For the TL;DR crowd, they are great sounding headphones. They can do pretty much everything well, if you don’t mind a smallish soundstage. They bass extends to all but the lowest notes, electric guitars have a nice bite, vocals can be enchanting, pianos can give goosebumps if you haven’t heard much better, drums are nice and impact, imo, saxophones are rendered fine, not great, however. (I’ve played the saxophone for 5 years, so I’m too critical on this part) Violins are rendered better than saxophones, much better. Classical is not their forte if you like a cavernous soundstage, but I was able to pinpoint instruments pretty easily. They are quick enough for most electronic, and detail is about par with my K271.
For the rest of you, a little back story before the review. I got these about two years ago. I quite honestly don’t know why I got them. I had an A500 so I had no need for a closed headphone, but something about them called to me, and a $20, straight from Beyerdynamic USA, it was impossible to resist. It’d be more portable than the A500, I hoped. It’s quite frankly, impossible to be bigger than them.
Three days later, they’re on my front door. Excitedly, I rip open the USPS box. I start playing Death Cab for Cutie, and…brightness. There’s a lot of harsh treble, so I let it burn in for a few hours while I was at school. When I came back, they seemed to be less harsh. Remember, I had a warmish (imo), colored headphone before them. The bass was kind of loose and unrefined, so I tried sticking some blu-tack to absorb some reverberations, and the bass was--or it could have been placebo--tighter and refined a good bit.
On to the review. I use a Harman Kardon receiver with a PS1 CDP and a Beogram 2402 with a cheap TEC phono stage. I’ll update this when I actually have a decent source. I got a K271 the following year for, again, no clear reason except that it was $60 shipped, so I’ll make a few comparisons to them too.
Where should I start…? Might as well start with Plans, since I’ve mentioned it in the beginning paragraphs. Starting with Marching Bands of Manhattan. The intro has always perplexed me. I never quite knew what instrument, if it was an instrument, played in the intro. Well it sounded like a synth on the DT220, and I stand by that. I listened in to the ending to make sure the bass kept up with the vocals and piano unlike my K271 unamped. The bass seems to falter a bit, but nothing major. If I listened to the song as background music, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
On to I Will Follow You Into the Dark, a song I played until my fingers bled--the things we do to make a girl happy… Anyways, because of this, I know the song inside and out. What I hear is pretty good. Ben’s voice is intimate, yet there is something strange about his voice. It seems colder than normal and contains less body than I’m used to. And the guitar is about 5 feet behind his voice. Strange.
“Love is watching someone die…”, a quote from What Sarah Said that makes my heart hurt every time I hear it. The piano intro is another section I have learned to play for a friend, so I listen in to make sure I hear the piano when it drifts away. Gibbard’s voice enters powerfully, reaches into your soul when he utters the fabled words.
Second album, a Tool album. 10,000 Days to be specific. No particular reason why I chose this album, but it is a recent album that isn’t brick walled, so there’s a plus. It’s also pure fun to listen to.
Starting off with Vicarious, a song I like to use to test aggressiveness. The guitar intros prove a nice crunch, but somehow seem to be too polite, like the brakes are being pushed. The drums prove to make me tap my toes to follow the beat-something neither of my other two headphones could do.
Time to get some wings. Wings for Marie and 10,000 Days is next. The guitars drifting from left to right is entrancing. Keenan’s voice is wonderfully deep and raspy, in a good way. The thunder in 10,000 Days proves itself by making me jump out of my seat when it suddenly crashed when I least expected it to.
“Incomprehensible words”--best description of Rosetta Stoned my friends and I can come up with. We joked that if you could understand every single word, you are God. Sadly, I am not. The DT220 misses about half the lyrics, sadly. What is incomprehensible, however, is involving gibberish. Guitars are yet again, exciting.
I’ll admit I’m not the biggest classical fan, so I’ll do my best to describe the DT220’s performance in classical music.
New World Symphony by Dvorak-The opening trumpets shine, but seem hazy at the same time. Same with the clarinets, but seem to be more upfront. Flutes, for some reason, seem to sound much clearer than the trumpets and clarinets. Violins are just amazing though. They are rendered pretty nicely compared to the trumpets. And to get off topic about the instruments, I found it laughable how obvious it sounded when a person in the audience stood up and left the room. Anyways, yeah, sorry I can’t give much of a description here. I’ll be sure to update this at once.
IT’S ELECTRIC! BOOGIE WOOGIE…Yeah no. Sorry about that, so tempting. A couple random Chemical Brothers songs for this portion, and a Shpongle song.
Galvanize, a song we all know. Really popular when it came out. This song the first song I’ve heard sibilance in. The intro made me jump out of my skin for some reason. Bass is nice and impact, synth is pretty nice too. You might notice how short this portion is. I couldn’t stand the sibilance I heard. I also hear some unfavorable distortion.
Hold Tight London, a less popular song. This song, however one of my favorites by the Chemical Brothers, mainly the way the soundstage is all over the place and makes use of both channels really nicely. The vocals have an eerie, almost ghost-like attribute to them that makes the song impossible to pause.
Private Psychadelic Reel, another of my favorites by the duo. It escapes how the wall of synth manages to climb up your back at approximately 2 minutes into the song. The repetitive nature of the song would make one think it gets boring, but the DT220 has the great ability to make the song involving. The section at approximately 3:30 is also amazing. The tunnel of sound that forms about 5 feet away from your face is just jaw dropping. The DT220 does electronic. And pretty decently at it.
On to jazz.
Dave Brubeck’s Take Five is a nice example showing that the DT220’s forte is not jazz. I have heard a Selmer Super Balanced Action many times. The DT220 fails to replicate the sound nearly as well as I expected it to considering it’s a monitor headphone. Perhaps I’m being too hard on it, but I have standards. Yes, it plays the song well. Not as well as my K271, however. Still decent though. There is a fuzzy element in the sound that leaves me wanting more however. The tone is just off…
Well, there’s a quick and dirty review of the rare on Head-Fi DT220. Hope you guys liked it! This goes without saying, but all this is in my opinion. Oh, and one more thing. These really hurt my ears after about two hours.
Update, addressing Punnisher's review, if you can sew pads the same dimensions out of leather, that would probable increase comfort a good bit. I tried some pad rolling with a baffle, and sadly, any pads other than the DT220's killed the sound.The velour K271 pads made the sound too thick, and the A500 pads sounding tunnely. Please resist the temptation to make the pads too thick. It will kill the sound. Ideally, maybe a centimeter thicker than the original pads to improve comfort, but this is just a speculation. I haven't made pads for them yet. I'll make some in a few weeks and report my findings. And while Punnisher has the 400ohm version, I have the 20ohm version.
For the rest of you, a little back story before the review. I got these about two years ago. I quite honestly don’t know why I got them. I had an A500 so I had no need for a closed headphone, but something about them called to me, and a $20, straight from Beyerdynamic USA, it was impossible to resist. It’d be more portable than the A500, I hoped. It’s quite frankly, impossible to be bigger than them.
Three days later, they’re on my front door. Excitedly, I rip open the USPS box. I start playing Death Cab for Cutie, and…brightness. There’s a lot of harsh treble, so I let it burn in for a few hours while I was at school. When I came back, they seemed to be less harsh. Remember, I had a warmish (imo), colored headphone before them. The bass was kind of loose and unrefined, so I tried sticking some blu-tack to absorb some reverberations, and the bass was--or it could have been placebo--tighter and refined a good bit.
On to the review. I use a Harman Kardon receiver with a PS1 CDP and a Beogram 2402 with a cheap TEC phono stage. I’ll update this when I actually have a decent source. I got a K271 the following year for, again, no clear reason except that it was $60 shipped, so I’ll make a few comparisons to them too.
Where should I start…? Might as well start with Plans, since I’ve mentioned it in the beginning paragraphs. Starting with Marching Bands of Manhattan. The intro has always perplexed me. I never quite knew what instrument, if it was an instrument, played in the intro. Well it sounded like a synth on the DT220, and I stand by that. I listened in to the ending to make sure the bass kept up with the vocals and piano unlike my K271 unamped. The bass seems to falter a bit, but nothing major. If I listened to the song as background music, I wouldn’t have noticed it.
On to I Will Follow You Into the Dark, a song I played until my fingers bled--the things we do to make a girl happy… Anyways, because of this, I know the song inside and out. What I hear is pretty good. Ben’s voice is intimate, yet there is something strange about his voice. It seems colder than normal and contains less body than I’m used to. And the guitar is about 5 feet behind his voice. Strange.
“Love is watching someone die…”, a quote from What Sarah Said that makes my heart hurt every time I hear it. The piano intro is another section I have learned to play for a friend, so I listen in to make sure I hear the piano when it drifts away. Gibbard’s voice enters powerfully, reaches into your soul when he utters the fabled words.
Second album, a Tool album. 10,000 Days to be specific. No particular reason why I chose this album, but it is a recent album that isn’t brick walled, so there’s a plus. It’s also pure fun to listen to.
Starting off with Vicarious, a song I like to use to test aggressiveness. The guitar intros prove a nice crunch, but somehow seem to be too polite, like the brakes are being pushed. The drums prove to make me tap my toes to follow the beat-something neither of my other two headphones could do.
Time to get some wings. Wings for Marie and 10,000 Days is next. The guitars drifting from left to right is entrancing. Keenan’s voice is wonderfully deep and raspy, in a good way. The thunder in 10,000 Days proves itself by making me jump out of my seat when it suddenly crashed when I least expected it to.
“Incomprehensible words”--best description of Rosetta Stoned my friends and I can come up with. We joked that if you could understand every single word, you are God. Sadly, I am not. The DT220 misses about half the lyrics, sadly. What is incomprehensible, however, is involving gibberish. Guitars are yet again, exciting.
I’ll admit I’m not the biggest classical fan, so I’ll do my best to describe the DT220’s performance in classical music.
New World Symphony by Dvorak-The opening trumpets shine, but seem hazy at the same time. Same with the clarinets, but seem to be more upfront. Flutes, for some reason, seem to sound much clearer than the trumpets and clarinets. Violins are just amazing though. They are rendered pretty nicely compared to the trumpets. And to get off topic about the instruments, I found it laughable how obvious it sounded when a person in the audience stood up and left the room. Anyways, yeah, sorry I can’t give much of a description here. I’ll be sure to update this at once.
IT’S ELECTRIC! BOOGIE WOOGIE…Yeah no. Sorry about that, so tempting. A couple random Chemical Brothers songs for this portion, and a Shpongle song.
Galvanize, a song we all know. Really popular when it came out. This song the first song I’ve heard sibilance in. The intro made me jump out of my skin for some reason. Bass is nice and impact, synth is pretty nice too. You might notice how short this portion is. I couldn’t stand the sibilance I heard. I also hear some unfavorable distortion.
Hold Tight London, a less popular song. This song, however one of my favorites by the Chemical Brothers, mainly the way the soundstage is all over the place and makes use of both channels really nicely. The vocals have an eerie, almost ghost-like attribute to them that makes the song impossible to pause.
Private Psychadelic Reel, another of my favorites by the duo. It escapes how the wall of synth manages to climb up your back at approximately 2 minutes into the song. The repetitive nature of the song would make one think it gets boring, but the DT220 has the great ability to make the song involving. The section at approximately 3:30 is also amazing. The tunnel of sound that forms about 5 feet away from your face is just jaw dropping. The DT220 does electronic. And pretty decently at it.
On to jazz.
Dave Brubeck’s Take Five is a nice example showing that the DT220’s forte is not jazz. I have heard a Selmer Super Balanced Action many times. The DT220 fails to replicate the sound nearly as well as I expected it to considering it’s a monitor headphone. Perhaps I’m being too hard on it, but I have standards. Yes, it plays the song well. Not as well as my K271, however. Still decent though. There is a fuzzy element in the sound that leaves me wanting more however. The tone is just off…
Well, there’s a quick and dirty review of the rare on Head-Fi DT220. Hope you guys liked it! This goes without saying, but all this is in my opinion. Oh, and one more thing. These really hurt my ears after about two hours.
Update, addressing Punnisher's review, if you can sew pads the same dimensions out of leather, that would probable increase comfort a good bit. I tried some pad rolling with a baffle, and sadly, any pads other than the DT220's killed the sound.The velour K271 pads made the sound too thick, and the A500 pads sounding tunnely. Please resist the temptation to make the pads too thick. It will kill the sound. Ideally, maybe a centimeter thicker than the original pads to improve comfort, but this is just a speculation. I haven't made pads for them yet. I'll make some in a few weeks and report my findings. And while Punnisher has the 400ohm version, I have the 20ohm version.