DT-880/600ohm is holding its own as I spend some time with it and the DT-900 Pro X.
The DT-880 is more comfortable thanks to less clamping force. It's a shame that it is constructed in such a way that it is more prone to creaking/ruffling noise from them, but you don't notice it for the most part when you're actually listening to material. But it's definitely a point for the DT 900 Pro X, which overall just has superior construction quality. The 600ohm Editions have a premium look and feel compared to the Pro versions of the same headphones, but they still have plastic in places that can compromise durability and creak when in use. I also appreciate the stock removable cable on the DT-900 Pro X. Fixed cables on headphones make me nervous for issues down the road.
Soundwise the DT-900 Pro X have modestly better bass in general, not just higher quantity but more resolving when things get rumbly or complex. To me it seems like the DT-900 have an edge in "staying inside the lines" there, but the difference is only noticeable when there's a lot of low frequency energy. The quality otherwise is highly comparable. As they differ in their sound signatures one could reasonably prefer the sound of either, IMO. DT-880/600 have subjectively more treble and "presence," being kinda hyped there, while the DT-900 Pro X dials that back slightly but without sounding at all "veiled" to my ears, still brighter than neutral to me but less tilted in that direction.
DT-880/600 wins on soundstage. The DT 900 Pro X has a perfectly adequate positional field, easy to localize sounds in a mix or when gaming, but the overall stage is narrower. I consider the DT-880 and DT-990 stages to be good to great, depending on the material; I had to take the DT-880/600 off recently when listening to something with binaural ambient noise at night, because it honest to goodness sounded like a particular sound was coming from somewhere in my kitchen...! Not going to happen with the DT-900 Pro X, possibly due to their greater clamp & more genuinely hybrid ear cup design (they really do behave more like a
semi-open design, retaining aspects of a closed can, whereas the DT-880/990 both might as well be considered totally open from an isolation standpoint). There are headphones with bigger soundstages than these, for sure, thinking like AKG's K701 and its descendents - but I like how these present things mighty fine. For position and detail I feel they match those, with the capability to shock you on some material that is especially spacious sounding (little background elements can be more audible with them thanks to the treble emphasis, too).
Beyer makes great headphones if their house sound appeals to you, as it does to me. Hard to go wrong in their options at these price ranges IMO.
Yup, I found the 600 ohm marking on the headphone plug. Just gave them a very brief listen and everything seems to be working okay, but now I need to decide how okay is okay enough. I'm still not convinced these are brand new, and if they're not, do I care enough to return them?
Impressions so far: things are a little bit crispy on the top end, but I wouldn't call it sibilant - just lively. The soundstage and imaging are quite modest. Detail retrieval is so-so. Bass is fine but comes across slightly muddy at times.
So for the other 880/600 owners out there, does any of this strike you as suspicious? I mean if they were returned maybe they were returned for a reason. Or maybe it's all much more straightforward than that: I could be hearing my amp struggle, or I could be expecting too much from a rather inexpensive mid-fi headphone with dacades-old driver design.
Since I'm planning to mod these for balanced operation soon anyhow, maybe I just take one for the team and accept the battered box.
If they are new, I'd give them a bit of use before judging the sound - if someone returned them for issues and Amazon passed those issues on to you, very lame but hopefully that is not the case.
I can't speak to how well they do with this or that amp as I only run them from my SS Schiit Magni+, but muddy bass is not my impression, for what it's worth, even if there is room to improve technologically there if you wish to get a higher end set of cans. Detail retrieval ought to be a strength, though, unless we mean something different when we say it, that is odd.
.
I didn't realize I had my amp set to medium gain. Switching to high gain makes a huge difference. Everything sounds much more dynamic and the stage opens up nicely.
