Crispy
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Madrigal music is playing - Voices can faintly be heard, "Please leave this patient undisturbed."
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Post by Crispy on Jun 26, 2024 9:19:56 GMT
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jun 28, 2024 7:47:21 GMT
Sorry, long post. I added as I was listening.
Mine just arrived. (8am!) On first quick listen ….
a) Much louder than the 250 ohm dt770. Significantly. Can be driven even from a phone. (Not the best but loud enough) b) Very ‘v’ shaped. Mids seem down even more than dt770. That might be because I think they might be more ‘v’ shaped in sound to the dt770. c) Sharper treble. I reckon young people could get a shock in the treble. d) Bass is punchy but not exactly like the dt770 bass. Not sure why. It sounds like there might be a dip and something not quite as present as in the dt770. It seems to hit separately from the rest of the spectrum… slightly disconnected.
I suspect there might be more of a mid suck out with a higher treble peak. I think spoken voice is slightly recessed.
Comfort is better. Not so much grip and there’s this notch in the top of the headband. Apparently to decrease pressure on the top of your head. I guess bald people would really appreciate this. The cord is long and not curly. Some people don’t like long straight cords. The plug is adaptable to a 3.5mm like the dt770. Curiously, it has a different plug so that the screw thread isn’t the same as the dt770 screw, so the adapter has a different screw thread. Don’t lose the adapter. (I did and spent 30 minutes looking for it!)
Build is same as the others. Built like a tank. The clicking mechanism seems a bit crude but it works and stays there. Band padding comes off and standard Beyer pads. Looks similar to Dt770 with a limited edition square above the yoke.
You can definitely hear that this has a different driver to the dt770. More in your face and loud. I would say there is a large possibility of listening fatigue. These would encourage you to turn the volume down. Definitely the Beyer sound with more in that treble area so I think sibilance will be an issue for some. I’m not sure that I like the sound of these drivers myself at first listen. Aggressive and sibilant. In fact, I’m listening to spoken word on the radio (highly compressed) and I feel the need to turn it down but then the mids feel low and so voices not so present. Interesting that with the robust bass that they have, I’m not getting a boom sound on mens’ voices. That would probably be around 100Hz so there doesn’t seem to be a big lift there. It must be lower down. The bass does go deep but not as ‘fat’ as the dt770. It almost feels like someone turns the bass on and off with bass notes. With speech, you’d think there wasn’t a lot of bass and then when music starts, someone turns it on!!
I think since it is so much louder than the 250ohm dt770, Beyer could have supplied a shorter lead for portable sources. The lead is removable and connects via a 3 pin mini xlr but a shorter lead would have been nice.
Maybe once I adjust to the sound, I’ll get to like it more. This is just a quick first listen. The volume that you listen at seems to help to balance the sound and you can find a ‘happy medium’ where it’s not so ‘in yer face’ but still just about retains a sense of presence. It’s not what I would call a detailed sounding headphone but gives the impression that it is because of the raised treble. I suspect a raggy looking treble if measured. It’s up there with the Sony 7506 in treble, but funnily enough, maybe because I’m so used to the 7506, I think I hear more nuances up there from the Sony.
Coming from my Ifi and Polaris amps I think the sound mellows out a bit. It seems more controlled in the top end and less raggy sounding. I also get a little more ‘male voice’ boom via the amps I think. LBC radio shows that a lot with its terrible compression and the headphone is now playing it where directly from a portable radio, it wasn’t there. So although it’s dead easy to drive, I think an amp helps it produce a fuller sound and it feels more ‘driven’. More pleasant to listen to from amps.
So I listened to some orchestral music and it sounds really lovely. Nice clarity and good imagery. The amps seems to take off a layer and it sounds less harsh so I guess, not really for portable listening. Because the top end seems more under control, I was able to push the volume up and so the Mids bloomed a bit better. Then I put on some Eminem to listen to the bass. Nearly blew my head off. The bass is really deep. Going down I reckon to sub bass stuff. It really hits when it’s there but seems to be almost missing if it’s not. So the sound seems thin at times with the treble but as soon as bass comes in properly, you almost feel it like a sub woofer.
I’ve had it playing a couple of hours now and from amps, it’s growing on me. From the Polaris, it sounds big. Like a large speaker. It has a different signature to the dt770, although you can still hear that Beyer sound sig. it almost sounds Kameleon like depending on what you play. If there’s not a lot of bass there, it doesn’t seem to add any, but once recorded, it takes off. The problem might be me having such a familiarity with the dt770 sound. This is different and right there. Maybe getting closer to my old Fostex closed headphones in sound. When I first got them, I felt that the top was a bit steely but over time, got used to it I think. These have a similar kind of top I think.
Mind you, bear in mind …. It’s my ears so might not be the same for everyone else! A 70 year old pair of ears might not be the best!
5 hours or so in and still listening. I’ve got more accustomed to their signature and actually, they are pretty good. They pack a punch when the bass is recorded well. Early Zeppelin stuff was quite thin but then again, maybe it wasn’t captured in the first place because Eminem rumbles like a jet and Michael Jackson recording really bop along and the headphone is picking out tiny little squeaks from him that actually I wasn’t so aware of before. He sneaks in all kinds of dubs that these almost highlight. On ‘Black or White’, at the start there the father banging on the door, telling him to stop playing. When the music starts and the father is shouting, you can almost make out what he’s actually saying under the music that’s being played to drown him out. They also show up tape hiss, but that might be me because I’m kind of taught to listen for it. I’m also hearing faders before whacked off if it’s done quickly. You are aware that the ‘air’ sound has changed.
Another thing I heard was with Michael Jackson’s voice…. You become aware that he slightly alters the tone of his voice in some sections and it almost sounds like another singer when he does that. You are also very aware of the voice doubling that he did. (I Can’t Stop Loving You - shows this kind of tone change he makes in his voice and the typical voice doubling he did)Even the vibrato on the voice doubling are the same speed!!!
Lyrics seem to be dead clear. Picking out badly sung words is easier! The howling on Thriller sounds terribly human….. not a wolf at all! There are also a lot of left/right repeated phrases in Thriller that really stand out on these headphones. A guitar riff on the left and a synth riff on the right follows. You can hear that the brass aren’t real.
Also, I’m getting nice acoustic info. You can hear the room or added reverb plainly. Especially when DI instruments are combined with room recording. You can sometimes hear it.
I am more aware of smaller stuff in recordings I think and tbh, I have no idea why that might be. Other headphones must produce these sounds so whether it’s because I’m listening more closely or whether the headphones are giving more inner detail, I don’t really know. The organ in Thriller has a real reediness in its sound that the headphone really shows.
Some of the drums with Jackson’s recordings almost sound like dustbins or boxes! You can hear they’re not real.
More modern pop like BTS really thunders in the bass. So deep bass is definitely there and doesn’t feed up into the low Mids. You are aware of very deep bass notes on synths and when I saw them, I was very aware of that then. I thought that it wasn’t captured that well on their recordings but actually, it is there although sometimes, I think the engineers recorded a bit of distortion as well sometimes! Again, I’m very aware of lyrics, even in Korean.
Rock/pop sounds big on these headphones.
Orchestral sounds nice. Not sure whether a bit more in the bow scrape might be nice. You know, the raspy sound of the bows in the strings which is a particular area nice to hear with good speakers. Double bass and bass drum have a nice presence and depth.
I’m starting to get more used to it and once you get beyond the pure ‘tone’, stuff gets revealed in recordings quite nicely actually. It’s just a bit of a shock when you first put them on, I think. You instantly get smacked in the face with this aggressive sound but I’m not as aware of it now as I was earlier.
For me, this headphone began as one that I didn’t like at the start because it felt in my face and aggressive and then with more listening, I started to hear tiny things appearing in recordings that I know well that made me start to listen less to the tone and more to what was happening. It seems to separate minor detail from the main bulk of sound well so that you start to listen to the supporting sounds more. Lyrics seem closer. I can understand what they’re actually singing a bit easier. Then once you notice those details, you kind of forget that brashness that was there and it’s just not as noticeable perhaps. Honestly, I thought ‘too glassy’ this morning and now they seem to sound ‘normal’. Maybe just acclimatisation?
So after a massive post ….. I really like them a lot! This sounds really odd …. But the old dt770 seems ‘thicker’ in the bass which makes you think this one lacks oomph and is thin, but actually, it’s dead clear. Lyrics are right there and clear which doesn’t tally with what the Mids show on graphs. I don’t have to struggle to make out what they’re singing. I found FR chart for it and it’s far from flat. It deviates more than the dt770 in top and bottom I think, but it sounds great.
I don’t like to see FR charts before listening because the chart affects what you think you hear, so these are just my gut reactions.
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Crispy
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Madrigal music is playing - Voices can faintly be heard, "Please leave this patient undisturbed."
Posts: 778
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Post by Crispy on Jun 28, 2024 17:41:25 GMT
Sorry, long post. I added as I was listening. Mine just arrived. (8am!) On first quick listen …. Hi Ian, long time no hear - hope you are well? That was a very quick and thorough 1st listen that I wasn’t expecting. Not sure what you mean by V shaped in sound to the DT770? Treble was always a problem with the DT770 so you would have thought they would have sorted that with the new model. Bass again was a problem too fat and bloaty, so it seems like they have sorted that problem? As for comfort I always thought they were comfortable anyway but being bald, the notch in the headband may be a good thing? Usable from your phone is always a good thing in my eyes & I don’t have any problems with my 80ohm version direct to my phone. Yeh you always seem to get a better sound when listening through an amp and I often listen through my phone via my Kameleon with either a dedicated or a flat gain filter. I’m sure Frans will soon have a filter for the X Pro if it needs one? I know what you mean, my nearly 70yr old pair of ears are not brilliant ![;)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/wink.png) but I am sure with your musical background your ears are far better at picking out the important details more than I would. I found that my Brainwavz HM5 make listening to lyrics dead clear better than my Beyer’s It just goes to show how things can grow on you when you initially don’t like something and then suddenly you do, I remember when Eels brought out the song “Going over to Susan’s house” I hated it with a passion then all of a sudden I thought it was brilliant. Thanks for the review Ian – I'm going on holiday tomorrow so I won’t be looking at a computer screen for 2 weeks but will do plenty of catching up when I get back home
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jun 28, 2024 18:47:47 GMT
It’s more v shaped than the dt770 I think Chris. Bass goes higher and treble. Especially the treble.
I think with me starting by not really liking it was just a tonal thing. Then you start noticing inner detail and one that grabs your attention, you kind get sidetracked from that initial sound.
I think it’s closer to my Fostex because that’s pretty strong up top and in the bass.
For the selling price, I think it’s really good value. Probably equivalent to more expensive headphones. It was just a bit of a shock at first, like jumping into cold water!
I’m fine thanks. Hope you’re well too. Florida for me soon. 3 weeks of hot sun and dodging hurricanes and alligators!
Have a good break.
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Rabbit
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Post by Rabbit on Jun 29, 2024 10:12:47 GMT
Just to compare, after listening for a day, I switched back to my dt1990 with balanced pads. Now I can hear why I thought the treble is so strident on the dt770 pro x le. It is more prominent than the dt1990 but also, the dt1990 has a fatter sounding bass. Not more, but more ‘filled in.’ Slightly more bloat which perhaps may make the treble ‘seem’ less prominent.
Going straight back to the dt770 pro x reveals that top end, but actually, it’s not unpleasant. I wouldn’t say it’s any more revealing than the dt1990 treble. Just more of it. I don’t think either are that revealing in the top end tbh, but both are extremely pleasant listens.
I can’t really choose between them. Just different. I guess the dt770 Pro x is better value for money because it’s significantly cheaper, but the dt1990 is possibly more refined sounding with the treble down a bit and the extra bloat in the bass.
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