[fonna]

Awesome, cant wait to hear your impressions on it!

 

[kman1211]

I should be getting the Amiron on Friday. Looking forward to trying them out as they seem to in line with my sound signature preferences and comfort requirements. It was a tough choice between the 1990 and Amiron but I went with the latter just because of what appears to be lighter weight and softer clamping force.

Hope you enjoy the Amiron's. 

 

[LaCuffia]

I have been impressed by the DT880, which was totally surprising to me given the rep about painful treble, but I think with the right amplification the balance is very good. I expect the Amiron will be an upgrade. I will post my preliminary impressions for sure.

The Amiron seems to be flying under the radar despite it being made by a big name in the business. There's so much competition out there though with several niche companies coming out with unique stuff. It's so hard to keep up. I figured I would stay with an established brand like Beyerdynamic. Seems less risky.

 

[kman1211]

I have been impressed by the DT880, which was totally surprising to me given the rep about painful treble, but I think with the right amplification the balance is very good. I expect the Amiron will be an upgrade. I will post my preliminary impressions for sure.

The Amiron seems to be flying under the radar despite it being made by a big name in the business. There's so much competition out there though with several niche companies coming out with unique stuff. It's so hard to keep up. I figured I would stay with an established brand like Beyerdynamic. Seems less risky.

The treble woes are definitely exaggerated, only a few Beyers are truly painful to listen to. Looking at you DT 990 Pro LE, T90, and DT 440. 
Honestly both the Amiron and DT 1990 aren't really getting the attention they deserve especially since they can be had below $500 at times. 
 
The interesting thing is the most unique stuff usually comes out of the big well-established companies first. Beyer essentially started it all with the original dynamic drivers(shortly followed by Koss), found in the DT 48/480 and nothing has been made again even remotely like them, only headphones with a magnet and transducer design even remotely like that and the thing even still stands up by todays standards despite being an 80 year old design. The K1000 by AKG is unlike anything ever made, well AKG did a lot of unique things, sad what happened to AKG as they were one of the most innovative headphone manufacturers. The HD 800 by Senn is definitely unique as well and we all know about the HD 6xx family and their electrostats. Then there is Sony with their R10, Qualia, Z1R, etc. Fostex was a pioneer of the planar-magnetic technology and made the rubber-surround bio-cell driver. STAX is responsible for the first electrostat made. 

 

[god-bluff]

Sorry but had to respond to this At least for me nothing wrong with treble the DT440. Beautifully extension not harsh or piercing. Can't stand roll off. Treble deficiency

Each to their own but I thought you used to like them?!?

 

[kman1211]

Sorry but had to respond to this At least for me nothing wrong with treble the DT440. Beautifully extension not harsh or piercing. Can't stand roll off. Treble deficiency

Each to their own but I thought you used to like them?!?

I did until the treble became overbearing. I thought they were good for the price. I personally like darker treble, quite sensitive to treble. 

 

[devhen]

People always underestimate or completely ignore the driver variance that is extremely common in Beyers. If you had a super bright DT990 Pro LE then it was probably on the brightest end of variance spectrum. I have a DT990 Pro LE coming tomorrow so I'll let you know how it is but I can tell you that I've experienced a lot of variance in Beyers. In fact I have two DT770 Premium 600 ohms that are identical and yet are totally opposites in terms of sound signature. Again they are likely the two extremes of the variance spectrum. One is super bassy and not even a teeny tiny bit bright, the other has extremely tamed bass and sibilant highs. I gave the bright ones to my dad, he's got old ears that probably need extra treble anyway.
 
The fact is, this is the nature of dynamic drivers. No two are *exactly* the same which is why driver matching is so important. Beyer just seems to have looser standards than some other manufacturers when it comes to how much variance they allow before chucking a particular driver out. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't do accurate driver matching for each headset because they do.

 

[god-bluff]

Agree to some extent.

Quite a difference in DT150s. Last pair not as nice as previous pairs. Not the lovely natural sound and vast soundscape I recalled. Pretty average headphones against pretty exceptional. Quite poor driver variance for a professional headphone.

I've owned 3 pairs of DT440 over the years and they all sounded similar from memory, that is to say pretty perfect for my tastes.

Biggest difference with 990 stems from the pads. The LE will sound extremely bright until you change the black pads to the correct silver.

Still prefer DT440 to 990 and can at the moment only dream of a Tesla Beyer!

 

[kman1211]

  People always underestimate or completely ignore the driver variance that is extremely common in Beyers. If you had a super bright DT990 Pro LE then it was probably on the brightest end of variance spectrum. I have a DT990 Pro LE coming tomorrow so I'll let you know how it is but I can tell you that I've experienced a lot of variance in Beyers. In fact I have two DT770 Premium 600 ohms that are identical and yet are totally opposites in terms of sound signature. Again they are likely the two extremes of the variance spectrum. One is super bassy and not even a teeny tiny bit bright, the other has extremely tamed bass and sibilant highs. I gave the bright ones to my dad, he's got old ears that probably need extra treble anyway.
 
The fact is, this is the nature of dynamic drivers. No two are *exactly* the same which is why driver matching is so important. Beyer just seems to have looser standards than some other manufacturers when it comes to how much variance they allow before chucking a particular driver out. Of course, that doesn't mean they don't do accurate driver matching for each headset because they do.

The problem with the DT 990 LE is that they use black velours which brighten things up compared to the grey velours. When I swapped to the grey velours the brightness reduced notably. I've had brighter DT 990's in terms of the driver themselves, but those pads got to go.
 
I have as well, I'm very familiar with driver variation in Beyers in particular. I have had two DT 1990's, and let me tell you this second one sounds amazing, the first one was good, but this one is just special, it's so clean and euphoric sounding with lots of body. The Amiron I have sadly isn't as good of an example as my DT 1990, but I do find the Amiron to be on the better side of things among the Tesla's I tried.

 

[devhen]

I replaced the silver velours on my DT880 with blacks and didn't notice a difference but maybe I'll get some silvers for my DT990 LE and test that out.

 

[kman1211]

I replaced the silver velours on my DT880 with blacks and didn't notice a difference but maybe I'll get some silvers for my DT990 LE and test that out.

That is interesting, I found the material covering the pads and the foam inside the pads different than the greys at least on the LE's I had, thus the sound change. 

 

[devhen]

Ha, I totally forgot, I still have the original EDT990V silvers that came off my DT880 and they're relatively new. So I'll test those out on my DT990 LE tomorrow. Now if I can just find them haha

 

[devhen]

Found em. I'll take pics tomorrow if I can see any visual differences and then give them a shot. I'll probably try the silvers back on the DT880s as well.

 

[devhen]

BTW, I'm continuing the pads discussion over on the DT880 thread since this is all somewhat off-topic here.
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/429371/the-beyerdynamic-dt880-discussion-thread/

 

[kman1211]

Been spending time swapping pads between the Amiron and DT 1990. The Amiron is insanely comfortable with the deeper DT 1990 pads. Doesn't ruin the sound, actually both headphones seem accept each others pads without any major sonic issues, in fact they seem to sound good with each others pads. Need to spend time to confirm the differences though. 
 
Trying both the Balanced and Analytical pads on the Amiron. Already tried the Amiron pads on the DT 1990. Later going to try the DT 1770 velour and pleathers just for the heck of it. But this is my impressions on the actual housing/driver differences between the Amiron and DT 1990 as the pads give me a better understanding of the headphones sound. The DT 1990 is without a doubt more upfront and dynamic sounding. It's also just a hair brighter and more body in the midrange in general. The Amiron is slightly darker, have a little more bass presence, and more relaxed in the whole frequency range with does lead to a little less body to the sound but has a softer sound.
 
As for housing differences between the two, the DT 1990 clamp is far stronger, which is part of why it's more upfront and dynamic sounding. But the DT 1990 has a larger housing and chamber and I find the DT 1990 to have more isolation and less sound leakage, if anything the DT 1990 is actually semi-open which does explain it's better bass extension and more punchy sound and may honestly add a little cup resonance to the sound on the DT 1990. The Amiron is actually what seems to be mostly to fully-open(definitely more open than both the DT 1990 and T1.2), it has less isolation and more sound leakage. This fully open design and it's thinner and flat housing chamber seems to give the headphone an open-back like sound where things are a bit airier and breathier. 
 
I do find the Amiron's softer sound does play nicer with more relaxed music, and with sad and slow songs I find the emotion of the music seems to radiate more out of the Amirons. These more delicate songs can really send shivers down your spine on the Amirons. Honestly the Amirons come off as the quiet more sensitive little sister who is very receptive of others feelings.
 
The DT 1990's have a sweeter sound overall, it hooks you in and won't let go making for a very euphoric and musical experience. It's a really happy headphone in a sense, anything upbeat is great on them. But it does seem to miss out a little on the finer intricacies of emotion in the song. The DT 1990 comes off as the more happy-go lucky and fun to be around bigger brother that may overlook others emotions at times but not on purpose.