Headphones

OverclockN' said:
Ordered the BeyerDynamic DT 990 Pro off Amazon, and it's going to be here tomorrow. Going to order the Schiit stack duo in a bit here.

Torn between closed and open back. I want bass with a wide/open sound field. We'll see how it sounds and if background noise bleeds through.

Just need to figure out cables for the stack. There's a possibility I may not even like using headphones at all.
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I’m using the pc38x. I don’t like having headphones on at all, but the difference between them and my admittedly average system makes it worth it. There’s something about hearing things I never noticed before and that quality that makes it all worth wearing them for a while.
 
Cancelled my order on Friday not long after I placed it. My brother fired up a movie in the living room downstairs. I also gave him a spare set of PC speakers I had lying around for his computer gaming in his own room that's in a finished attic room on other side of house and up one floor. The wood floors just carries all that audio so well...it sucks. I quickly cancelled the order and thought about it over the weekend. Was having major 2nd thoughts about the open back.

Just placed the order and have this stuff on the way:

BeyerDynamic DT770 Pro (80ohm)
10ft USB3.0 cable
Schiit Magni
Schiit Modi
Schiit 6" RCA Cables
 
I ended up replacing my R70x headphones because the left ear apparently started buzzing, and was throwing my hearing off. :( I guess I should have known from the shoddy build quality that this could happen.


Ended up getting a set of HD600s. I just took them out of the box, and I cannot fathom how people think these don't have enough bass.
 
Have everything hooked up and running. Mixed feelings so far. They are the best headphones I've heard so far. Much clearer sounding than anything I've experienced. The sound from the headphones/DAC setup is very...sterile and clean. Maybe that's a good way to put it. Highs are great, bass is very good. Tight bass with a good punch. Fairly deep. My AudioTechnica ear buds have better bass, but I noticed it's at the expensive of muddying everything else. I'm "happy" with the setup.

Now time for the critical listening part. I've always hated using headphones, so naturally I'm going to compare them to speakers. My speaker setups I've been using just blow this setup out of the water. I mean, it's not even in the ballpark. The headphones still have that "in your head" feeling with a very narrow soundstage. They might be great for music, but not really for movies or games possibly. The separation and sound stage just isn't there. My speaker setup had bass so deep you could feel it in your chest without actually hearing it. In a movie like Spiderman where glass would shatter, you could hear very precisely every single tiny shard of glass breaking and hitting the ground in crystal clear detail. The headphones aren't the same. They lack the energy and impact of the speakers too. Scenes in games and movies had this sort of aggressive energy that I loved. It seemed like you were there. You could track objects all over and around you. Dialogue was crisp. The headphones seem very, very subdued in all of this.

I think these, and probably all headphones, are really just intended for music. I'm going to use them a bit longer in games (I haven't played any games yet) and movies and test things out more. They seem like great headphones, but not the outstanding, eye opening experience I was hoping for. I know I'll get **** for this...but to be perfectly honest, the Samsung Q950A Soundbar downstairs is way better. It's impactful, decent bass, great highs, lots of energy, and you can hear sounds zipping all around the room and ceiling. You aren't just listening to something, you're completely surrounded and in the middle of it.

Open to any suggestions to improve the experience. :)
 
I'm not gonna lie.. you're smoking crack if you think the sound bar is better for games or music. :lol:

However, you have to think about the reality of what you're using. It's impossible for speakers 2 inches from your ear to maintain the same level of soundstage and "airiness" as speakers that are pushing sound into an entire room. Far higher db level into far more space.

Speakers are the best, I do agree with that, but for games, where you need to hear subtle sounds, headphones are far superior.

How do you have your Audio settings in Windows configured? The fact you're feeling that the clarity isn't there; ex: sound separation of "glass cracking" is strange. That's a strong-suit of headphones, and something the Beyer's specifically excel at.
 
The soundbar is waaaaaay better for movies and general listening to stuff like various shows and YouTube content. It seems awesome for games so far (I've only watched my brother play a couple XBox titles), and I was happy with it for music. It's not a cheapy soundbar at $1500. It's impressive how good it envelopes you in the sound and how well balanced it all is. I was blown away by how good it was, and I've always been against them since I prefer a complete speaker setup. But...I'm limited to what I can do in my living room.

That aside, I need to test it out in a variety of games yet (the headphones). Hoping to do that tonight or tomorrow. Or this weekend. Need to fit it in somewhere.

Configure what exactly in Windows audio settings? I'll take a look.
 
That's what I thought might be happening. Your Windows audio settings are probably configured for speakers which would cause a lot of the clarity/separation issues you're experiencing. I'm not keen on setting it up with a USB DAC, as I use a SoundBlaster AE-5 with its own software suite. This is where Meteor might be able to help you the most as he's using a Modi as well, if I'm not mistaken.

I would do some googling, maybe try "configuring windows audio for headphones and external DAC" and go from there. You're likely setup in Windows for speakers and it's causing the audio to not fold-down correctly.
 
OverclockN' said:
Have everything hooked up and running. Mixed feelings so far. They are the best headphones I've heard so far. Much clearer sounding than anything I've experienced. The sound from the headphones/DAC setup is very...sterile and clean. Maybe that's a good way to put it. Highs are great, bass is very good. Tight bass with a good punch. Fairly deep. My AudioTechnica ear buds have better bass, but I noticed it's at the expensive of muddying everything else. I'm "happy" with the setup.

Now time for the critical listening part. I've always hated using headphones, so naturally I'm going to compare them to speakers. My speaker setups I've been using just blow this setup out of the water. I mean, it's not even in the ballpark. The headphones still have that "in your head" feeling with a very narrow soundstage. They might be great for music, but not really for movies or games possibly. The separation and sound stage just isn't there. My speaker setup had bass so deep you could feel it in your chest without actually hearing it. In a movie like Spiderman where glass would shatter, you could hear very precisely every single tiny shard of glass breaking and hitting the ground in crystal clear detail. The headphones aren't the same. They lack the energy and impact of the speakers too. Scenes in games and movies had this sort of aggressive energy that I loved. It seemed like you were there. You could track objects all over and around you. Dialogue was crisp. The headphones seem very, very subdued in all of this.

I think these, and probably all headphones, are really just intended for music. I'm going to use them a bit longer in games (I haven't played any games yet) and movies and test things out more. They seem like great headphones, but not the outstanding, eye opening experience I was hoping for. I know I'll get **** for this...but to be perfectly honest, the Samsung Q950A Soundbar downstairs is way better. It's impactful, decent bass, great highs, lots of energy, and you can hear sounds zipping all around the room and ceiling. You aren't just listening to something, you're completely surrounded and in the middle of it.

Open to any suggestions to improve the experience. :)
Click to expand...


I have heard the DT770Pro's described this way before. You can probably get some good results from EQing. AutoEQ's settings would be a good start. They aim for getting the Harmon target out of headphones. However I'm not seeing any having done it yet for the DT770Pro's... closest being the regular DT770's 80ohm. Which are supposed to be about the same, either way it's a decent starting point :)

Here are Crincles results. I would try just using the "FixedBandEQ" settings with a 10band EQ. I had good result with my HE-5XX's and his settings. Although I ended up not using the EQ simply because I like character of how my headphones sound naturally.
 
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