and I don’t even have an optimized setup just yet. For those who don’t know, I am a huge fan of the game Destiny (PS4, gamertag is same as on here). The creators did a wonderful job when they created not just the soundtrack for the game but environmental ques. While wearing the T5p’s, I have discovered so many new sounds and aspects to the game I’ve never realised before. To add even more to this, when I’m delving into PVP (player vs. player [multiplayer]) activities, the T5p gives me almost an unfair advantage. They are incredible in portraying not just quick accurate movement within the soundstage, but these headphones also portray height better than almost any headphone I’ve tried in a very long time. So for those looking for an absolutely top tier gaming headphone, I’d strongly encourage you to at least give these a try.
    A downside to using these with gaming is that they do require the use of an external microphone is you wish to communicate with other people. From my personal experience this isn’t difficult to do minus, again with my personal setup, the fact that horrible static came into the audio that made the people I play with often mute me which completely defeated the point.
 
Conclusion
 
    To conclude my review of the Beyerdynamic T5p, they are a beautifully designed product that shows it’s built with pride. Unfortunately the construction could be a bit better. The driver housings don’t stay secure with the fit setting I’ve placed and often have to readjust them when take them off my head. Also the cable is not only very cheaply made (from my assumption of its feel and appearance), but they’re also non detachable.
    The sound is strictly clinical and goes out of its way it seems to showcase every minute detail that can be presented out of the track you’re listening to. To some this is exactly the sound they enjoy but to others who enjoy a more musical presentation like myself, they likely won’t be able to listen to these for super long duration.
    Comfort is top notch, I don’t have any complaints about these being anything less than a light hug to my head.
    Finally, these are a tremendously dangerous gaming headphone. I wish I had these to play with a Final Fantasy game or some similar solo player game so that I may fully see what these can bring.
 
 
                                                                          

 
 
Also, make sure to check out my unboxing and review videos. They’re pretty awesome AND you getta put a face to the Army-Firedawg name. If this review helped you out at all please hit that thumbs up button for it really helps me out a lot. Till next time my friends, stay safe.
 

 
Never thought this day would come but I guess blunders are inevitable. There is no denying the Beyerdynamic T5p is one attractive looking Headphone, I think it's among the most beautiful and understated looking Headphones ever created. Beyer outdid themselves with the Tesla 1 and Tesla T5p Mesh designs. I personally love the design elements of the T1 and T5p but this is the place where it's resemblance with the T1 ends. 



Comfort and Isolation - 

In the ever growing trend of "Closed-Backs" sounding "Semi-Open" the T5p manages to be fully sealed. It reminds me a lot of the DT770M, albeit not as good at isolation as the DT770M, nevertheless the isolation is very impressive. 
Earpads of the T5p have always had polarizing opinions, some people love it, some hate it. I happen to love it, mainly because I'm always in an Air-Conditioned Environment. 
The Headband of the T1 and T5p has always been perfect, very thick and soft. I doubt anyone would ever complain about the Headband of the T5p especially with the ideal clamp they exert. 

 
Sound -
 
Before I come to the numbers, I'd like to preface this section by saying that the T5p is horrendous, it offers one of the worst fidelity for it's price and is outperformed by it's elder and cheaper sibling, the DT770.
 
The T5p struggles with Sub-Bass like the DT150 due to its obsolete Chamber design and lack of proper treatment inside it. The Transducers can't reproduce anything below 70 to 60Hz due to the lack of excursion space. Any correction results in unnecessary accentuation of maximum reproducible excursion Frequency, same observation can be observed in the previously assessed DT150.
The T5p manages to impress with even poorer transition towards the Lower Mid-Range.

The T5p measures poorly which is fine but subjective listening suggested there is more going on that what we are able to objectively see. 
There is severe coloration between 300 Cycles to 1000 Cycles. There is unnecessary energy in that region which would have been easy to fix but the Chamber has more factors than the Frequency Domain preventing me to get a good corrected response, due to the joint resonance between correcting here and correcting in the upcoming frequencies results in the same resonant frequency issue I noticed while correcting the DT150, it's about X10 times severe here though. 
The T5p suffers very badly in imaging due to such coloration in the Lower Mid-Range. I'll get back to the imaging later. 
As we climb up, the 2KHz coloration isn't hard to ignore and with even more non-sense above, the Mid-Range of the T5p is among the worst I have ever heard, regardless of cost or system type. I have $20 IEMs that offer a better Mid-Range presentation than the T5p, I'm not exaggerating. 

The Treble isn't elevated or over inflated like some Beyers, I find the T5p to be rolled-off up top with spikes here and there. 
I wanted to fix 8-10Khz but any correction resulted in added thinness to the response, correcting here is necessary but not possible without disturbing everything else. I gave up at that point as I new this Headphone was hopeless and even ideal 1:1 deletion correction couldn't solve the Chamber shortcomings. 


 

 

 

 

 
So, the response is atrocious and because of this, the Soundstage takes a major hit. The T5p is a classic case of the thing everybody has done where you take your hands on the back of your Open-Back Headphone and notice the change in Imaging due to the shift of Response and Acoustic Impedance of the system, severity of which will of course depend on the front design and airflow. Response of the System is directly proportional to the Imaging hence the T5p has very little to non-existent imaging to offer, which can't be fixed even with source correction due to the simple fact that the System is compromised by the Chamber and it's Resonant Frequencies and constricted Airflow because of the angled Baffle-Plate.


 




 
 
I think you can get away with better fidelity for less than $200, let's see what we have here - 

1) DT770 

DT770 is almost 35 years old and it still outperforms the best of the best (corrected). The T5p is not even close to the DT770 Dynamics, the DT770 offers real extension in the Sub-Bass, you can get the system to extract good enough information without accentuation but real extension. The DT770 for almost $150 is the best value in Headphones. 


 
2) SRH440

I never thought I'd put a generic Chinese Driver alongside a sophisticated Electrodynamic Transducer but I guess the SRH440 got the last laugh. The SRH440 offers a more treatable response albeit the Grain and overall fidelity isn't as good as the T5p would be in a treated or an ideal Chamber. Regardless, the SRH440 is a better value and a better Headphone for around 10% the cost of the T5p. The major weakness of the SRH440 is that it suffers from the classic PET Syndrome. 


 
3) DT250 

The DT250 is one of my favorite Beyers ever made, the things it does in such a limited and untreated design is marvelous (Corrected, of course). The DT250 offers superior response, extension and even Soundstage compared to the T5p for only $200. 


 
Overall, the T5p is a disrespect to Beyerdynamic's legacy and Engineering History, this Headphone should be eliminated completely and forgotten as a bad mistake. 
What I have done above should not have happened, it's nothing but embarrassing to compare the T5p to the above Headphones when it costs over a $1000. Sure, it's petty but there is no fidelity to be found here but...if you are really keen on a Tesla Beyerdynamic then I suggest looking at the DT1770 or the Tesla 1. 

Video Review -