Merdril
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2009
- Posts
- 122
- Likes
- 10
Note: All songs referenced are in 16 or 24 bit FLAC/APE. The source is the ASUS Xonar Essence STX
I've been putting this off for quite some time, and I think it's about time I wrote something good about these headphones.
Build Quality:
The same as the DT770 Pre 32 ohm version. Metal clips that are secured by plastic holders serve as the ear cup retention method. It allows the ear cup to rotate very little, but enough to ensure a nice seal around the ear (or at least as good as a seal that velour will allow). The housing of the ear cup is plastic, with a metal band around to edge to cut down on resonance (? or just stylism =\). Aside from some discoloration and increased rigidity of the velour earpads, the headphones look just like they did when I bought them a few months ago.
Comfort:
More comfortable than other headphones in my recent history (SRH840, A700, HFI580 - especially the HFI580) except for the XB700, but I'm beginning to doubt that a more comfortable pair of headphones exist (except maybe the XB1000). My head doesn't sweat after prolonged use, although I find the velour to be moderately itch inducing, but that may just be my hair...
Sound Quality:
An Anecdote:
Oh how much these headphones make me suffer. I debated whether to return them and get the 32 ohm version which I had so much adored. But in the throws of equalizing and DSPing, I lost track of time, and before I knew it, the return windows was gone. Then I was stuck with them. I was stuck with the headphones that sounded nothing (they sounded very similar actually) like the headphones that had enchanted me over half a year ago. I was in despair. How could impedance make such a difference in sound character, that it could change me from loving a pair of headphones to hating them?
As you can see, the two different impedences have very different frequency responses, which makes complete sense (from an electrical engineering standpoint). Why I was expecting something similar is... I don't know
They were still better than the other headphones that I had, but they were nothing compared to my memory of the 32 ohm version. The 600 ohm's sibilance was intense, the canniness was terrible, the mid bass was inaudible and only added to the canniness. They had no sub-bass to speak of, and the low bass lacked power. They were terrible. This was my opinion two weeks after using the headphones, and still pretty similar to an entire month later.
But then, I remembered that I had changed the 32 Ohm version before returning it (because it had a slightly defective left driver). I had opened them up and removed the wool along with the plastic ring. So I repeated that again, but still no angelic choir singing praises to the sound quality of these headphones. Finally at the end of my rope, I threw my conventions to the curb, put "An Expert Mountain," by Susumu Hirasawa, on loop, and messed with everything I could in every possible permutation to meticulously pick out what made this song sound better (subjectively). Then FINALLY. Finally, after hours upon days of trying to equalize them and A/Bing with itself and my other headphones, I found that, for me, boosting frequencies close to an integer multiple of 31.5 yielded the sound I wanted (in addition to the base EQ curve I made for it, which is rather difficult to describe, so here is a picture. As a digression, If I'm willing to go that far, I should be more precise and calculate the acoustic resonance for the distance between the driver and earcup):
I forgot to mention that I'm a basshead. But since re-equalizing is a hassle, I have a selection of songs to use to optimize the EQ, so they sound good across all genres without preference, including, but not limited to: classical, orchestral, chant, j-pop, blues, and jazz. Not shown is another DSP which boosts said multiples of 31.5. In DSPing, I always start with an equalizer, and then get them sounding as good as I can without disrupting the original character of the headphones too much.
And then there was the choir, which sang its sweet chorus in "An Expert Mountain." The day was late, so I went to sleep, eager to wake up to see if the sound was a temporary delusion or if it was truly there. And yes, it was still there. These were the headphones of lore that I had been questing for! In reality, it was a more muted celebration a sigh of relief. But note that the end result, is a pair of headphones that sound beautiful to me. They sound even better than my memory of the 32 ohm (but in my sadness, I forgot the fundamental fact that the 600 ohm is not the 32 ohm, and thus tried EQing them in a similar manner). At some point in the whole affair, I got the SRH840 just to see if the higher model of the headphones that got me into Head-Fi would be the magic pair (they weren't).
How They Actually Sound:
I'll do a short paragraph or two about how they sound when unequalized. To begin, they don't sound bad (unlike the SRH840 or HFI580 unequalized). They definitely have more lower bass than their 32 ohm brother, even though the frequency response says otherwise. I think most people will find them bright, though with burn-in (a lot of burn-in), they won't be sibilant, but just a tad bit grating (which may go either good or bad depending on the song). They sound more open (though not near the same level as the SRH840) than I remember the 32 ohm version to be, but they are just as deep and expansive. Non-bassheads may disagree, but to me they don't have much mid or upper bass to speak of (hence the EQ you see above, and yes, that is an 18 dB difference between the highest boost and lowest cut). They have a rather interesting sound signature, quite different than the 32 ohm in fact. It lends itself well to jazz and classical, though not much else (IMO).
And what follows is my impression of them equalized. These headphones sound thin, which is something that I noticed in the 32 ohm version as well. Voices don't have as much presence to them, and bass instruments seem to be lacking just a touch of realism, though I'm not sure precisely how to describe it. The voices and instruments sound almost real, but there's some quality that they lack, even after all of the DSPing I could do. The best I can describe it as, is that they (voices and instruments) don't have enough weight. This effect is present in "CHRistmas in the SiLenT ForeSt," sung by Ilaria Graziano and "The Garden of Everything," sung by Chris Mosdell and Maaya Sakamoto. Interestingly enough, the effect isn't as present in male voices (Chris Mosdell) and tenor female voices (like Donna Cumberbatch in "Reunion"), essentially lower frequency voices. But the drums in "Kugutsuuta ura mite chiru," by Kenji Kawai also sound thin, especially the taiko (the XB700 handles it quite well and the HFI580, though without as much sub-bass).
In addition to their thinness, the DT770 lacks sub-bass quantity, but has presence, which is okay... (but means that I occasionally - very infrequently, rather - go back to the XB700 for songs like "Inori," by Yoko Kanno). Furthermore, the DT770 suffers the same problem as the HFI580, which is that a significant amount of sub-bass crowds out the rest of the spectrum, but the DT770's version is worse in two respects. First, the effect occurs even past sub-bass and all the way up to ~160 Hz (hence the interesting wave form you see in that region). Second, the DT770 loses it's original quality (expansiveness, openness) to varying degrees, and it changes the overall tone of the sound as well (hence why the waveform doesn't really make sense. I'm pretty sure such an arrangement for the lower frequencies works only for my ears).
But enough about the bad, time for the good. I remember remarking on the DT770 32 ohm and how much they seemed like a "concert in my head." Well, that's certainly still true. Listening to Joe Hisashi's album, Ghibli to Issho, and Rolf Lovland's Songs from a Secret Garden is quite the impressive experience. In particular, The harmonics in the climax of "Nocturne" sounds amazing; instead of it being a loud blur of sound, each instrument section is clearly audible, along with their different vibrato patterns. The Phantom of the Opera album by Andrew Lloyd Webber is also quite nice (even if I disagree with the casting of the phantom - his voice is terribly nasally). But orchestral isn't the only place where the DT770 excels (I don't have much classical to give it good consideration), jazz is another of it's strong suits. "Akaneiro ga Moerutoki" by Scoobie Do is a one of a kind song in my library (that is, no other song I have comes close to sounding like it). The guitar, the drums, the violin, the voice, the reverb, all sound... good (I literally can't think of anything) and the tone is cold, just the way I like it, but none of the expansiveness is sacrificed. "The Real Folk Blues," by The Seatbelts (arranged by Yoko Kanno) is also nice, with a strong guitar, raspy vocalist, and scratchy brass, but as a song, it's not as nice as Scoobie Do's aforementioned song. Outside of Jazz, J-Pop/R&B works well, with HOME MADE Kazoku's "Thank You!!" and SEAMO's "Drive" as examples. While the bass is strong and revereberant, it doesn't cloud over the acoustic guitar in "Thank You!!" or the trumpets in "Drive." The nuances present in each song are also easily audible (the accompanying acoustic guitar in "Thank You!!" and the humorous sound effects in "Drive"). Of course, there's my old favorite genre, electropop. I haven't heard "Mermaid Song," by Susumu Hirasawa, rendered so beautifully since the SRH440. The ambiance of the wind, the distortions of the bass, the breaths of the female singer, the echos of the bass, weave together to form a unique listening experience, which wouldn't be possible without resolving headphones like the DT770. Another of my all time favorites is "Tsuki no Mayu," sung by [size=small]Aki Okui. I could write odes to how much I like the song, and the DT770 do a great job of helping me enjoy the song. [/size]I also have some rock and techno examples, but in the interest of saving time, I'll simply comment that only certain parts in these songs, e.g. the soft parts, sound better on the DT770 as opposed to the HFI580 or even the XB700. For example, "nO limiT," by Eclipse, sounds much better on the HFI580 than the DT770.
Final Comments:
Overall, the DT770 (600 Ohms) is a great pair of headphones for bassheads who also care about the rest of the sound spectrum. Although the cans are initially bright, sibilant, and grating, they burn-in to become detailed and resolving, though care must be taken in EQing them. They have a distinctively canny sound, which can be mitigated through EQ to become barely noticeable. The headphones are also quite expansive and open, though not as open as the SRH840. These headphones have a very natural sound that helps it greatly in songs without digital or electric instruments, and helps reveal details in songs with those instruments. My final rating is an 8/10 for having a great sound with some minor, but not minor enough, imperfections.
I've been putting this off for quite some time, and I think it's about time I wrote something good about these headphones.
Build Quality:
The same as the DT770 Pre 32 ohm version. Metal clips that are secured by plastic holders serve as the ear cup retention method. It allows the ear cup to rotate very little, but enough to ensure a nice seal around the ear (or at least as good as a seal that velour will allow). The housing of the ear cup is plastic, with a metal band around to edge to cut down on resonance (? or just stylism =\). Aside from some discoloration and increased rigidity of the velour earpads, the headphones look just like they did when I bought them a few months ago.
Comfort:
More comfortable than other headphones in my recent history (SRH840, A700, HFI580 - especially the HFI580) except for the XB700, but I'm beginning to doubt that a more comfortable pair of headphones exist (except maybe the XB1000). My head doesn't sweat after prolonged use, although I find the velour to be moderately itch inducing, but that may just be my hair...
Sound Quality:
An Anecdote:
Oh how much these headphones make me suffer. I debated whether to return them and get the 32 ohm version which I had so much adored. But in the throws of equalizing and DSPing, I lost track of time, and before I knew it, the return windows was gone. Then I was stuck with them. I was stuck with the headphones that sounded nothing (they sounded very similar actually) like the headphones that had enchanted me over half a year ago. I was in despair. How could impedance make such a difference in sound character, that it could change me from loving a pair of headphones to hating them?
As you can see, the two different impedences have very different frequency responses, which makes complete sense (from an electrical engineering standpoint). Why I was expecting something similar is... I don't know
They were still better than the other headphones that I had, but they were nothing compared to my memory of the 32 ohm version. The 600 ohm's sibilance was intense, the canniness was terrible, the mid bass was inaudible and only added to the canniness. They had no sub-bass to speak of, and the low bass lacked power. They were terrible. This was my opinion two weeks after using the headphones, and still pretty similar to an entire month later.
But then, I remembered that I had changed the 32 Ohm version before returning it (because it had a slightly defective left driver). I had opened them up and removed the wool along with the plastic ring. So I repeated that again, but still no angelic choir singing praises to the sound quality of these headphones. Finally at the end of my rope, I threw my conventions to the curb, put "An Expert Mountain," by Susumu Hirasawa, on loop, and messed with everything I could in every possible permutation to meticulously pick out what made this song sound better (subjectively). Then FINALLY. Finally, after hours upon days of trying to equalize them and A/Bing with itself and my other headphones, I found that, for me, boosting frequencies close to an integer multiple of 31.5 yielded the sound I wanted (in addition to the base EQ curve I made for it, which is rather difficult to describe, so here is a picture. As a digression, If I'm willing to go that far, I should be more precise and calculate the acoustic resonance for the distance between the driver and earcup):
I forgot to mention that I'm a basshead. But since re-equalizing is a hassle, I have a selection of songs to use to optimize the EQ, so they sound good across all genres without preference, including, but not limited to: classical, orchestral, chant, j-pop, blues, and jazz. Not shown is another DSP which boosts said multiples of 31.5. In DSPing, I always start with an equalizer, and then get them sounding as good as I can without disrupting the original character of the headphones too much.
And then there was the choir, which sang its sweet chorus in "An Expert Mountain." The day was late, so I went to sleep, eager to wake up to see if the sound was a temporary delusion or if it was truly there. And yes, it was still there. These were the headphones of lore that I had been questing for! In reality, it was a more muted celebration a sigh of relief. But note that the end result, is a pair of headphones that sound beautiful to me. They sound even better than my memory of the 32 ohm (but in my sadness, I forgot the fundamental fact that the 600 ohm is not the 32 ohm, and thus tried EQing them in a similar manner). At some point in the whole affair, I got the SRH840 just to see if the higher model of the headphones that got me into Head-Fi would be the magic pair (they weren't).
How They Actually Sound:
I'll do a short paragraph or two about how they sound when unequalized. To begin, they don't sound bad (unlike the SRH840 or HFI580 unequalized). They definitely have more lower bass than their 32 ohm brother, even though the frequency response says otherwise. I think most people will find them bright, though with burn-in (a lot of burn-in), they won't be sibilant, but just a tad bit grating (which may go either good or bad depending on the song). They sound more open (though not near the same level as the SRH840) than I remember the 32 ohm version to be, but they are just as deep and expansive. Non-bassheads may disagree, but to me they don't have much mid or upper bass to speak of (hence the EQ you see above, and yes, that is an 18 dB difference between the highest boost and lowest cut). They have a rather interesting sound signature, quite different than the 32 ohm in fact. It lends itself well to jazz and classical, though not much else (IMO).
And what follows is my impression of them equalized. These headphones sound thin, which is something that I noticed in the 32 ohm version as well. Voices don't have as much presence to them, and bass instruments seem to be lacking just a touch of realism, though I'm not sure precisely how to describe it. The voices and instruments sound almost real, but there's some quality that they lack, even after all of the DSPing I could do. The best I can describe it as, is that they (voices and instruments) don't have enough weight. This effect is present in "CHRistmas in the SiLenT ForeSt," sung by Ilaria Graziano and "The Garden of Everything," sung by Chris Mosdell and Maaya Sakamoto. Interestingly enough, the effect isn't as present in male voices (Chris Mosdell) and tenor female voices (like Donna Cumberbatch in "Reunion"), essentially lower frequency voices. But the drums in "Kugutsuuta ura mite chiru," by Kenji Kawai also sound thin, especially the taiko (the XB700 handles it quite well and the HFI580, though without as much sub-bass).
In addition to their thinness, the DT770 lacks sub-bass quantity, but has presence, which is okay... (but means that I occasionally - very infrequently, rather - go back to the XB700 for songs like "Inori," by Yoko Kanno). Furthermore, the DT770 suffers the same problem as the HFI580, which is that a significant amount of sub-bass crowds out the rest of the spectrum, but the DT770's version is worse in two respects. First, the effect occurs even past sub-bass and all the way up to ~160 Hz (hence the interesting wave form you see in that region). Second, the DT770 loses it's original quality (expansiveness, openness) to varying degrees, and it changes the overall tone of the sound as well (hence why the waveform doesn't really make sense. I'm pretty sure such an arrangement for the lower frequencies works only for my ears).
But enough about the bad, time for the good. I remember remarking on the DT770 32 ohm and how much they seemed like a "concert in my head." Well, that's certainly still true. Listening to Joe Hisashi's album, Ghibli to Issho, and Rolf Lovland's Songs from a Secret Garden is quite the impressive experience. In particular, The harmonics in the climax of "Nocturne" sounds amazing; instead of it being a loud blur of sound, each instrument section is clearly audible, along with their different vibrato patterns. The Phantom of the Opera album by Andrew Lloyd Webber is also quite nice (even if I disagree with the casting of the phantom - his voice is terribly nasally). But orchestral isn't the only place where the DT770 excels (I don't have much classical to give it good consideration), jazz is another of it's strong suits. "Akaneiro ga Moerutoki" by Scoobie Do is a one of a kind song in my library (that is, no other song I have comes close to sounding like it). The guitar, the drums, the violin, the voice, the reverb, all sound... good (I literally can't think of anything) and the tone is cold, just the way I like it, but none of the expansiveness is sacrificed. "The Real Folk Blues," by The Seatbelts (arranged by Yoko Kanno) is also nice, with a strong guitar, raspy vocalist, and scratchy brass, but as a song, it's not as nice as Scoobie Do's aforementioned song. Outside of Jazz, J-Pop/R&B works well, with HOME MADE Kazoku's "Thank You!!" and SEAMO's "Drive" as examples. While the bass is strong and revereberant, it doesn't cloud over the acoustic guitar in "Thank You!!" or the trumpets in "Drive." The nuances present in each song are also easily audible (the accompanying acoustic guitar in "Thank You!!" and the humorous sound effects in "Drive"). Of course, there's my old favorite genre, electropop. I haven't heard "Mermaid Song," by Susumu Hirasawa, rendered so beautifully since the SRH440. The ambiance of the wind, the distortions of the bass, the breaths of the female singer, the echos of the bass, weave together to form a unique listening experience, which wouldn't be possible without resolving headphones like the DT770. Another of my all time favorites is "Tsuki no Mayu," sung by [size=small]Aki Okui. I could write odes to how much I like the song, and the DT770 do a great job of helping me enjoy the song. [/size]I also have some rock and techno examples, but in the interest of saving time, I'll simply comment that only certain parts in these songs, e.g. the soft parts, sound better on the DT770 as opposed to the HFI580 or even the XB700. For example, "nO limiT," by Eclipse, sounds much better on the HFI580 than the DT770.
Final Comments:
Overall, the DT770 (600 Ohms) is a great pair of headphones for bassheads who also care about the rest of the sound spectrum. Although the cans are initially bright, sibilant, and grating, they burn-in to become detailed and resolving, though care must be taken in EQing them. They have a distinctively canny sound, which can be mitigated through EQ to become barely noticeable. The headphones are also quite expansive and open, though not as open as the SRH840. These headphones have a very natural sound that helps it greatly in songs without digital or electric instruments, and helps reveal details in songs with those instruments. My final rating is an 8/10 for having a great sound with some minor, but not minor enough, imperfections.
