Beyerdynamic DT770 vs 880 vs 990 - Page 2

Superior in what?, Please man. bass?, Mids? soundstage?, Headstage?, instrument separation & image?, Highs?

Well is your opinion, but i don't agree... and much here that have both too.
For me it is never fatiging and my ears are very sensible to high frecuencies, and in addition, i have the XMOD, which boost the bass and Treble.
maybe you haven't a very powerful amp to drive adecuately the DT990 (it is a more demanding headphone than the DT770pro/80), i don't known.

Good luck

anyone with decent hearing will most likely not be able to stand the sibilant treble of the dt990s for too long. it's not present with every song, but it is there with a lot. also, sometimes it makes certain music sound better (a lot of classical). i eq that sucker down above 10khz a few db. once i do that, they're spectacular in pretty much every way. i'd say out of the 3 headphones u mentioned, the dt990 will offer the best sq but not the best tonal balance (that would be the dt880s). the dt770 are in a lower league than either of those phones.

I thought it was pretty clear - I found the 990 fatiguing to the point that none of the rest mattered. A headphone I can tolerate > one I can't. I've said elsewhere that I don't really think the two are comparable though - they can each do things the other can't.

A GLite is plenty of power. My comments specifically apply to the '03 770 pro 80 ohm, as I understand any other 770 sounds different. And I am not alone in finding the 990's treble painful.

DT990 best SQ in what way? I find both of them nearly equals. dt880 offer more tonal balance, as you wrote, and have better mids. With dt880, if I had a ruler, I could measure how far the vocalist are in front of me, I can hear where he/she stands, but with dt990, it's much harder. With dt990 it's easy to give the direction of the vocalist, but the depth in which he/she stands is slightly blurred, so I can't measure as good as in dt880.

What dt990 have in favor of dt880 is the "fun" tonality, which works very well sometimes, but not always. DT990 also have a greater sense of air than dt880, and better timber for jazz instruments as saxophone and trumpet.

EDIT: Note that I do not list the bass as in favor of dt990 as I don't think it's better than the bass in dt880 in my setup. It does hit more, but without as much texture as the bass of dt880. The bass on dt880 is enough for me, hence I can completely compare the quality of both.

(dt990 2005 32ohm, dt880 2005 250ohm)

if you ignore the tonal balance, which can be remedied by an eq, wouldn't you say the dt990s have better sq? i mean things that cannot really be changed such as soundstage size and depth, airiness, bass quality and the ability of the driver to create powerful and extended bass. detail retrieval etc. otherwise i'm kind of confused as to why beyerdynamic would even make the dt990s and call them just that, when they are inferior to the dt880s (or so some claim).

i find a lot of the advantages you've listed over the dt990s in favour of the dt880s can be fixed by changing the tonal balance. try it, and let us know. i have not tried the dt880, only the dt770 and dt990, so i'm curious and would like to learn as well.

The soundstage of dt990 is more shallow than dt880, but it's further away. The soundstage of dt880 is deeper than dt990 but closer. dt880 is like 4th row with a 4m deep stage, and dt990 is like 6th row but with a 2m deep stage.

Compared to the extreme airness of dt990, dt880 sounds a bit closed in, almost cave like.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something my ms2i are good at, and dt880 almost equally good at is to tell more about the room and the position of the sound, for exemple a singer. You hear the direction of the singer, where the voice starts, and also "hear" where the voice ends in the depth of the soundstage. Hard to explain. If I use my imagination, I can almost put my fingers "behind" the sound. With dt990, I can hear the direction of the singer, but its not as easy to tell where the sound starts, and it's even harder to tell where it ends. This effect might have something to do with reflections in the cup, but not sure.

The detail retrieval is similar on both. DT990 can sound like it's more detailed in the hights, but this is mostly due to that it pushes those details forward. DT880 also have them but more laid back. Due to the tonal balance (which you say can be fixed) and the better positioning dt880 sound more natural, and it's thus easier to tell what the details really are and to position them correctly.
-------------------------------------------------------
I have tried to eq the dt990, but I'm not very good at it. When I try to do it with the foobar eq, I always lose airness, and the depth of the stage is reduced even more. When turning of the eq it's like opening the window again and let the air in, but at the same time let the hights back up there.

I had the same experience. I think the problem is with the peaky nature of the DT990's treble -- looking at the Headroom response curve, it's really only a couple narrow bands of frequencies that need to be attenuated. A good parametric EQ might do the trick, but those of us who don't listen to all of their music through their computers would then have to buy an expensive standalone EQ unit. At that point, I'd rather just get a pair of cans that sounds the way I like without messing around with EQ.

i agree, it took a LONG time for me to find the perfect eq setting for my dt990s (8-9 months of tweaking), but once i did they sounded pretty amazing. their soundstage is definately the largest i've ever heard. they give air and space to everything, such that it gives me the illusion of being at a large symphony hall. but you really need to get those treble spikes sorted out before you can get this effect.

I bought a pair of DT770's which have been great so far...
i love them... i've drop them a few times when i've been bike riding and nothing seems to dent these things...

also i love the replaceable headband / ear pads... just awesome

also... if later on you want to upgrade to somthing better..
you can just darth them

DT770 pro 80ohm

my 2 cents

I've had DT990pro for few months now. At first the treble was VERY harsh and pretty much intolerable when listening to most CDs.

Luckily my Arietta has a crossfeed filter. The crossfeed pretty much solved the whole problem for me. You do lose a tiny bit of airiness and soundstage but the headphones finally become listen able for long periods of time without any fatigue.

So yeah, if you find the treble on DT990 too harsh and too fatiguing, experiment with crossfeed (hardware or software)

I definitely agree with the comments about the DT990 bass. It has a very strong punch, but I just feel that some of the bass texture wasn't there. It was great for movies, I never did feel it really though with much of my music in particular.

I'm using a DT990 2005 32ohms since maybe a year and am still loving it. It seems like it was pretty much the sound signature that I was looking for. Coming from a senn HD600 I really like the punchy bass sound that the 990 has. For me its a fun can to listen to and I didn't notice any problems with fatigue yet.

I stopped to wonder why some people say its got sibilance. I tried to find any but for me there is none, just nice music. Also I can't remember anything about harsh trebles like manaox2 said, not back then and certainly not now.
Well maybe my hearing isn't exactly up to the task. I also fail to get any slight difference between 192kbit mp3 and the original CD but then again, oh what the hell. Ignorance is bliss they say.
Its not as airy as a HD600 and not as open. You will hear outside noises pretty clearly though since its an open can.

If I may add, the leather headbands they sell at the manufaktur at beyer are really awesome.

mosi, there could be several reasons for this. your setup is a dark one that rolls off the high treble frequencies, which is a very good matchup with the dt990's sibilant sound signature. or...you might have lost or reduced hearing in those frequencies, but that's entirely normal with age. i'm not sure which it is.

as for bass texture, manaox2 mentioned there's little texture, which i have to disagree with. i remember when i first got them and ran them with a low power source for the first few months they were boomy and had no texture. boring but big bass. then i tried them with more powerful sources and amps, and i realized they have acceptably tight bass, and quite a bit of texture. the punch increased as well, enough to compact my eardrums on ever bass beat or drum hit. i remembered in a couple songs when the first bass beat came on, i blinked my eyes reflectively. that was the first time it ever happened.

i've heard before crossfeed rolls off the upper frequencies which is great. i can see why skylab who has the 600ohm version and also uses crossfeed loves his dt990s, since i can't imagine any sibilance on that setup. i get a similar effect when using dolby headphone (but i only use that for movies).