I gave the DT880s a very favorable review. With help, I figured out where the treble brightness was, why it occurs, asked a friend to take measurements to confirm it, and found out about two ways to moderate it (EQ or physically damping the resonance at 9 khz). I've put all my other headphones away and am only listening to the DT880s now. They are my best headphones.
FWIW, if I had to choose beteen just the Beyer DT880s, the Senn HD580s, the Senn HD600s, or the Senn HD650s, I'd take the Beyers. But if someone else would prefers the Senns, I would understand, and not only that, I would understand why. I would be interested in givin the HD595s an extended trial though, to see if maybe they thread the needle, as far as my preferences are concerned. I've heard them a few times before and they certainly measure extremely well.
Roughly speaking, on balance, I think the Beyer DT880s are about an average of 5 db up in the treble and the Senns are about 5 db down in the treble. Pretty simple. Different people will hear it differently because of their ear shapes and their preferences and past experiences. The fine points of headphone sonics are extremely complicated.
I think the DT880s are moderately bright in the treble, while some others think they are slightly bright. There's really not much to argue about, as I see it. It's easily chalked up to a difference in prefences and anatomy. The treble brightness is obvious to nearly everyone who owns them; past that, in terms of just using English, it's really just preferences, semantics and people wearing their hearts on their sleeve, IMHO.
The sound of the Beyer DT880s can be made near-perfect to suit my preferences with EQ because they are so good to start with. Without EQ, my honest judgment is that they are moderately bright in the treble, but not harsh, because the brightness occurrs mostly in the mid-treble rather than the low treble or upper mids. The bass and mids are as near to perfect as I have ever heard.
I would be extremely interested to know from Beyer what the theory is behind allowing the 9 khz resonance to occur when it can be easily damped. The folks at Beyer, I would have to think, feel that it is a positive thing. It's in a few of their higher-priced headphones and so I have to think it's intentional, just as Senn's moderately subdued highs are intentional. For my personal preferences, both Senn and Beyer go just a little too far, but in opposite directions.
So, to get the thread back on topic, to the original poster, as I said earlier, if it were me in your shoes, I'd give the Senn HD595s a shot, for the reasons set forth above. IIRC, you already have the DT880s. I couldn't imagine an nicer set of two headphones to have at your fingertips. If I had it to do over again, I would just have a pair of the DT880s and the pair of HD595s. Neither was around when I first discovered head-fi. They've both really pushed forward the state of the art in headphones, in my view.
Fewtch... very disappointing.
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Originally Posted by fewtch
The DT880s were designed for well-recorded music that isn't mastered too bright or treble-emphasized. Play that and you'll have no problems (IMO).
Edit -- certain people like Steve999 (?) are really giving the DT880s a bad reputation with all the talk about treble spikes and such. For what it's worth, the DT880s are quite a bit smoother/less bright than Grados, and I think people are starting to get the wrong idea about this headphone. Thanks a lot Steve...
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