[skyline315]

Quote:

I'm not even sure if Beyer is aware of this problem, which is rather scary. I really wanted to try a DT 1350 myself, but if I purchase it I would like to be sure that I'm getting the headphone that I'm supposed to get - not one of three variations. 

 
If the "problem" even exists.  No offense to the knowledgeable people here doing measurements (I'm appreciative of any efforts made), but 3 headphones is hardly a large enough sample for me to be convinced of anything.

 

[rhythmdevils]

The chances of happening to get 3 rare defective units is incredibly low. 
 
What makes you think there isn't a problem?  The marketing on Beyer's website?  The pretty pictures?  That's about all there is asserting that there are no problems. 
 
I will never understand why people are so trusting of marketing.

 

[roma101]

Couldn't there be more defective units that we don't know about (I doubt everyone takes measurements of their headphones and/or may realize they have a defective pair)? So far there have been three found, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were more. 

 

[swarthy]

In reality none of this is going to be professionally verified. It is what we can do as enthusiasts to see if there are problems. IDK but my set doesn't sound that bad and I am happy with them. Simple thing is to try and get the newest pair you possibly can as defects may be caught and corrected during ANY production run of ANY product.

 

[rhythmdevils]

Saying "so far there have been 3 found" isn't quite accurate.  3 out of 3 were all wildly different, that's 100% so far.  No other pairs have been measured.  Of course that isn't conclusive, but if you were going to guess based on what we've seen, the most likely guess would be that they are all wildly different. 
 
Again, that doesn't mean that your pair sounds bad. 

 

[skyline315]

Quote:

The chances of happening to get 3 rare defective units is incredibly low. 
 
What makes you think there isn't a problem?  The marketing on Beyer's website?  The pretty pictures?  That's about all there is asserting that there are no problems. 
 
I will never understand why people are so trusting of marketing.

And what makes people jump to unfounded conclusions about other members?  I am probably the least trusting person you will find.  I teach statistics for a living and my number one goal each year is to teach my students to be skeptical about what they hear, see, and read.  
 
But my distrust applies to more than just companies and marketing...it also applies to a person on an internet forum who has tested 3 headphones (out of...?) by a system of their own devising which I know very little about.  
 
purrin, please don't see this as an insult in any way.  I realize you have a good reputation and are doing your best to help the community.  I appreciate all of that very much.  It's not that I don't believe your results...it's simply that I don't have enough evidence to automatically accept them, either.  
 
In an ideal world, this would all be professionally tested and verified.  But, as swarthy said, this is likely never to happen.  Regardless, these headphones certainly have enough fans in the audio community that I'll buy my pair in a couple of weeks and try my luck.  

 

[swarthy]

Try to buy from a place that will special order them. You may not want to deal with stores with return policies that allow people to take them home and send them back and resell as new. Unless they have some deal or something. Best way to not get one that may be old if it were to be they did have probs with other pairs. Who knows they could all be different based on design. No way to forget that these phones can be VERY pissy with the fit and that is why I don't know what to say about the figures.

Anyway, this thread should be a warning to pot smokers: do not come in here unless you want to be paranoid about your headphones! Cue the creepy music.

 

[skyline315]

Quote:

Try to buy from a place that will special order them. You may not want to deal with stores with return policies that allow people to take them home and send them back and resell as new. Unless they have some deal or something. Best way to not get one that may be old if it were to be they did have probs with other pairs. Who knows they could all be different based on design. No way to forget that these phones can be VERY pissy with the fit and that is why I don't know what to say about the figures.
Anyway, this thread should be a warning to pot smokers: do not come in here unless you want to be paranoid about your headphones! Cue the creepy music.

I was most likely going to order from B&H.  May rethink that...
 
I have ordered all of my past headphones from headphones.com and they actually dropshipped my DT880s straight from beyerdymanic.  Wonder if they'd do the same for these even though they aren't listed on the website.  Hmmm...

 

[roma101]

Right, I understand what you're saying. All I am saying is that there might be more defective pairs out there. I don't have a pair right now, but I would love to try a pair - one that is supposed to sound like what Beyer intended. It's just a bit crazy IMO, that there is even the slightest chance that I could get a vastly different pair of 1350s. 

 

[slwiser]

One could always order from Drew at Moon Audio getting him to do the IEM Silver Dragon Cable modification and ask him to make sure that it is not wonky sounding before shipping since you could return it if it was off.  Mine is considered the good one and this is exactly how I ordered mine without asking for the assurance of a good one.

 

[Kremer930]

Does Beyer specify a particular FR graph or response? If they are failing to meet any claim or guarantee then it is very unlikely that they would fix or accept returns.

Mine still sound great.

Comes back to the old rule. Listen with your ears, buy what sounds good and keep in mind synergies of equipment.

Would love to know what FR graph mine are producing but ...too hard basket.

Do we know if the poor results are confined to a production run or range? Are earlier or later serial numbers better? Cheers

 

[anetode]

This isn't the only Beyer model with drastic variations amongst pairs. What's more troubling is that the DT1350 were supposedly tuned for the pro market. Even with a sample size of 3 it's easy to conclude that they are a joke of a studio monitor.

Comparing multiple pairs back to back and taking them apart might shed some light on the variances. There's certainly potential for these headphones to measure and sound better (at least I hope so, to fix the bass on my pair).

 

[purrin]

Quote:

But my distrust applies to more than just companies and marketing...it also applies to a person on an internet forum who has tested 3 headphones (out of...?) by a system of their own devising which I know very little about.  
 
purrin, please don't see this as an insult in any way.  I realize you have a good reputation and are doing your best to help the community.  I appreciate all of that very much.  It's not that I don't believe your results...it's simply that I don't have enough evidence to automatically accept them, either.  
 
In an ideal world, this would all be professionally tested and verified.  But, as swarthy said, this is likely never to happen.  Regardless, these headphones certainly have enough fans in the audio community that I'll buy my pair in a couple of weeks and try my luck.  

 

• 3 of 3 for DT1350. I've measured approximately a hundred headphones. Some of them of the same model, but different units. Anyone can do the stats and run different scenarios. What is the chance I get 3 out of 3 bad ones assuming a 2% defect rate, or 5% defect rate, or 10% defect rate, or 25% defect rate. One is interesting, two you start to take pause, three you really start to wonder. For T1 and DT1350 combined, it's 5 of 5 (both T1's I've measured are very different.) And by the way, I've never seen these kinds of wild differences with any other headphone from other manufacturers. Only the Audezes' have had some discrepancies with early LCD2r1 and early LCD3s, and even then, the variances are not nearly to the extent of Beyer.
• Not at all. Totally understandable given that I keep my measurement methods to myself (two to three others may have a good idea how I currently do it, and less than a dozen people in the world have seen the rig - or pictures of it.) I do this because I know at least a few people in the industry want to know how I do it (some have directly asked me, and I just smile and give hints.) I've put some serious creativity and hard work into it (built the rig and couplers, wrote the impulse processing software, tweaked curves, etc.), so obviously I'm not going to give out my secrets for free if someone intends to make money off of it. The last thing I would want is someone using a simplified version of my methods and pulling off the "special grapharoo" thing to market their headphones. One of these days I should run some tests measuring precision open to public scrutiny. 

 

1. Also you should know that I'm not just some random guy on an Internet forum doing some mad science experiments in secret. Lots of people actually know me in person within the state. I've got folks dropping in at my house on a semi-weekly basis for micro-meets and related measurement stuff. As you can understand, it's much easier for me to communicate the nuances of and address questions related to measurement related things in person.
2. Related to the above, I've seen a few other guys try to do waterfall plots on the Internet. I know exactly what software packages or I can tell what processing parameters they are using. Some of those plots are fubar (it's not that hard to tell.) Just a warning. There are some nuances and special considerations which need to be taken into account in measuring headphones. It's not like measuring speakers or room resonances. And it's one of the reasons why I ended up writing my own number crunching program.
3. I would like to add that I made the same conclusion on each of the three DT1350s based on hearing them. Of course, this leads to all sorts of confusion, e.g. I've heard 7 T1s, and most of them sound a little bit different - but this claim would be rather incredulous! As for my subjective impressions of the the DT1350: The unit from slwiser sounded very good - some bass but not overpowering (this would appear to be the typical or good DT1350 that people have been raving about ). Shipsupt's sounded very odd (varying levels of channel imbalance), and the latest pair sounded bass lite.
4. It's possible that I'm a magnet for "bad" DT1350s or T1s because those who feel that there is something wrong with them are more likely to send them to me. As I've always said, I'm a one Tesla magnet for defective headphones.
5. I should go out and get a fourth pair myself. BTW I very much appreciate the folks who have taken the time, effort, and minor expense of sending them in to me for measurements. 

 

[skyline315]

Quote:

 

• For T1 and DT1350 combined, it's 5 of 5 (both T1's I've measured are very different.) 

• It's possible that I'm a magnet for "bad" DT1350s or T1s because those who feel that there is something wrong with them are more likely to send them to me. As I've always said, I'm one Tesla magnet for defective headphones.
• I should go out and get a fourth pair myself. BTW I very much appreciate the folks who have taken the time, effort, and moderate expense of sending them in to me for measurements. 

 
5 for 5 is very strange, indeed, but it could mean two things:
 
1)  Beyer is really making a mess of things...
or...
2)  There's something about your measurement system that isn't playing nice with the Tesla phones for some reason.  
 
Of course, your theory of being a magnet for bad 1350s can't be ruled out, either.
 
I wonder if there's some way we could convince Tyll to get in on this since he measured the 1350s for himself and loved them so much.
 
As a side note, I never called you a "random" guy on the internet

 

[purrin]

The Tesla magnet is interfering with my microphone (and my brain too) 

 Then again the T70p and T90 (not yet posted) turned out fine.
 
But seriously, this is of greater concern now than it was before. More T1 or DT1350 samples and testing of the precision on my rig (just to make doubly sure) should be the next step.