Beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO Closed Studio Headphones - 250 Ohms

I just got my pair, and I can say that it was well worth the money I paid for it. I have a homemade discrete amp to drive them which makes everything sound brilliant. Of course, that's what is needed to drive the 250 Ohm versions but I guess a portable amp will just barely do the trick.
 
For the price, I would say that these cans are worth the money as they have a pretty astounding soundstage for closed-back after I compared them to a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s that my friend has. In addition, the build quality is superb and it seems that they can withstand a couple of kicks or drops in their lifetime. 
 
Good if you're a starting audiophile like me, well worth the money in both terms of sound and build quality.

Sound:
Overall good sounding. My DT880 might sound somewhat more refined in the mids and highs, but in the lows and especially in the low-lows the DT770 beat em. They are probably my 2nd favorite closed headphone, right after my beloved Denon AH-D2000 (which seem to outperform all other headphones I tried). I think it's a good idea to EQ this cans, by slightly raising the mids and minimally taming the highs you can really improve the sound of this cans.
 
Comfort:
The DT770/880/990 Pro are the most comfortable cans i tried, thumbs up!
 
Recommendation:
Try em! It's simple as that...

I've only had a few hours to burn these in, but so far I am extremely impressed. As of now I have the FiiO E6 amp to drive them, and it pushes them better than I expected. Being that these are 250 Ohm there aren't many portable amps that can do these cans justice. They frequency range is what I'm most impressed with 5Hz-35000Hz. They provide bass if you want it, and it is pretty clean and tight. The mids are very enjoyable, and I believe the highs to be pretty good too. Overall these headphones are great, especially for their value. 

Set up for review:
IPOD Classic 6th gen
Electric Avenue PA2V2 amp
WAV Files only.
 
Good:
Brilliant sound from closed cans for the price
Build Quality is top notch
Sounds great with various genres (Funk, Soul, Jazz, Hip Hop)
 
Bad:
Not a fan of the cable. Would prefer a straight cable
 
Need to know:
These really need an amp for portable use.
 
 
 
            

Great, Definatly need burning in to help with the highs. Nice soundstage for closed. So mother lovin comfortable. Perfect pair with a Hi-FiMan EF-2A Dac/Amp.

This is one good headphone with the characteristics of warm mids, pronounced bass, and with clean trebles. The only thing that bugs me is the very long twisted cable, heavy for mobility

"It's getting better all the time. Better, better, better."

All I'm going to say is that in terms of audio professionals these are really a bargain and qualified for the job.

I know that many audiophiles prefer studio reference monitor-like headphones, but I can't make the excuse that these sound harsh when I'm mixing. They exposed flaws in my mixes the first time I reviewed a track with them. The extra bass response that might sound loose or muddy in some tracks allowed me to tighten up the bass in my own tracks, and not just ignore it when I put these on.

Initially I purchased these headphones for walking around listening, but once I heard them I decided to use them for the tracking, mixing, and mastering and take my Shure SRH940s with me instead. Mostly for the reason that these do not get loud enough for me to commute with, almost, but not quite there.

I recommend these headphones to people who would like to be considered audio professionals. Anyone who likes to analyse sound & not necessarily music itself will get a great result from these. I still recommend always analysing with at least two different pairs of headphones anyway though.

P.S I like the room of the headphone, the speakers do not touch your ears which probably improves the sound stage in some way.
 
Thanks,
E-WES
 
 

These are wonderful closed back's. Recommended to any beyer fan.

Let me first say that I'm absolutely a newbie when it comes to headphones, having only had one proper pair previously. I ended up buying these and thought I would share my experience as it only had one review.
 
I previously had a pair of Koss Pro 4AAT that I was using at work with a PC. I had been using them for a few years, and was pretty happy with them, but they were so damn uncomfortable, so I decided I had to get some new ones.
 
My requirements were:

1. Closed (I share an office)
2. Comfy
3. Clean sound, but bass is also important to me
4. Music: I listen to lots of different stuff, but not so much jazz, country or classical. Mostly electronica and alternative rock.

 
After a lot of research I decided for the DT770 Pro's. I ordered the 80 ohm, but the Ebay seller got the order mixed up and actually sent me the 250 ohm instead. I had also bought an amp (Fiio E7) anyway, so I thought what the heck, I won't bother returning them.
 

Setup

1. DT 770 Pro 250 ohm
2. Fiio E7 DAC & Amp
3. Software EQ: Virtual Audio Cable + SAVIHost with Marvel GEQ (I'll explain below)
4. Source: Spotify normal quality: 160 kbps Ogg Vorbis
5. Source: Wimp (similar streaming service) high quality: 256 kbps AAC

 

My experience

When I first tried the 80 ohm version in the shop, it sounded great except for the treble being very sharp. I figured that was because of the source (iPhone with medium bit-rate mp3s) and the fact that I didn't use an amp (which people here on Head-Fi said was needed). When I got the 250 ohms and connected them to the PC via the DAC/Amp, the treble was still very sharp. My ears would get tired after a few minutes of listening. I had not had this problem with the Koss cans, but I've always had a problem with a few albums (eg. PJ Harvey - "Dry" and Kelis - "Tasty") that I can't listen to with any headphones. So I figured maybe I'm a bit sensitive to treble. I started fiddling with the EQ in VLC which I was using for the testing, and soon found that if I turned down the 6 kHz band a bit, my fatigue problem disappeared! I also found the frequency response graph you can see in the review above by helluvapixel that they actually have a spike from 6 kHz to 10 kHz (maybe this is high mids?).
I wanted to use Wimp (a Norwegian alternative to Spotify) to listen to music, but it does not have an EQ, so I had to install a system-wide EQ in Windows. This was not easy, but I've ended up with a setup that works well (see below). On this EQ, I've reduced 8 kHz by 2 dB and pushed 3 and 5 kHz up a bit (this seems to bring the vocals forward a bit, which I feel improve the sound somewhat).
 
So I finally have a setup that I'm happy with and I have to say that the sound is absolutely fantastic! I don't know the audiophile terminology too well, but I guess you guys would call it "big sound stage"? The sound is clean and nice all over. The bass is a bit louder than neutral, but I like that even though I'm not a "basshead". It's not overpowering at all. The bass is so deep, though, that I can feel my ears vibrating sometimes (no, I don't play very loud). I think that is so cool, that I'll often listen to the same song one more time just to feel it again.
 
As for the comfort, these are a lot better than the Koss Pro 4AATs. The DT770s are half the weight and the headband is softer. I would actually hurt on top of my head from the Koss, but these I only feel are there. People say the pro version of DT770 is clamping a bit hard around the ears, and I can understand what they mean, but it is not a problem for me at all. Compared to the Koss, the DT770 have maybe half the pressure. Mr Helluvapixel in the review above said his big ears was a problem, but I have big ears too and they fit nicely inside the cans. His ears must be huge!
 
As for the need of an amp for these, I did try to compare them on my iPhone with and without the Fiio E7. On the iPhone there's no graphic EQ to adjust, so it was a bit hard to compare for me because of the fatigue. People on the forum say you need an amp for them, but I can't say I could hear much difference. At least the volume was not a problem for me - I could play louder than I usually do. So do you need an amp? I don't know - I use it with an amp and it sounds great.
 

Conclusion

Great sound (if you pull down the treble a little bit), comfy and not too pricey.
 
 

EQ setup

I had to do a lot of research to get this working, so I thought I would share it with you guys.
If you are using a sound card for output, the driver may have a built-in EQ and you can just use that. If it does not, or you are using a DAC like me, check if the software you are using to play your music has an EQ or someone has made an EQ plugin for it. If not, you can install a system-wide EQ like I did. It's a bit complicated to set up, but it works pretty good. The only thing is, you will get a sound delay, so watching videos or playing games may be annoying.

• Download and install "Virtual Audio Cable" (they have a trial version with an annoying voice-over).
• Set it as the default playback device in Windows.
• Download SAVIHost. This can hosts a VST plugin, in my case the "Voxengo Marvel GEQ". The SAVIHost website describes what you need to do to use it with your VST plugin. You can also use VSTHost from the same website if you want to route the sound through more than one VST at the same time.
• In Savihost, click Devices/Wave and select "MME: Line 1 (Virtual Audio Cable)" as the input port and your soundcard or DAC as output port (the MME variant works better than the DS variant in my experience).
• Set sample rate to 44100. I guess higher sample rate may give you higher quality, but I can't hear the difference and I have to increase the buffer size when I increase the sample rate, so I go with the lowest.
• Experiment with the buffer size - set it as small as you can without getting distorted sound. This is affected by your how much work your PC is doing at the moment, so you can for example use a youtube video for this as it CPU intensive. The lowest I could get was 630 samples. The lower you get, the smaller delay you get. 630 samples means I get a delay of 630/44100 = 0.014 secs.

 

I was hesitant buying these closed cans. I've read everything from floaty bass to decimated vocals. However I've learned that you can only believe what you experience yourself.
 
I was also bit hesitant with these cans because their frequency response curve was a bit amped over my baseline AKG K701 / Sennheiser HD598. However, I wanted to find a closed can that was close to the HD598 with a bit accentuated bottom end. What you'll find is these cans have an odd signature in the curve.

 
What I found is these cans produce a large clean sound. The bottom is punchy, but not muddled however you may find at louder volumes you may want to moderate how much you use these cans as they can be quite bottom end responsive. Be aware there is a PRO and a CONSUMER variant with these headphones. Black are the PROS and grey is the CONSUMER. The Pros have a bass port to allow the diaphragm breathe.
 
However! This bottom end doesn't come at the expense of losing the mid and highs. In fact, I found that the high end was nicely smoothed so you shouldn't find much shrill with these.
 
What I really enjoyed with these headphones is they were very adaptable to a wide range of genres.
 
The headphones are light, well constructed and very comfortable. BUT... not necessarily those with endowed ears. Beyerdynamic chooses to use a circular design versus a oval like Sennhesier so those with large ears like me may find a break is needed to ease the long periods of listening since you can get a bit of ear pinch. I found though the band clamping is not excessive.
 
Last thing on the headband, that as it springs open it clamps the earphones so to adjust it's best to allow the headphones to close. I think this is a design that carries through the DT series of headphones (880, 990).
 
Driving these phones I used  cMoyBB and I was surprised that my iPhone 3GS worked fine as well. However I would recommend you amp these cans to properly drive them since you want to take advantage of the higher resistance of the 250 Ohms (there are 32 and 80 Ohm versions available).
 
Bottomline:
 
If you want a closed can, you will be hard pressed to find a better sounding set of headphones that are cheaper.