Knuckledragger
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2004
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I recently won an auction for some b-stock DT-880s from Beyer's official eBay account. They're the older version, I'm not sure what year (they look like this.) They just arrived an hour ago, and I've barely begun the honeymoon stage, let along done any serious critical listening, but a few few things have become clear to me:
1. Beyer Pads are amazingly comfortable. Of course, I already knew this, having replaced the pads on my 7506s with Beyers.
2. The upper mids and high end are very ...floaty. They just seem to waft in breezily. Clearly the 880s are a little on the bright side, but even with less than one hour of use on them I don't find the brightness to be shrill or overbearing.
3. That's one expansive soundstage. I haven't played any of my standard sounstage test tracks, but just on the tracks that happened to be next in my playlist, I'm impressed.
4. I'm loving the decay. The upper frequencies on these cans fade out as gracefully as they come in. Snare drums aren't the epic event that they are on the TakeTs, but they are still quite lively.
5. Bass is certainly present and not lacking. I know 880s have a reputation for being a bit bass-shy, but I'm not hearing that. Right now I am listening to the drum n bass track "Tractor Beam" by Eat Static (off their new De-Classified album) and both basslines in the track are quite clearly defined and substantiative. The 880s lack the extension and impact of my 650s, but they're hardly wussy. I'm going to do them a kindness and not compare them my TakeT H2s in this area.
I have a feeling the 880s will make a nice foil to my 650s, given how their relative strengths compliment each other. For years, when I got bored with the 650s, I went to my HD-590s. The 590s have a spookily deep soundstage an a very upfront presentation, but their frequency response is more than a bit uneven. Clearly, the 880s are much better behaved. I am driving them with my GLite/DPS, which hasn't seen much use since the arrival of my TakeTs. I have to go work shortly, and I'm going to try them unamped out of my iPod.
1. Beyer Pads are amazingly comfortable. Of course, I already knew this, having replaced the pads on my 7506s with Beyers.
2. The upper mids and high end are very ...floaty. They just seem to waft in breezily. Clearly the 880s are a little on the bright side, but even with less than one hour of use on them I don't find the brightness to be shrill or overbearing.
3. That's one expansive soundstage. I haven't played any of my standard sounstage test tracks, but just on the tracks that happened to be next in my playlist, I'm impressed.
4. I'm loving the decay. The upper frequencies on these cans fade out as gracefully as they come in. Snare drums aren't the epic event that they are on the TakeTs, but they are still quite lively.
5. Bass is certainly present and not lacking. I know 880s have a reputation for being a bit bass-shy, but I'm not hearing that. Right now I am listening to the drum n bass track "Tractor Beam" by Eat Static (off their new De-Classified album) and both basslines in the track are quite clearly defined and substantiative. The 880s lack the extension and impact of my 650s, but they're hardly wussy. I'm going to do them a kindness and not compare them my TakeT H2s in this area.
I have a feeling the 880s will make a nice foil to my 650s, given how their relative strengths compliment each other. For years, when I got bored with the 650s, I went to my HD-590s. The 590s have a spookily deep soundstage an a very upfront presentation, but their frequency response is more than a bit uneven. Clearly, the 880s are much better behaved. I am driving them with my GLite/DPS, which hasn't seen much use since the arrival of my TakeTs. I have to go work shortly, and I'm going to try them unamped out of my iPod.