The Beyerdynamic DT880 Discussion thread
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shane55
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@ SpudHarris.
Thanks for the update!
Thanks for the update!
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No worries Shane.
As I still wanted to get Leather Pads so I contacted Drew over at Moon Audio and have bought a set from him. Cheaper for me than buying from Germany!
As I still wanted to get Leather Pads so I contacted Drew over at Moon Audio and have bought a set from him. Cheaper for me than buying from Germany!
pataburd
Headphoneus Supremus
The replacement pair of DT880/600 came the other day, but I have been out of town and have not had a chance to listen to them yet. The R/L impedances are much better matched on this pair: my multi-meter, crude as it is, has both channels right about at 590 ohms.
Three interviews this week—Deo gratias! I am hoping to move to either TN or KY when it’s all said and done.
I have decided to hold off on the Tesla 1 until I secure a job, or possibly hold off on purchasing them altogether. First, I want to spend some time with the DT880/600, and am contemplating a UP-OCC copper re-cable after burn-in.
Just got home from out of town, and have the Bada warming up with 1x RCA 5692 and 2x Sylvania 6SN7GTB. God willing, I'll recline with a Schubert symphony later on . . . : )
UPDATE: Ended up listening to “Frank Sinatra, the Reprise Years”. First impressions, first hour: highs shrill/raspy, bass tubby and unfocused, soundstage confined.
Just upgraded my Dakiom F203 (Negative Feedback Stabilizer for headphones) to the F273. The F273 sounds appreciably better. The micro- and macro-dynamics have improved noticeably, as has detail retrieval and delineation, but without loss—in fact a gain—in musicality. The AKG K501 and the DT880/600 have benefited greatly from the Dakiom. Good Stuff!!!
shane55
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Well, congrats on the new set and their matched ohmage.
I too found the new 600 ohm to be a bit overly bright (shrill) and lacked much bass. I listened to a couple of my key test tracks and moved them to 3 different sources to see if it improved. Not enough.
I stopped listening to them all together and started the break-in process of hours of pinknoise. After a couple days of straight pinknoise (I had to cover them with a pillow as it was kind of annoying) I tried to listen to them again. Oh yeah… that’s much better.
I was actually surprised how much it tamed the harsh highs and improved the bass. Now after many hours they have somewhat hit a plateau. I don’t hear much change anymore. Maybe because it’s more gradual (if at all) and I’m listening to it as it happens.
My point being that the different amps you have made a difference… that’s great. But hours of playing them will improve them even farther.
Cheers.
shane
I too found the new 600 ohm to be a bit overly bright (shrill) and lacked much bass. I listened to a couple of my key test tracks and moved them to 3 different sources to see if it improved. Not enough.
I stopped listening to them all together and started the break-in process of hours of pinknoise. After a couple days of straight pinknoise (I had to cover them with a pillow as it was kind of annoying) I tried to listen to them again. Oh yeah… that’s much better.
I was actually surprised how much it tamed the harsh highs and improved the bass. Now after many hours they have somewhat hit a plateau. I don’t hear much change anymore. Maybe because it’s more gradual (if at all) and I’m listening to it as it happens.
My point being that the different amps you have made a difference… that’s great. But hours of playing them will improve them even farther.
Cheers.
shane
pataburd
Headphoneus Supremus
Shane,
Even after 5 hours there was a marked difference in treble smoothness. The bass is improving, but still sounds bulbous. Putting the Dakiom F273 in line from the headphone output has really helped flesh out the midrange. I listened appreciatively to Eddie Arnold's "Lonesome Cattle Call" (some great yodling and male falsetto, if you're into that kind of weird stuff like I am).
Even after 5 hours there was a marked difference in treble smoothness. The bass is improving, but still sounds bulbous. Putting the Dakiom F273 in line from the headphone output has really helped flesh out the midrange. I listened appreciatively to Eddie Arnold's "Lonesome Cattle Call" (some great yodling and male falsetto, if you're into that kind of weird stuff like I am).
fraseyboy
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So me and ChineseKiwi had a bit of a swap.
First impressions of the DT880/600:
Man these things are detailed! I'm hearing random crap in the background which has never been heard before. They are VERY resolving!
As I expected, the soundstage is pretty huge, but not unrealistically so like the AD700. Everything seems to be where it should be and the music sort of floats around your head. There is more width than depth but there is certainly more depth than I remember the '03 DT880/250 had. Instrument seperation is also fantastic, all the instruments are layered nicely.
The bass is very good. It's not as forward as the DT880/250 which makes everything feel a bit more balanced. I feel it reaches about as low as my HF2s, it just has more impact on the lower bass and less on the mid bass. The bass detail is once again fantastic.
I expected the mids to be recessed and ugly like the DT880/250. This is not the case. They're maybe a tad recessed but they're not THAT bad. It doesn't do vocals as well as the HF2 but not much does.
I'm not sure if I like the treble that much. It's VERY sparkly and somewhat fatiguing, especially on badly recorded music. The overall tone tilts towards being cold and analytical as opposed to being sweet and liquid like the HF2's. They don't rock out as well as the HF2's. Guitars don't have that Grado crunch.
First impressions of the DT880/600:
Man these things are detailed! I'm hearing random crap in the background which has never been heard before. They are VERY resolving!
As I expected, the soundstage is pretty huge, but not unrealistically so like the AD700. Everything seems to be where it should be and the music sort of floats around your head. There is more width than depth but there is certainly more depth than I remember the '03 DT880/250 had. Instrument seperation is also fantastic, all the instruments are layered nicely.
The bass is very good. It's not as forward as the DT880/250 which makes everything feel a bit more balanced. I feel it reaches about as low as my HF2s, it just has more impact on the lower bass and less on the mid bass. The bass detail is once again fantastic.
I expected the mids to be recessed and ugly like the DT880/250. This is not the case. They're maybe a tad recessed but they're not THAT bad. It doesn't do vocals as well as the HF2 but not much does.
I'm not sure if I like the treble that much. It's VERY sparkly and somewhat fatiguing, especially on badly recorded music. The overall tone tilts towards being cold and analytical as opposed to being sweet and liquid like the HF2's. They don't rock out as well as the HF2's. Guitars don't have that Grado crunch.
shane55
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Here's some food for thought.
DT880/600 vs, DT770/600
(Edit: This is corrected. Graph first posted was wrong)
And how HeadRoom measured them (though I don't know which version of each).
I created the graph using a RS SPL meter (analog). Reference tone was 1000hz at 80db. It's a simple scale.
Tones were from the Rives Audio Test Disc 2 (SPL meter corrected). The signal was sent from my hard drive through the Xonar STX, digitally via SPDIF to my Benchmark DAC1-Pre, and into the cans from there.
Interestingly, for the DT880 the plot is similar to the graph on the HeadRoom.com site, but as you can see, the DT770 is very different… mostly in the lower frequencies.
It sounds like it looks... but a little more subtly.
The ohm readings for the two are:
DT880 – 589 / 586.5
DT770 – 607 / 608
This was apparent in the slight (6db) increase in volume necessary for the DT770 to produce the same SPL at reference tone.
The greatest delta was 15db at 160hz. This was observably evident by the lacking deep tones of the double bass or timpani in Beethoven’s 9th (Solti – CSO 1972, MoFi ½ Speed Master) or Stravinsky’s Firebird Complete 1910 (Boulez – NYP 1975, Orig. Pressing). On the Heartbeat track of the HD-Tracks Open Your Ears disc, the last two sets were less audible and slightly muted on the DT770, but fairly clear and clean on the DT880.
The difference in the upper-mids seems to give the DT770 a slight lack of detail and focus compared to the DT880 which while having a greater soundstage, produces a clearer placement of the various instruments. The DT880 comes off as being more clear and clean, where the DT770 appears very slightly muffled.
These two HP’s are very similar. On a good deal of music there was virtually no discernable difference. Most piano music was indistinguishable between the two. Horns sounded very much the same save for an extremely slight ‘tubular’ quality to the DT770. This could also be from the fact that it’s a closed can.
As I mentioned earlier, the DT770 has a slightly more compressed soundstage. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and is also likely due to its being closed.
Other than in deep impactful string bass and bass drums, rock music was very similar on the two with the DT880 having a bit more brightness, evident in hard cymbal crashes. This is probably due to the slight spike at 6.3k (which I mentioned and thought was 8k in an earlier post).
In the highs, the DT770 is actually a bit more enjoyable and (maybe) realistic. It’s not as (occasionally) brittle as the DT880. It allows one to listen to bad recordings with a little less wincing. That said, it still maintains enough brightness and clarity required for analytical listening.
These are both stellar cans. I wish the DT770 sounded more like the plot on the HeadRoom graph. That would be perfect. It doesn’t. It has slightly less bass than the DT880. The main advantage to the DT770 is that it is a closed can with remarkable detail and clarity. It would be great for analytical listening if it provided a truer representation of the bottom end. While it’s not as bad as my graph might represent it to be, it is not as good as the DT880. That said… the DT770 is still excellent.
The DT880 is the one to beat. It is a wonderful instrument and provides remarkable verisimilitude. Recordings are rendered faithfully. Instrument presence is apparent in the better recordings. Bad recordings are not very enjoyable, however.
The Senn HD600 is wonderful in that it makes everything extremely pleasant to hear: It smoothes out the harshness and flaws in some really nasty recordings. It gives everything a glowing warmth that is extremely enjoyable. The DT880 (and 770 for that matter) does not. The DT880 is enjoyable to those who like their music as it is recorded… exactly as it is recorded. This, of course would be a group that would include me.
The DT880 sounds as my graph looks. Remarkably flat and neutral. In a good way.
Tomorrow I’ll try to do more testing… this time with other amplification. I want to see if there is a measurable difference between the various outputs I’ve got. This particular setup is by far the coldest and most analytical. Going analog out of my Xonar into my Outlook RR2150 produces a much more rich and warm tone. I'll see how that measures.
Cheers
shane
DT880/600 vs, DT770/600
(Edit: This is corrected. Graph first posted was wrong)
And how HeadRoom measured them (though I don't know which version of each).
I created the graph using a RS SPL meter (analog). Reference tone was 1000hz at 80db. It's a simple scale.
Tones were from the Rives Audio Test Disc 2 (SPL meter corrected). The signal was sent from my hard drive through the Xonar STX, digitally via SPDIF to my Benchmark DAC1-Pre, and into the cans from there.
Interestingly, for the DT880 the plot is similar to the graph on the HeadRoom.com site, but as you can see, the DT770 is very different… mostly in the lower frequencies.
It sounds like it looks... but a little more subtly.
The ohm readings for the two are:
DT880 – 589 / 586.5
DT770 – 607 / 608
This was apparent in the slight (6db) increase in volume necessary for the DT770 to produce the same SPL at reference tone.
The greatest delta was 15db at 160hz. This was observably evident by the lacking deep tones of the double bass or timpani in Beethoven’s 9th (Solti – CSO 1972, MoFi ½ Speed Master) or Stravinsky’s Firebird Complete 1910 (Boulez – NYP 1975, Orig. Pressing). On the Heartbeat track of the HD-Tracks Open Your Ears disc, the last two sets were less audible and slightly muted on the DT770, but fairly clear and clean on the DT880.
The difference in the upper-mids seems to give the DT770 a slight lack of detail and focus compared to the DT880 which while having a greater soundstage, produces a clearer placement of the various instruments. The DT880 comes off as being more clear and clean, where the DT770 appears very slightly muffled.
These two HP’s are very similar. On a good deal of music there was virtually no discernable difference. Most piano music was indistinguishable between the two. Horns sounded very much the same save for an extremely slight ‘tubular’ quality to the DT770. This could also be from the fact that it’s a closed can.
As I mentioned earlier, the DT770 has a slightly more compressed soundstage. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and is also likely due to its being closed.
Other than in deep impactful string bass and bass drums, rock music was very similar on the two with the DT880 having a bit more brightness, evident in hard cymbal crashes. This is probably due to the slight spike at 6.3k (which I mentioned and thought was 8k in an earlier post).
In the highs, the DT770 is actually a bit more enjoyable and (maybe) realistic. It’s not as (occasionally) brittle as the DT880. It allows one to listen to bad recordings with a little less wincing. That said, it still maintains enough brightness and clarity required for analytical listening.
These are both stellar cans. I wish the DT770 sounded more like the plot on the HeadRoom graph. That would be perfect. It doesn’t. It has slightly less bass than the DT880. The main advantage to the DT770 is that it is a closed can with remarkable detail and clarity. It would be great for analytical listening if it provided a truer representation of the bottom end. While it’s not as bad as my graph might represent it to be, it is not as good as the DT880. That said… the DT770 is still excellent.
The DT880 is the one to beat. It is a wonderful instrument and provides remarkable verisimilitude. Recordings are rendered faithfully. Instrument presence is apparent in the better recordings. Bad recordings are not very enjoyable, however.
The Senn HD600 is wonderful in that it makes everything extremely pleasant to hear: It smoothes out the harshness and flaws in some really nasty recordings. It gives everything a glowing warmth that is extremely enjoyable. The DT880 (and 770 for that matter) does not. The DT880 is enjoyable to those who like their music as it is recorded… exactly as it is recorded. This, of course would be a group that would include me.
The DT880 sounds as my graph looks. Remarkably flat and neutral. In a good way.
Tomorrow I’ll try to do more testing… this time with other amplification. I want to see if there is a measurable difference between the various outputs I’ve got. This particular setup is by far the coldest and most analytical. Going analog out of my Xonar into my Outlook RR2150 produces a much more rich and warm tone. I'll see how that measures.
Cheers
shane
donthuang
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Couple with ear matters
this is HD800's freq response from Japanese site, red is couple ear, green doesn't
this is HD800's freq response from Japanese site, red is couple ear, green doesn't
shane55
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Quote:
donthuang.
Yes, of course it does. There are many factors that are not taken into consideration here.
The ears, their shape, the resonance between the ears, head and drivers all contribute to the overall sound. This is not considered here as it's only a comparison between the two headphones based on only one criterion. This is a raw, simple SPL metering of the drivers and their FR without any acoustic additions or interference. They are only good for comparison purposes and as points of interest.
BTW... Thanks for posting this! It's a great graph and explains a lot.
A note... I retested the DT880 again this morning with a different amp configuration and found that i erred last night in the creation of the graph. I misread a 93.5 for 73.5 (it was late and I was tired...).
I have corrected my post and put the properly plotted graph in that post.
Here is this morning's graph, comparing the SPDIF and analog feeds:
Same file sources, but this time the signal is fed analog out of the Xonar STX card bypassing the DAC1-Pre and fed to the Outlaw RR2150 stereo receiver. To my ears, this usually seems to warm things up a bit and gives it a little punch, but based solely on the graph I created, I see no obvious evidence of that. So much for that 'much more rich and warm tone'. Maybe it's psychoacoustic.
Anyway, they are what they are. Simply of interest and for comparison. Nothing more, not scientific, and certainly not definitive.
The one other thing that they do is give me a visual 'explanation' to what I am hearing...
The thing I alluded to in the first post is that the graphs would indicate a larger sonic difference between the two cans. Visually the plots seem very different and you would think this would be represented in the overall sound. It is really very small and a matter of degrees more than a night and day difference.
shane
NoXter
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I made an upgrade to my DT880'03. Now 600ohm systems are working in it.
After many modding sessions my old 250ohm systems were in an awful condition and a few weeks ago one side blew up. Well, after the good experiences with the 600ohm systems in my DT880'05 I thought this would be a good idea.
After many modding sessions my old 250ohm systems were in an awful condition and a few weeks ago one side blew up. Well, after the good experiences with the 600ohm systems in my DT880'05 I thought this would be a good idea.
Andrew_WOT
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@Shane55 Interesting comparison, made me curios and I grabbed both my 600Ohm DT880 and DT770 and did some careful side by side comparison today. Well, seems like mine DT800 is lighter on bass than DT770, it is also less bright but as you mentioned more detailed. Can you please take a look inside to see if you have dampening caps attached to the back of both drivers on DT770 and DT880, it should look like this
EDIT: Reason I am asking is that I had 600Ohm DT770s on my hands in the past one completely w/o caps and one with cap on one driver only.
EDIT: Reason I am asking is that I had 600Ohm DT770s on my hands in the past one completely w/o caps and one with cap on one driver only.
shane55
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Quote:
Well... I suppose I could, but not sure how to open them... Also wouldn't want to void a warranty.
shane
pataburd
Headphoneus Supremus
Quote:
fraseyboy,
What were you amping the DT880/600 with? Right now, mine are driven by a Bada PH-12, tubed with 1x RCA 6SN7GTB and 2x Sylvania 6SN7GTB, and the highs sound sweet, colorful, liquidy and non-fatiguing, but without loss of detail or extension. These are mid-fi tubes, but the Beyers sound excellent from top to bottom with them.
Bass is deep, extremely well-defined and has good impact. Listening to Loggins and Messina: "Angry Eyes" and "Be Free", the Beyers served up powerful bass. I don't understand some reviewers' claims that the bass on the DT880/600 is "thin". ???
fraseyboy
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Quote:
Amping them with my Little Dot MKII which is a pretty low end tube amp. I certainly wouldn't describe the highs as liquidy. They do extend considerably but they're still a bit too crisp for my tastes.
I agree. The bass is pretty much perfect. It's impactful where it needs to be and reaches extremely low without being overpowering. So is the soundstage. They layer and seperate instruments beautifully. I can see why people love them so much, they just don't involve me like my Grado's do. The HF2's put me smack bang in the middle of the music while the DT880's sort-of present it around me, which isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the situation and genre.
They're still up there as one of the best I've heard though.
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