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you're the guy with the frizzy hair?

welcome, julienchina. my favorite first post ever!

well,well. i posted something like this months ago. i almost got run out of here,lol. that was before anyone really knew the ps1k.

now this is what is intresting. as you said the dt880/600 is outstanding(and better than ps1k) at acoustic classical recordings. alas, i do not listen to that type of music much. call me tastless if you must. i listen to pop/rock/electronic and some easy listening ala michael buble etc. there, the 250 ohm "pro" screams ahead of even the 600 ohm dt880. i will go so far as to say the "pro" brings pop/rock to life in way that even the likes of r10,010,he90,o2 cannot! ok, let me get my flame suit on again!

the 600 ohm may not be as revealing and airy as the ps1k on classical music. however the ps1k overall, as the op said is not so great at classical anyhow. the "pro" beyer however resolves/images pop like nothing else i have ever heard. i mentioned several times in several posts that i literally get scared as i hear things 8 feet away from my head when i am half asleep! the air is like delicate angels! these are as close to super high end loudspeakers as headphones may ever get, beyer did it before anyone else! yet, they fly way under the radar.

i will also mention again that stretching the cups so they close about 1/2" apart makes them sound much better and makes them more comfortable to boot. the pro's grip real hard. the coiled cable was actually a blessing beleive it or not,ymmv. i did of course replace the cable but i feel that has no bearing on how mine sound.

another thing i mentioned is the pro's like a hefty clean ss amp. like at least 3 watts. i am using a fully modded gcha which is 5wpc rms. don't be baffled by their low power limits. this holds true as well for the 600 ohm's. you need huge headroom with the 250's. this is bliss.

the funny thing is, i once thought the gs1k was all there was. then came the dt880 pro. now the ps1k does not impress. as already mentioned they are like a slightly more refined gs1k. for a lot more money than their already overinflated little brother. then there is the qc issue. i don't see my beyers ever suffering from such problems. don't even let me tell you where they are now(ny). like a lot of other peoples. overall i'd say the ps1k are a joke regardless of what you compare them to. now....go compare that dt880 to the hd800. i will reserve my opinion untill someone else speaks. i think you already know what i am going to say though again, i listen to pop/rock/electronic.

music_man

well, this was not very popular lol. like i said they fly way under the radar.

it is intresting how different people hear things. forget the beyers for a moment because people cannot grasp that a $320 product can compete with $1,500+ products apparently. many people love both the hd800 and ps1000 they are divided on those as well however. most think one is better than the other. whichever that may be. i feel the hd800 is nice. not outstanding, but pretty good. on the other hand i feel that the ps1000 are trash(yes, i said it) in both sq and build quality. their sq attributes are obviously open to much discussion. however there are no arguements as to their build quality and qc. the proof is in the pudding as they say. regardless of how they sound(which i do not think is good) you would expect them to last more than 15 hours in all instances. in fact the failure rate is staggering. that alone makes them unacceptable to me. now, half the sites selling them are using zanth's review. i would certainly not try to argue with him about what he likes best. we all hear differently. i for one hear pretty much the exact opposite of everything zanth describes. basicly i hear a $1,700 pair of bose! so to me, for the dt880 or anything for that matter to best them is not much of a feat.

sorry to be so harsh. this is prefaced with my pair of ps1k(which i was worried about buying based on qc issues) lasting a mere 3 hours! so yeah, i am being a little bit biased. i still do not think they sound all that great anyhow and i have heard run in pairs.

now on the other hand i could not be more pleased with the dt880 pro in every aspect. regardless of if they are the "best" at anything their sq far exceeds their price point. their build quality is stellar to boot. that in fact should be hard for almost anyone to argue. i am sure they will though

music_man

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You won't find many "serious" audiophiles paying much attention to the Audioengine A2 active desktop speakers for the same reason. Check them out with a good dac (like the Dac1) and all that you hold dear might just get turned on it's head. Nearfield on their upwardly angled stands the ONLY reason I would bother to keep my AKG K701s would be for silent listening.

Wow, thanks for posting. Forgive me, but I suck at orchestral stuff (I'm a wind musician myself), so I can't comment on your findings orchestra-wise, but I will comment that I have noticed in my listening sessions with the DT880's that they reproduce pipe organs more accurately than any other headphone I'm aware of. I don't know why, in fact, I think they pretty much sound terrible with most other music, especially rock, which is where Grados shine, but with pipe organs, they're money, which is why I'm going to eventually give up and buy them, because about half my listening is pipe organ music.

the strange thing about them is no one agrees on what they are best at. everyone that likes them does say they are the "best" they ever heard at something. yet, they are almost completely dismissed in the hi-fi world. the majority of people would say many other headphones are better at anything and everything. being a recording engineer i can appreciate the dt880 pro. i guess a lot of home lsiteners just cannot. for whatever reason.

overall, i prefer them to any other headphone at the moment. for what i listen to. i personally do not like what grados do for rock. the hd800 is superb at classical recordings but i don't listen to that much. if i do it is "pops" which i find the dt880 pro is still better at in enough ways to make it better overall. even independent of the lower pricetag.

i have no doubt that the audio engine are the same type of deal for loudspeakers. i just don't know where they sell them. listenCarefully, you can pm me if you know where. i will be ashamed if they are anywhere near as good as my sonus' given the price! btw, the dac1 is another piece of pro audio gear that is dismissed a lot. the lavry da912 is hardly ever mentioned here. people just don't seem to want the truth. hint: everyone is saying how resolving the hd800 are. they are not the truth. they are home-fi phones. albeit expensive ones. everyone that is saying the are so resolving is really saying "they are wowed". they have a prominet sonic signature of sennheiser lineage. the grado is just completely flavored. the dt880 may not be completely flat(nothing is) however is presents what is at the source with very little of it's own influence. it has been time tested as a studio monitoring device for many years. it is used in the mastering room by the engineers while the musicians wear k240's. the musicians want some type of "feedback". the engineers only want to know what is going on the master in reality. like i said this is simply not what the home-fi crowd are looking for. it is a little brite but that is not a signature in itself. in fact it helps to pick out stuff. it may have been done intentionally. for recording they work flawlesly. i am just used to listening to them. not to mention the comfort. ferrari makes nice street cars. they also make race cars. there are a lot of differences. luckily for those of that wish to we can "drive" the dt880 pro on the "street"!

music_man

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Really? Completely dismissed? I didn't have that sense at all. Or maybe you mean in the world at large, outside of the head-fi universe?

But anyway, I think they excel at classical, downbeat, trance, ambient/radiohead type of stuff, but are relatively poor at most kinds of rock. Maybe they would be good with metal, but I don't really listen to any to be able to judge.

They seem to fall somewhere in between sennheiser and more forward phones, closer to senn, but able to avoid having that "veil" somehow. So maybe that's why they're more overlooked, if that's even true: because they aren't at one extreme or the other, but kind of in between.

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Although I'm quite a Grado fan, I can still easily say that Grados are more tuned towards "fun", not so much hi-fi like Beyer. I don't think there's such a thing as a hi-fi Grado, since to me, hi-fi means no coloration with greatest accuracy.

Just got my custom DT880 600 Ohm phones in the mail today from MANUFAKTUR. Plugged them into my ASUS Xonar Essence STX card, set the card to 600 Ohm range, put MediaMonkey on random, and let them play into a towel for about 4 hours at half volume.

Now listening to Mobile Fidelity 24K, Beck - Sea Change. I can tell they need some more time but I sure like what I'm hearing.

Now I just need my CSP2 to get built and shipped

offtopic:
i really want the xonar but i need a pci card. that card walks all over $2,000 cards if all you need is stereo.

also, i wanted to mention again that everyone says the beyers do something different the best. i might be the only person that hears them as the best at everything i listen to overall. to the original topic they are simply better to me than the ps1000 or gs1000 in every way. the op said the ps1000 did this or that better but overall he was more impressed with the beyers. i feel that the ps1000 does nothing better than the beyers. the hd800 is a lot nicer than the ps1000 to me but i like the balance of the beyers better. they are brite complemented by tight bass that goes low. the hd800 are the opposite. the bass is weak(imo) and the highs are rolled off. otherwise the beyers image better. they are the closest headphones i have ever heard to loudspeakers and i much prefer loudspeakers to headphones. the only thing i might actually like better in some instances is the l3000. look at the price difference! that i'd say puts the beyers in pretty good company. no slouch.
i might also be alone in prefering the pro's over the 600 ohm model. the 600 ohm is even more accurate but it is more "tame" as well. it doesn't have the snap/sizzle of the pro's to me. besides you can get the pro's anywhere. if you do good you can even snag them for $225(haggle).

music_man

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That sounds awful - the worst of all possible worlds. When you consider the price difference, with the Beyers like $1,000 less, it's really amazing how much the DT880s deliver. I agree their imaging is fantastic also. Some people seem to think they sound artificial, but to me they sound almost completely natural.

The pros are 250 ohm? What's the sound difference between the premium 250 ohm and the pros? I know one person on the forum at least who says he prefers the 250Ohm version over the 600Ohm (Donald North I think is his username). So you might not be alone. I like the 250s, but sometimes there is a touch too much sibilance. I just wonder if the 600s would tame the highs too much and make them sound like senns.

I know I prefer th Pro version to the Edition 2005 version, both 250 ohm. They have different imaging and soundstaging. The Pro version puts you between the performance, the Edition version pushes all music onto a distant scene, there is no close, touchable foreground as you have it in the Pro version, providing better perspective and natural, spherical headstage.

A few months ago, I've compared my HD800 against my friend's PS1000. Honestly, the PS1000 sounded weirded or distorted, never head any cans sound like this before. Bass is boomy, and there is resonance of the metal cups when playing loud. Mid-range is also very strange. Surprisingly, the PS1000 sounds a lot better with the Audio-GD Pheonix amp which has some tube signature, i.e. distorted. I guess the distortions are the opposite so that they become neutralized.

I'm thinking to get the DT880/600.

if i may sum up in a nutshell why i am so impressed with the dt880 pro.
they are neither excellent nor poor at anything. they are simply good to very good at everything. all other headphones may excel in some areas, even much surpassing the beyers. then they have their weaknesses. the dt880 pro are just the most well balanced headphones i have ever heard. i now prefer rather polite across the board, then complimentary here and inflammatory there.

i find the two most talked about phones here lately to have tremendous strengths and weaknesses. they both excel beyond the beyers then fall short elsewhere. balance is the key to my happiness. the beyers fill this void better than anything i have ever heard/owned.

of course these are my ears. many people feel differently. the cornerstone of this board is subjectivity. this is my bit.

music_man