[Thommohawk]

Quote:

Any recommendations for portable amp for DT990 Pro? 
To me DT990 Pro at best are average when driving them directly from my motherboard, but shine when connected to my separate amp or Essence XT. I would wanna have some kind of portable amp to drive DT990 pro when travelling to my parents and such.

Something in the Fiio line....

 

[TheKillerPiglet]

Quote:

Any recommendations for portable amp for DT990 Pro? 
To me DT990 Pro at best are average when driving them directly from my motherboard, but shine when connected to my separate amp or Essence XT. I would wanna have some kind of portable amp to drive DT990 pro when travelling to my parents and such.

C421 works well with them.
 
 
KP

 

[tissot]

Quote:

C421 works well with them.
 
 
KP

 
I'll look into it.
Quote:

Something in the Fiio line....

Sure, was just looking for some other options outside of the typical Fiio. 
I just most of all am looking input from people who actually own combo they find to work and already know how good DT990 Pro's sound with proper non portable amp. I was so disappointed back in the day with my Sennheisers + Fiio e7.
 
 
Thanks for the suggestions. 

 

[Kirth]

I got my DT990 PRO few months ago. At first, I felt the bass was too fast into my ears and the mids were recessed.
After a long time of burn-in and changing the cable that connects my laptop and amp from the monster icable to a silver plated ofc cable, it does improve the mids and make the bass somewhat more natural (a little bit).
Yes, they do sound better, but still not good enough for me.
I'm using a cold and neutral sounding solid state amp now, and I wonder if a warm sounding tube preamp can make them sound more neutral.

 

[TheKillerPiglet]

Quote:

I got my DT990 PRO few months ago. At first, I felt the bass was too fast into my ears and the mids were recessed.
After a long time of burn-in and changing the cable that connects my laptop and amp from the monster icable to a silver plated ofc cable, it does improve the mids and make the bass somewhat more natural (a little bit).
Yes, they do sound better, but still not good enough for me.
I'm using a cold and neutral sounding solid state amp now, and I wonder if a warm sounding tube preamp can make them sound more neutral.

This mirrors my experience to to a "T", they started off with the worst mids I have heard in the 20 years I've been paying attention to such things. After a long while they got acceptable, but overall they sound cloudy even with the screens removed from the ear pads, also they get muddy when the music is complex.
 
They do sound pretty good when driven by tubes and playing pop//rock. Actually kind of fun for that. Their lack of detail and boomy bass gives them a certain relaxing feel with this music.
 
I ended up giving them to my daughter for her Kindle videos. although do borrow them once in a while. I have a Crack OTL coming in next week, let see how that works.
 
KP

 

[Kirth]

Just got the preamp today.
After the preamp attached, the sound was kinda flat and soulless, similar to what you said, couldy.
But after I changed the stock pair of 6n3 tubes to ge jan 5670w, the sound is so so much better.
I never thought that changing tubes can make such a huge difference to the sound!

 

[Pianist]

These headphones need a lot more appreciation than this. Come on guys. HD650 and DT880 get hundreds of pages in appreciation threads, while these gems are left in the dark. I have HD650, HE-500 and DT990 Pro and the Beyers are hardly inferior, if at all, to the much more expensive cans. There are some things than HD650 and HE-500 do better, but, overall, I actually find DT990 Pro to be more musical. The Beyers can sound lively in a way the more neutral cans cannot and they accomplish this through quality emphasis on lows and highs. There is no boomy bass - it is tight, detailed and snappy. Likewise, the highs are buttery smooth and although they are bright, it is very easy to adjust them to one's liking through simple EQ. In other aspects, like detail retrieval, dynamics, soundstage, imaging, extension, speed and PRaT, etc, I find DT990 Pro pretty much right up there with the reference cans, In fact, the Beyers surpass HD650 in treble and possibly midrange resolution to my ears, and have a more airy, more open sound than HE-500 does. DT990 Pro also has a unique, slightly dark, and very atmospheric tone to it that HD650 and HE-500 do not have, which makes the Beyers my top choice for certain atmospheric recordings. I am not trying to belittle the HD650 and HE-500 here - they are beautiful cans and often I do enjoy them more than DT990 Pro and they do have certain qualities that makes them worth their price as well in my opinion. The DT990 Pro, however, is a much better bang for the buck - it's almost criminally cheap for the quality of sound that it outputs. Even if it was to cost the same as the HD650 or even HE-500, I don't think I would consider it overpriced, especially in today's world of 1k+ flagships and terribly overpriced celebrity headphones.

 

[tissot]

You don't need to tell me about it.
No idea why they got so little recognition here. Especially as Denon D200 and D5000 are so popular ( i also got D5000) you would think there would be much more of action over here.
Though like i have said before, proper amp at least in my opinion is a must if you want to get the true potential out of these. 
 
Denon D5000 are paired with couple of amps on living room, while DT990 have been my main headphones on my PC (paired with Essence ST) for a year now. I have been trying to get excited about some other pair of headphones, but simply can't. Perfect for games, movies and music like funk, acid jazz, house and so on. 

 

[Thommohawk]

I loved these headphones for their sound, yes they are bright which some people don't like but for me there's no issue with their openness. The bass can be too much for some and it is a bit thick but again for me that means there's never a lack of bass. Lovely wide soundstage and even with a slightly warm amp it makes the headphone sound so much better - I'd love to try any 990 variant with a Little Dot MK III - someday they will be mine! For me though the mids are the best part, they are recessed sounding compared to the bass and treble but this can work in it's favor if not for all kinds of music (show me 1 headphone that suits all genres perfectly anyway) but the mids themselves are relaxed yet very detailed. These are without question the best headphones for movies and immersion gaming for the money in my opinion and it's a no brainer for those purposes. And you'll be well catered for if you listen to music which features significant low end.
 
My only criticism of the DT 990 Pro is that they don't seem to stand up well to constant daily use. However this may not be true of the Premium versions. 

 

[josipva]

Hi there, im playing around a bit with equalization to bring those mids a bit forward and tame the highs. Got some advice to tweak them a bit better ?
 
 

 

[Xprime4]

I just got my new pair today and out of the box i prefer them so much over the pro 900. The soundstage is awesome and the mids aren't as recessed. they are in for at least 50h of break in time before i listen to them again but i already know why headphone will have to go

 

[Tiramisu]

New owner of the DT 990 Pro here. I had quite high expectation for it before it arrived, after been reading reviews/feedbacks for weeks. I was previously using DTX 900 32ohm with Asus Xonar DGX and really fell in love with the warm, detail, clean sound signature from Beyers. Supposely the DT 990 Pro is an upgrade but apparently I'm not really satisfied with what I'm hearing from the 990 Pro.
 
It's still on its 3rd day burn-in but I also feel that my Asus Xonar DGX have more the blame for under-amping the 990 Pro even on highest gain (excitor mode). I know for a fact that the DGX is recommanded to power headphone up to ~150ohm so the answer is clear here. From what I can hear now is that the vocal(mid) sounds recessed, and distant. Bright treble with a sense of harshness and very noticeably sibilience. I do appreciate its bass capability and I can feel its energy. It's punchy, controlled, deep, well extended and have good depth and definition.
 
One thing for sure is that DT 990 Pro sounds A LOT like the Beyer DTX 900 I fell in love with years ago, but maybe because the DTX 900 is 32ohm which is easier to drive so it ended up surpassing the "flagship" DT 990 Pro for 3x of the price of DTX 900 (Original MSRP of DT 990 Pro). DTX 900 sounded fairly neutral and performed well in all 3 bass/mid/treble categories for headphones under $150. I know I've been saying a lot more positive about the DTX 900 than the DT 990 Pro but I hope to improve the sound on the DT 990 Pro as I upgrade my soundcard to Xonar STX with upgradable op-amps (3x LME 49990) - I read those op amps give warm sounding which tailors nicely with DT 990 Pro. I also read that Tube amps (coloration) may work nicely with DT 990 Pro but some tube amps are in fact V-shaped which I'm afriad it's going to exaggerate the already v-shaped present on the DT 990 Pro. Overall I think the DT 990 Pro sounded "nice" but not even remotely close to its full potential I'm afraid. I'd appreciate more inputs from experienced DT 990 Pro owners here

 

[phantomz]

This was my first serious headphone purchase after mainly buying IEMs. I still find the DT990 to be bright, and have more bass than I would have liked. I only had the opportunity to listen to the DT770 and DT990 before buying the DT990, as I would have liked to listen to the DT880. So I've been EQing them to my liking, but would definitely like to have listened to more headphones just so I could compare the sound signatures.
 
So I've had the DT990 Pro 250ohm version for a little over a year now. Recently, the headphone cable somehow got torn, and sound is only coming out of one side. The headphones are still under warranty, and I'm currently getting them repaired. Has anyone else had this problem before?

 

[Tiramisu]

Quote:

This was my first serious headphone purchase after mainly buying IEMs. I still find the DT990 to be bright, and have more bass than I would have liked. I only had the opportunity to listen to the DT770 and DT990 before buying the DT990, as I would have liked to listen to the DT880. So I've been EQing them to my liking, but would definitely like to have listened to more headphones just so I could compare the sound signatures.
 
So I've had the DT990 Pro 250ohm version for a little over a year now. Recently, the headphone cable somehow got torn, and sound is only coming out of one side. The headphones are still under warranty, and I'm currently getting them repaired. Has anyone else had this problem before?

Agree with your comments on the DT 990 Pro. Not sure what type of setup you have it hooked up with but it does need some serious matching amping to make it really shine to its full potential and diminishing its notorious v-shaped flaws that many other find including myself. I think I'll soon to find out how much better of a sound I can get from it once I upgrade from my current budget Xonar DGX w/ built in amp soundcard...
 
Torn cable and that design flaw is something well known on the DT 990 Pro and that's been updated in the new premium version but at a premium price as well, sound wise they're very similar and not worth the premium over price but some may be willing to pay for that. In fact, DT 990 Pro presented more linear (closer to GoldenEars spec) than DT 990 premium and I've read that both models uses the same drivers...anyway based on the reviews I read in the past few weeks before I purchased my DT 990 Pro, the thin exposed cable is something I know I've to be careful with. I had to rewire it a bit loose for room of minor adjustment. Best to unbotton the far left/right bottons so the wire isn't pin in place which will likely be torn in case you accidentally twist it from time to time until it's eventually torn apart

 

[tissot]

Quote:

New owner of the DT 990 Pro here. I had quite high expectation for it before it arrived, after been reading reviews/feedbacks for weeks. I was previously using DTX 900 32ohm with Asus Xonar DGX and really fell in love with the warm, detail, clean sound signature from Beyers. Supposely the DT 990 Pro is an upgrade but apparently I'm not really satisfied with what I'm hearing from the 990 Pro.
 
It's still on its 3rd day burn-in but I also feel that my Asus Xonar DGX have more the blame for under-amping the 990 Pro even on highest gain (excitor mode). I know for a fact that the DGX is recommanded to power headphone up to ~150ohm so the answer is clear here. From what I can hear now is that the vocal(mid) sounds recessed, and distant. Bright treble with a sense of harshness and very noticeably sibilience. I do appreciate its bass capability and I can feel its energy. It's punchy, controlled, deep, well extended and have good depth and definition.
 
One thing for sure is that DT 990 Pro sounds A LOT like the Beyer DTX 900 I fell in love with years ago, but maybe because the DTX 900 is 32ohm which is easier to drive so it ended up surpassing the "flagship" DT 990 Pro for 3x of the price of DTX 900 (Original MSRP of DT 990 Pro). DTX 900 sounded fairly neutral and performed well in all 3 bass/mid/treble categories for headphones under $150. I know I've been saying a lot more positive about the DTX 900 than the DT 990 Pro but I hope to improve the sound on the DT 990 Pro as I upgrade my soundcard to Xonar STX with upgradable op-amps (3x LME 49990) - I read those op amps give warm sounding which tailors nicely with DT 990 Pro. I also read that Tube amps (coloration) may work nicely with DT 990 Pro but some tube amps are in fact V-shaped which I'm afriad it's going to exaggerate the already v-shaped present on the DT 990 Pro. Overall I think the DT 990 Pro sounded "nice" but not even remotely close to its full potential I'm afraid. I'd appreciate more inputs from experienced DT 990 Pro owners here

I can't listen my DT990 Pro's without proper amp. I was horrified when i tested them for the first time on my laptop. So bright and was missing that fun factor and bass people had been talking about.
Thankfully after popping them into my PC with Asus Xonar STX set to 300ohm they sounded just like i wanted.
 
They are absolutely perfect for the kind of music i listen and the rare times i play games and movies. That said they aren't for everybody as they are indeed bright, but i do like that a lot.