[vbobo]

You basically have the following styles to chose from with regards to headphone backing types.

Open
Semi-Open
Closed

True open headphones are open to all sound. They isolate nothing and if loud enough anyone around can hear what is being played on them. Of course they need to be fairly loud as the direction of the sound is still aimed at your ears and not the outside world, but they can still be heard by others.

Semi-Open block some of the sound going in an out.

Now as far as sound signature... that is again personal preference. Loud, and certainly bass that rumbles on and on, can drown out sound from other frequencies happening at the same time. Which means in a game the fainter noises, like footsteps, could be washed out from load bass explosions. Big bassy explosions are very nice, fulfilling, and make you go DAAYYAAMMM!! when they go off, but they can also lose you a bit of competitive advantage as well. Which is why some gamers go for headphones with as much clarity in the mids that they can get and don't mind a weaker bass response and roll off. It really all depends on what sort of gaming audio experience you are after.

Then again, you can be like me and have many different headphones to use based on the listening experience you are after.

Closed block most of the sound coming in and going on.

Open headphones tend to have the best soundstages, with semi-open ok soundstage, and closed headphones rarely having good soundstage.

When it comes to actual imaging, that is not really a function of the headphones per say, but the source sound and what is routing that source. However, some headphones are better at reproducing accurate imaging compared to others. All the good "audiophile" headphones, which include beyerdynamics, are going to have good imaging. For gaming, the differences are in the soundstage representation. DT770 are closed and don't have much soundstage. The 990s are "open", but really not fully open as others. Still, being open means that they are more open than the 770's at least. They will have a bigger soundstage in comparison to the 770s.

I went ahead and purchased the 990 pro 250 ohm to give it a try, comes in tomorrow from amazon. What amp/dac would you recommend at the best price? As cheap as possible!

 

[vbobo]

Not sure what you mean by "washed out," but whatever that is, it could be due to the how the Kraken drivers really don't have a good response to begin with but possibly also that its soundcard's virtual surround makes it worse, quite possibly its design focus being gaming it might be too aggressive on the virtual surround tuning. On the flipside, without being more clear about what you're hearing, it's hard to tell how different the DT770 will be.

That said, I use the Superlux HD330 and Xonar U3 on my gaming rig, which has a heck of a lot of bass, and apart from the addition of reverb on top of crossfeed, it sounds "realistic" enough, in the sense that it is not grossly unnatural. I've gone from games to YouTube and I've reached for the speakers' volume button since the sound can be imaged far enough to the front when virtual surround is running (it helps that I adjusted the clamp and they feel no tighter than my HD600).




If the difference is in how the Beats sound more like any headphone while the Kraken sounds more like being in some kind of chamber, then there's the possibility that the Kraken is just good for what it's meant to do, ie, trying to simulate surround speakers, which isn't the same as bare 2.0ch audio nor even Crossfeed.




I have the even bassier Superlux HD330 running off a Xonar U3, though I play more Total War than anything else these days, and if I position the game camera to my infantry line's flank I can clearly hear the difference in the shield-on-shield pushing match to one side and the whirling cavalry to the other side. Not a competitive advantage but it improves immersion, like how no matter how limited rear imaging can be it's still fun to hear hooves closing in (no matter how horrifying that is when you realize what's coming).

It doesn't give me a competitive advantage on FPS either but that has a lot more to do with how no headphone can really image well in terms of height and rear depth. Not even the K701 and HD800 can do that on current virtual surround tech.

I went with the dt 990 pro 250 ohm. I hear there best with an amp/dac combo. Could you recommend a cheap one that'll work with these headphones?

 

[Humblepie]

I went with the dt 990 pro 250 ohm. I hear there best with an amp/dac combo. Could you recommend a cheap one that'll work with these headphones?

I only have a couple dac/amps not counting pc cards. Those I have a ton of. External stuff I have an Asus Xonar (it's ok), FX-Audio DAC-X6, and an uber Schiit Stack. I haven't heard tons of different dac or amps either, but the FX-Audio DAC-X6 for $65 off amazon is about as cheap as you can get and still have something solid. Works well enough so far for me.

 

[vbobo]

I only have a couple dac/amps not counting pc cards. Those I have a ton of. External stuff I have an Asus Xonar (it's ok), FX-Audio DAC-X6, and an uber Schiit Stack. I haven't heard tons of different dac or amps either, but the FX-Audio DAC-X6 for $65 off amazon is about as cheap as you can get and still have something solid. Works well enough so far for me.

Couldn't find the FX audio dac x6 on amazon.ca, from Canada haha. What about: https://www.amazon.ca/K1-Portable-D...qid=1500580959&sr=8-25&keywords=Headphone+amp ?

 

[domsch1988]

Couldn't find the FX audio dac x6 on amazon.ca, from Canada haha. What about: https://www.amazon.ca/K1-Portable-D...qid=1500580959&sr=8-25&keywords=Headphone+amp ?

It's ok, but mainly a portable solution. So focus is more on size.
I'd highly recommend stepping it up to the E10: https://www.amazon.ca/FiiO-Olympus-...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8QK6QYQEKFFXQW6NTPJE That's more capable of driving headphones.
The K1 will be better than onboard audio, but i feel it's 50$ spend that you'll want to upgrade soon when you've experienced decent amplification...

 

[vbobo]

It's ok, but mainly a portable solution. So focus is more on size.
I'd highly recommend stepping it up to the E10: https://www.amazon.ca/FiiO-Olympus-...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=8QK6QYQEKFFXQW6NTPJE That's more capable of driving headphones.
The K1 will be better than onboard audio, but i feel it's 50$ spend that you'll want to upgrade soon when you've experienced decent amplification...

After trying the headphones out in my PC I def feel they need the amp/dac for the full experience. Volumes low and overall quality definitely feels like it could be pushed. Overall the e10k is good enough?

 

[vbobo]

What is overall the better amp for DDT 990 250 ohm, e10k or e17k? I can get the e10k for 110$ canadian vs the e17K on sale for 130$ canadian.

 

[squee116]

You could forego the dac and just get an amp... Like a Magni or Little Dot.

If I recall, my Beyers were driven decently well from a MixAmp Pro. The power output on the MixAmp is kind of garbage, so maybe a Schiit Fulla would work, or a Dragonfly?

Edit to add: I also had the DT990 250 ohm

 

[audiopadawan]

In my opinion, open ended headphones are much more appropriate for spending long hours on the computer with. If you are obsessed with closing out the outside world and drowning yourself in music, then isolation may be your thing.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I went with the dt 990 pro 250 ohm. I hear there best with an amp/dac combo. Could you recommend a cheap one that'll work with these headphones?

I'd get any decent soundcard with virtual surround DSP.