DT 990 600 Ohm Headphones
You know the saying, "Your mileage may vary." Mine certainly does. The conventional wisdom is that these are shrill, peaky cans - the worst offender in the Beyerdynamic legacy lineup (DT770, DT880, DT990) of treble monsters, inexplicably trying with all their might to kill your ears.
I found them quite pleasant. Yes, they are bright, even sibilant. On some tracks, you'll want to EQ them, pad swap them or turn the volume down. But part of the disdain comes from a lot of people raised on the Sennheiser HD6XXs, with their rolled-off highs, introducing the infamous Sennheiser veil.
Without a doubt, rolled-off highs make it a lot easier to spend hours and hours with a steady stream of music pumping into your ears. Cans that emphasize - or at least filter less - all that HF detail will be more ear-fatiguing. No argument there. But if you've come to a place in your journey where safe is a tad boring, and where rolled-off highs seem veiled and lifeless, take a walk on the wild side, at least for the sake of variety.
My first cans were Grados, which are also bright and lively. In time, I gravitated toward the HD800, then planars like the LCD2, the LCD2c and the LCD-X. The HD800 was more like the DT990, in terms of being bright and peaky, but it was a lot clearer than the HD6XXs. Audeze's planars proved to be quick, like the HD800, but with rolled-off highs that needed to be EQ'd.
What got me to take a second look at the DT990 was the DT1990, with its blazing-fast Tesla driver. The DT1990 proved to be incredibly detailed, but not without also being peaky and sometimes sibilant. The Audezes made me realize how much I missed the high end and the DT1990 gave it to me with a vengeance. But I found myself craving it for the detail it elicits.
These are a cheaper version of the DT990, with no Tesla driver, but with surprisingly rich detail made more palatable by EQing the low bass. I've tried pad swapping with Dekoni's Elite sheepskin pads but I don't like the muddier result. As with the Grado 325, you can kill a lot of the griping about overly-aggressive treble by simply bringing up the bass, either with EQ or with the right pads. When you bring up the bass, you lessen the likelihood of over-cranking the volume to get more bass - and getting overkill with the treble.
Forget the graphs. Forget the crowd. If you want to get more detail for less - and you're willing to pad-swap or EQ - these are spectacular cans. Be forewarned that this price point means the cables are not detachable. If that's a dealbreaker, look for something else. I, personally, never saw the big deal in detachable cables, which I have on other cans but rarely detach.
