Headphones
Beyerdynamic DT 880
At the other end of the spectrum from folks who like strong bass are folks who like their audio presented in a light and airy way; enter the Beyerdynamic DT-880 headphones. Capable of rendering the sound of a fingernail stroke on gut, the stiction of rosin on a cello string, and the airy spaciousness of sound bouncing on cathedral walls, these premium cans deliver detail and depth with extraordinary clarity. The DT-880 may also be re-wired with upgraded cable and for balanced operation. 250 Ohm version.
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Product Features:
- Delivers an airy and spacious listening experience.
- Easily replaceable ear-pads and cable for extended user life.
- Optional re-cabling for standard and balanced operation available.
What's In The Box:
- 1/4" adaptor
- leather case
Applications:
Germany's Beyerdynamic has offered up a real contender for world's very best headphone with the DT880. Although these cans are ever-so-slightly more forward-sounding than what we can call absolutely "neutral", the DT880 serve up a wonderfully engaging audiophile headphone listening experience--absolutely TONS of clarity, crisply-rendered musical detail throughout all frequency ranges, and a very precise, deeply layered soundstage image and, thankfully, not a harsh note to be found! The DT880's mids and upper bass really hold together very well, so overall a seamless and smooth-sounding tonal presentation.
Amazingly expressive dynamics, superbly controlled highs, plus a sweet mid-range snap make the DT880 a very well-balanced can, but perhaps not the most ideal headphone choice for the heavy bass-loving hip-hop/rap/electronica crowd since the DT880 doesn't quite muster up the hefty bottom-end response required for anchoring modern funkitude. We think you'll love these headphones if you seek clear, clean sonics with plenty of airy musical detail, quick dynamics, excellent upper treble range extension, and a lively, ultra-open soundstage presentation. They are especially strong audio performers for classical, symphonic, chorale, chamber, and acoustic folk and jazz recordings.
The DT880 also seem particularly good at speech intelligibility, female vocal textures, and film soundtrack detail recovery for truly immersive movie/DVD watching and will deliver a superb high-end home theatre personal listening experience. Moreover, the DT-880 have become big faves amongst audio professionals doing analytical recording work who demand timbral accuracy, instrumental detail, and precise musical clarity above all else. By the way, we believe the recently revised DT880 to be just a smidgeon stronger in the low-mids/bass than previous DT880 editions--probably due to the extra damping material in the earpiece housing and (maybe?) the "softer", more rounded earcup shape. The revised DT880 headphone also features a simpler plastic/alloy headband design and some fairly minor cosmetic re-workings. Please remember that about 100-200 listening hours are required for the large-driver DT880 to fully 'burn-in' and sound its very best.
The current edition of the Beyerdynamic DT880 now comes packaged in a re-usable soft-sided protective foam-padded box. The earpads are made of a very soft and plush grey velour material with a simple plastic/metal alloy headband that has also been slightly re-designed. Both parts are easily replaced with Beyerdynamic after-market replacement parts if they ever wear out. The DT880 provides multiple fit adjustments for great comfort and the headphones feel really solidly well-built to boot. They'll certainly take a fair beating around the home/office and keep right on trucking that killer Beyerdynamic sound for a long time to come. The 3-meter long (approx 9-ft) single-sided straight cord exits from the left earcup and terminates to a 1/8" (3.5mm) mini-plug. A 2-year manufacturer's product warranty remains standard with all Beyerdynamic headphones. 100% engineered & manufactured in Germany. NOTE: The Beyerdynamic 15ft headphone extension cable has been discontinued by the manufacturer and is no longer included in the DT880 packaging.
PLEASE check our official HeadRoom 'B-Stock' webpage for GREAT open-box deals on this item!
Specifications:
- Cord Type: Straight Left-Side
- Coupler Size: Large
- Weight: 270 g
- Manufacturer Warranty: 2 Years
- Cord Length: 10 ft. (3 m)
- Detachable Cable: No
- Driver Type: Dynamic
- Sensitivity: 96 dB
- Connector Type: 1/8" with 1/4" adaptor
- Noise Cancelling: No
- Microphone: No
- Wireless: No
- Ear Coupler Type: Full-Size
- Warranty: 2 Years
- Impedance @ 1kHz: 250
- Acoustic Seal: Open
- Headphone Type: Full Size
Additional Resources:
- Manufacturer's Website
- http://www.beyerdynamic.com/
- Product Reviews
- Sonic Flare Sandy Greene November 2006
- SoundStage! Vade Forrester Nov.06
- 6moons, Ryan Clarin
Average Rating
Posted by xiphmont from Somerville, MA on 2010-09-01
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: A midrange like no other headphone I own, durable and comfortable
Cons: build looks a tad cheesy/1970s for $300... might be an issue for the vain
I've owned these cans for about five years now; I have an early generation pair (bought from HeadRoom!) from back when the earcup grills were flat. These are still the primary headphones I use to tune the Vorbis codec. In the midrange, they're champs at exposing flaws I often don't hear on my other sets. It's a weird sort of way to recommend cans to say they make flaws more obvious, but I go to these first when I'm 'listening for trouble'.
I cart them everywhere and two pairs of Sennheisers (580s) gave up the ghost alongside them in that time (both pairs of Senns had drivers fail). I was worried about the headband on the DT880s being durable. I didn't need to. The earcup grills have dented a bit but that's about all. I just bought new ear pads having worn out the originals. They still work and sound like new.
They're light, comfortable, and [another weird recommendation] the easiest cans I have to toss on and off my head in a hurry. They're the closest full-size headphones I own to not feeling like I have headphones on at all. I've worn them for 12 hours at a stretch, no problem.
The bass is not overly deep, but well damped and controlled. Right now, I'm using these alongside a pair of Denon AH-D2000 (for travel, work in public). The Denons extend farther on both ends but the Beyers still reign supreme in-between. And since these arrived in 2005, my pairs of Grados have been in a box in the closet.
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Posted by NatureSoundLover from Belgium, Ghent on 2010-04-28
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Low roll off realisitcally bellow 15Hz with good amp, comfortable, quick
Cons: Terribly annoying oversharpness of high tones, without equalization tires your ear, timid staging
After first hours at home i started worrying i threw quite a a bunch of green ones out of the window. The better headphone amp i used the more over sharpened and annoying the sound was. That's where i realized the fault came from my DTs fault. The sharpness was totally overwhelming the sound from good sources. Very sharp , tiring and metallic. Far from nature. Since i had an A class headphone amp of my own making i quickly put up a filter for the frequencies you can well see as dominating on the response chart of this headphone. Was i surprised of the effect!
Having gotten read of the extensive high tones the headphones showed what they could do. First thing- amazingly low sound. You can experience lots of almost sub- audible overwhelming effects when playing concert music. At the same time the low transits very well into midrange and there nothing is either too positively nor negatively surprising. The key thing about these drivers is their quick response to transients. When driven with a proper source these DTs can really make a good attempt at reproducing vivid heavy loud drumming and other steep pressure slopes- generating instruments. HUGE plus for that , an effect that's a rarity in modern flat and overly appropriate sounding equipment.
After cutting out more than 10dB of the response around 10kHz I still have lots and lots of detail. The tones are still slightly metallic , can be heard a lot in female voices. Yet reading other reviews i wonder about the manufacturing consistency since i heard people complaining that there was not enough high tones originally... Well I think that the response delivered by HeadRoom still speaks in favor of my experience.
The way DT880 deliver the stage to the listener could in my opinion be a bit more "open". The sound is just seems a bit to much "on your head" instead creating a realistically big space. My oppinon here may be biassed as I happened to be able to compare my DT880 with AKG701 which do the best job in sound staging I have ever heard. Yet AKG701 do not stand a chance delivering such powerful and low bottom.
In this place I'd like to thank HeadRoom for their hard piece of work they have done to deliver all these types of headphone responses surely having to do all the measuring themselves. It's very helpful and very professional of you.
In my view DT880 have purposely over-boosted high tones just so that they sound "clean" on the standard headphone outputs of CD players which can deliver really poor quality compared to standalone headphone amps and seem to suffer a lot in high tones inefficiency. (also because lots of them wont be perfectly impedance matched with the 250 ohms DTs have.)
DT880 get my recommendation for people who are not afraid of implementing or using additional equalization for high tones. In return they will get a powerful yet vivid sound with very wide and colorful base and lots of tiniest micro dynamics without annoying over sharpening. Yet the high tones will never be sounding hi-end, which could be expected for this price.
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Posted by Asr from CO on 2010-02-13
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Very good clarity overall, high level of detail, extremely comfortable
Cons: Very treble-tilted frequency response, slow impulse response, needs good headphone amp
As 250 Ohms might imply, the DT880 highly benefits from a dedicated headphone amp, optimally one that can output high voltage levels. It also tends to sound better with vacuum tube amps (or tube hybrids), which can help take the edge off the treble and add some mid-range (this is a generalization of course as not all tube amps necessarily sound "tubey" and conversely not all solid-state amps sound "solid-statey"). The DT880 is what most people might call a "bright" headphone, as it's very prominently tilted towards the treble, a lot more than the main competitors in its price range - more than the AKG K701/K702 and a lot more than the Sennheiser HD600/HD650. The only other sub-$500 headphone I've heard that's actually "brighter" than the DT880 is the Sony SA5000 to put things in context.
If a lot of treble puts you off, I would probably recommend not buying these headphones - but if you don't mind treble (along with possible sibilance, though this can dullen with driver burn-in and is also recording-dependent), then the DT880 can actually be quite rewarding. Like the Sony SA5000, this is an exceptionally "clear"-sounding headphone - you can hear everything in the treble, mid-range, and bass, and you can also hear the instruments (and vocals) clearly and distinctly. Everything is separated out nicely too which allows for a clean illusion of soundstage. This allows it to achieve a high level of detail that can easily expose things like pages turning (in classical music) or a singer sucking in his or her breath.
The DT880 is what might be called "neutral" in the mid-range and is probably even more "neutral" than the AKG K701/K702 but unlike that headphone, the DT880 does not have a tendency to sound "dead" or "disembodied." It's hard to explain exactly how the K70x and DT880 are different in this aspect, but easy to tell when you hear them against each other. I can't be any more specific than to say that the DT880 achieves a higher level of musical presence and tactility. This also extends to the mid-bass and lower bass which are quite textured and not as rounded-over as the K70x or as indistinct as the Senn HD6x0. The DT880 has the ability to differentiate types of drums so you can hear their acoustic differences - kettle drums, kick drums, snare drums, etc. Drums are further enhanced with the DT880's bass response which is nice and heavy but not overly boomy and it actually works well enough for most electronic music too (a huge genre for sure but most electronica is highly dependent on bass).
This might all make the DT880 seem like a good headphone but it's not perfect and I'd cite its main drawback is probably its impulse response - it's pretty dang slow. As in, it has a hard time separating fast notes (or fast effects otherwise) from each other and noticeably blurs them into each other to the point where you can't tell where one note stops and the next one starts. This has some unfortunate effects for some instruments in the percussion kit (hi-hats, cymbals, triangle, xylophone, blocks, etc) and other instruments as well - harp, violins, and guitars (acoustic and electric).
The DT880 is still overall a pretty good headphone in its price range though and holds up well compared to its competition. It also doesn't hurt that it's supremely comfortable - the velour pads are pillow-soft and very plush. Just make sure you pair these headphones with a good tube or hybrid amp along with a high-quality source component for optimal performance.
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