[helloh3adfi]

Hey guys,

Even though I got a very nice pair of DCA Aeon 2 Noire I still wanted to hear some mid-fi. Why not? So I just grabbed some Beyers to hear what happens. Just so you know I use them with their stock velour pads and equalized them with Oratory profiles.

The pads of the DT700 are a lot softer and seem to give a better seal, but the distance to the driver is shorter. Overall those 2 headphones sound very different to me. According to Oratory the DT1770 should be a lot better. The DT700 have a pretty steep notch at 4 kHz, but so what? It doesn't make them bad. Or is it that my ears are deaf?

How do they sound so different even though I use Oratory profiles? The DT700 got a lot more punch/slam/however you name it. I'm literally banging my head while hearing music! They just make listening more enjoyable than the DT1770. DT1770 on the other hand sound more analytical. At least the DT1770 seem to offer a bigger soundstage. I don't know. Maybe it's just because the DT1770 don't seal that well?

What are your experiences?

 

[tallperuvian]

I found your post while scouring the internet for information about the differences between Beyerdynamic headphones and now have direct experience between the DT 1770s and DT 700 Pro Xs.

A couple of months ago, I picked up my first turntable (Sony PS-LX310BT) and a headphone amp (Schiit Magni+). I had a pair of Sennheiser 6XXs that I bought years ago with a Chord Mojo before promptly forgetting about both. The Mojo was more set up than I wanted, and my listening environment did not lend itself to open-back headphones. That started the search for a good closed-back set.

In my time slowly wading into the world of audiophile equipment, I’ve asked myself: What am I looking for in terms of sound quality?

These are the tracks I tested (all vinyl):

Black Sabbath - War Pigs

Black Sabbath - Paranoid

Kendrick Lamar - Untitled 01 | 08.19.2014

Aphex Twin - Xtal

Joe Chambers - Hello to the Wind

The DT1770s are phenomenal analytic headphones. It’s clear the moment a song begins to play that they are meant primarily for monitoring and mixing. Every instrument is so conspicuous that it practically makes referring to an audio mix an exercise in irony. I doubt I could have heard Ozzy Osbourne’s voice on War Pigs any clearer if he had been standing in the room with me. There was the pronounced sub-bass that I’d read about. This professional analytic sound carried through the rest of the tracks. They all sounded as though they were being presented to a producer who needed to know exactly where every instrument sat in the studio. It was fascinating, but something was missing, and these weren’t the headphones for me.

I returned the DT1770s and got a pair of DT700s. At first, they didn’t sound that different to me. I don’t have an audiophile ear, so perhaps the nuance of this level of equipment is lost on me. Then Paranoid started playing, and the additional punch you mentioned appeared. As I made my way through the rest of the tracks, it became clearer what I was looking for: Energy.

The analytic nature of a pair of headphones like the DT1770s is too far for me. It’s exploratory. The experience is more akin to reading a book about the music. It’s a class versus a concert. If I want full impact, I have lower fidelity MP3s and headphones with V-shaped sound to throw me all the bass I can handle. With my turntable and vinyl, I’m looking for a listening experience somewhere between the V-shaped world of MP3s over Bluetooth and physical media pumped through tube amplifiers into Sennheiser HD 800 S headphones.

The DT 700 Pro Xs are much closer to that. They’re still analytical but with considerably more energy than the DT1770s. That equates to more excitement. More of the emotion in tracks that are greater than the sum of their parts.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go order some Pink Floyd records.

TL;DR, the DT700s are definitely more head-banging than the DT1770s.