oldskoolboarder
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2008
- Posts
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OK, I blame danmagicman for taking me down the headphone rabbit hole. He posted his can addiction on the Axiom Audio boards. During the holiday break, I found myself looking at ebay for headphones and found a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770-250's for $100, only 2 weeks old. Just got them today. (In between, I've spent a lot of time reading various threads on this forum. Very entertaining.)
Some background. I have a HT system based around Axiom speakers, Pio Elite 45TX and a Denon 2200 universal player. I have a 2nd stereo only system consisting of Projekt Debut TT, Ah! Njoeb tube CD player w/ some upgrades, Rotel 1070 stereo pre-amp, iPod 3G/5.5G with LOD, Antique Sound Labs AV-25 monoblocks (tube), and Von Schwiekert VR1's. Most of my music listening is done on my stereo system. I LOVE the sound of my tubes and VR1's. When listening to Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Coltrane, Steve Wonder, Jake Shimabukuro, Julia Fordham and the like, I really like the warmth of the tube side, breadth of the soundstage, and the distinctness (is that a word?) of the vocals and instruments. Weirdly enough, the VR1 monitors provide a nice amount of bass for a large room (20' x 30') surrounded completely by untreated glass windows. That was a welcome surprise. It's not a boomy sound, just a solid punch that you know is there. I like my music transparent, I'd rather hear it how the recording engineer intended it to be. My goal to move to headphones was to hopefully duplicate this sound.
I used the same source material on several headphone outputs in my system. My Ah! Njoeb has a headphone output that was actually quite good. I can't turn it past 2 levels above MIN or it's too loud. The DT770's seem to have a good sense of the highs, but the mids and bass just didn't hit me right. I could tell that the mids and bass were there, just a bit distant or veiled. When listening to Jake's ukelele, the tones were there, I could sense the strumming but something is missing. The other odd sensation was that I could feel the chords moreso than my speakers, but I seem to think that's because the air movement is so much closer to my ear with cans. Would that be a correct assessment?
Next I went to the headphone output on the Rotel. Very close in sound to the Ah! but a little more emphasis on the highs in a good way, they were a bit clearer. Someone mentioned in another thread that the Rotel supposedly had a good output, I would agree. Mids and bass were more prevalent, but that veil was still there.
Lastly, I took my source material and played it on my Pio 45TX and Denon 2200. This was good but probably 3rd out of the 3 options. Seems that the highs were more pronounced and a bit brighter than I'd like. Mids and bass again were veiled. I took a listen to my Eagles Hotel California DVDA which is one of my favorite recordings. Granted it was only 2 channel and some aspects were missing, and still the mids weren't quite there.
Could it be, for my tastes, that the 770-250's aren't the perfect match for my ears? Would the Denon D2000, AKG701 or Senn HD600/650 be a better fit, providing more pronounced mids to go w/ the treble? I don't want heavy bass, I've got my superfi pro 5 EB's for that.
Also, assuming that these only have 1 week of usage, could additional burn in change the signature? In what way?
Thanks for reading, and even more thanks for feedback.
Some background. I have a HT system based around Axiom speakers, Pio Elite 45TX and a Denon 2200 universal player. I have a 2nd stereo only system consisting of Projekt Debut TT, Ah! Njoeb tube CD player w/ some upgrades, Rotel 1070 stereo pre-amp, iPod 3G/5.5G with LOD, Antique Sound Labs AV-25 monoblocks (tube), and Von Schwiekert VR1's. Most of my music listening is done on my stereo system. I LOVE the sound of my tubes and VR1's. When listening to Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Coltrane, Steve Wonder, Jake Shimabukuro, Julia Fordham and the like, I really like the warmth of the tube side, breadth of the soundstage, and the distinctness (is that a word?) of the vocals and instruments. Weirdly enough, the VR1 monitors provide a nice amount of bass for a large room (20' x 30') surrounded completely by untreated glass windows. That was a welcome surprise. It's not a boomy sound, just a solid punch that you know is there. I like my music transparent, I'd rather hear it how the recording engineer intended it to be. My goal to move to headphones was to hopefully duplicate this sound.
I used the same source material on several headphone outputs in my system. My Ah! Njoeb has a headphone output that was actually quite good. I can't turn it past 2 levels above MIN or it's too loud. The DT770's seem to have a good sense of the highs, but the mids and bass just didn't hit me right. I could tell that the mids and bass were there, just a bit distant or veiled. When listening to Jake's ukelele, the tones were there, I could sense the strumming but something is missing. The other odd sensation was that I could feel the chords moreso than my speakers, but I seem to think that's because the air movement is so much closer to my ear with cans. Would that be a correct assessment?
Next I went to the headphone output on the Rotel. Very close in sound to the Ah! but a little more emphasis on the highs in a good way, they were a bit clearer. Someone mentioned in another thread that the Rotel supposedly had a good output, I would agree. Mids and bass were more prevalent, but that veil was still there.
Lastly, I took my source material and played it on my Pio 45TX and Denon 2200. This was good but probably 3rd out of the 3 options. Seems that the highs were more pronounced and a bit brighter than I'd like. Mids and bass again were veiled. I took a listen to my Eagles Hotel California DVDA which is one of my favorite recordings. Granted it was only 2 channel and some aspects were missing, and still the mids weren't quite there.
Could it be, for my tastes, that the 770-250's aren't the perfect match for my ears? Would the Denon D2000, AKG701 or Senn HD600/650 be a better fit, providing more pronounced mids to go w/ the treble? I don't want heavy bass, I've got my superfi pro 5 EB's for that.
Also, assuming that these only have 1 week of usage, could additional burn in change the signature? In what way?
Thanks for reading, and even more thanks for feedback.
.
