beyerdynamic DT-1990 Pro 250 Ohm

DT1990 are simply great for its price, but have some downsides too. As many here I own also DT990 so will compare.

DT1990 have unbelievable nice build quality - the example of precision German craftmanship. They looks nice, handles nice, sounds nice and the moment you take them to your hands you have that premium feeling worth of every euro spent on these. Many Hi-end headphones, even those twice as priced as these, can have poisonously pronounced treble to bring in the clarity and this is that case. On the other hand those heights are very very very detailed with very low distortion, what makes it incredibly precise and analytical while listening. You have 2 pad options in case which is really nice, but none of these perform to tame the treble peak. To tweak this to absolute precision, tame the hights and increase comfort even further I strongly recommend buying another branded Velour pads for these as I did. I have found on one review including measurements that one (not sure I can say other brand name here in review) specific pads remove the poisonous 8khz peak and it is very true! These headphones with aftermarket pads are simply incredible listening experience I have never experienced before. As I used new pads, I moved the DT1990 pads to my old DT990 and it improved them too! with black pads they looks very nice and sounds a bit better too :)

Both DT990 and DT1990 sounds very good, however when listening to song with rice shaker with DT990 I have troubles to indentify hi-hat or shaker or whats goin on in there. However with DT1990 I can very confidently and clearly identify the rice shaker and the amount of rice being shaked :) it is remarkable in identifying the details and you immedietely knows if track is mastered good or wrong because with so low distortion and clear details you hear the difference in mastering of the tracks so much, that you will hate the wrongly recorded songs. Btw I think they are even better for gaming!
The sound dampening or acoustic chamber in DT1990 is also MUCH better than DT990. Both are open phones, however when you put DT1990 on your head it better filters the space and noise floor around you, the best to describe this is like you sit in very nice sound dampened and quiet cinema room.

The amplifier is a must for these. I have tried many options, started with TPA6120 but they wanted more as the loud peaks were not as nice as I would like to, so I ended with WCF E88CC OTL and that was it! I cannot imagine anything better for listening as this combo...

They are very good headphones but require some tweaks to become absolute best. As mentioned the pads. Also the cable... its nice, looks quality, but smells! smells like chinese shoes :( Hope that smell will come off eventually but instead of two cables in box I would like one better braided cable or something, so I think I will change the cable later too.

After a couple of weeks of gathering all sorts of information about reference headphones in the market, I decided to go for the Beyerdynamic's DT-1990 Pro. The main reason was to add a reference listening device to my home studio setup, and I must say I'm definitely amazed by the overall quality of the product.

So here's my detailed review, after one month of relatively moderate usage (~4 hours average per day):

The build quality is very high, they seem quite durable and sturdy.
In terms of comfort, the weight is not really an issue since the materials used in the ear cups (especially the analytical ones) and the band are of very high-quality. My only concern is that, after long sessions, the heat around the ears can become a little bit annoying, but it's not a major issue since its root cause can be related to lots of different factors.

Let's move to the sound: very, very, very good.
Sound stage is huge, brightness and clarity are first citizens, along with high transient speed and good resolution. Stereo imaging is very accurate as well. Given their open-back design, they fall into the airy side and give you the impression that you're actually not listening to a pair of headphones at all, which is very impressive to me.
The bass response is very linear and distinct. No noticeable roll off even at sub-bass frequencies.
The mid range is a little bit forward, but that's exactly where the Tesla driver shines: they provide astounding clarity and speed, making mix work very accurate.
The trebles are also very accurate and clear; the only thing to notice in this range though is that there's a noticeable peak at around 8.5kHz, which can result in highlighting sibilant sounds; when it comes to mixing, this could be very useful (since it helps in spotting issues e.g. with vocals or acoustic recordings), but from a pure listening perspective, this could cause some annoyances to very demanding audiophiles.

Given their price, I think it would need to be doubled in order to find something significantly better.

No need to mention Thomann's celerity, super fast delivery times and great customer service!

Short recap: if you need a pair of reference headphones for your home studio and those are in your budget, definitely get them! You won't regret it for sure.

I'm a producer over 10 years and I've worked with the DT990s for about 7 years, so I am absolutely biased :)

But I'll try to be critical. I compared the DT1990 against the 770, 880, 990, 900 Pro, 1770, AKG something, Devine Pro and Neumann's in the store. Of these, the DT1990s were the absolute winner in terms of quality and clarity, there was no question about it. I am not sure how they compare to other brands like LCDs.

However, the DT1990s are not flat. In fact they are considerably worsely tuned than the predecessor DT990. The DT900 Pro were the 'flattest', but none of them are by any means flat. They are all boosted in the high end, but the 990 has 3 peaks, the 900 Pro has a broad peak and the 1990 has a narrow peak (bit higher freq than the others). Therefore, they sound quite musical, the high end (8-12k) on the 1990s is boosted so it sounds all crispy clear and beautiful, but you need a good reference monitor to ground you to reality.

Nevertheless I'm giving this a 5 star rating despite of it, because the clarity of the 1990s is a huge improvement from the other models. In any mix you can clearly hear each element play, you can distinguish exactly from where the sound is coming from. The stereo image is way way better than the other models.

In terms of build quality it's also clearly improved to the other ones, but for comfort I have to note that they are quite heavy (a lot heavier than the 990s, because these are metal as opposed to plastic from the others).

P.s. don't bother to buy the 1770s, they are pretty crappy and not a clear improvement to the older models...

These are absolutely amazing! They will reveal any issues in the mix very accurately. They have that peak at 8khz but it will only be present on too trebly records. You have to keep that in mind when mixing though. They have amazing bass response up to those very low end. The clamping force is strong so I personally stretched it a couple of times to loosen that grip and they are perfectly fit now. I feel like on most cheaper beyerdynamics the clamping force gets too loose after some time. Here it may be just perfect after a couple of months, I guess thats why its such a strong grip to begin with, its supposed to be more comfortable over time. My clarett pre usb drives them very well. My phone drives them easily as well, but they lose (about 7-10% I would say) of the soundstage and detail they have. My computer direct audio drives them ok, but you can hear the audio card is cheap when plugged into, the sound feels slightly more robotic. I made a comparison side by side of those against the Audeze LCD-2 which is twice the price, and they sounded pretty similar in terms of overall audio quality. Of course the Audeze had a 5-7% wider soundstage (as you would expect from planar headphones), but the details and stereo reproduction was at the same level. You can tell exactly from which angle comes an instrument with both with the same accuracy. LCD-2 sounds darker, they dont have that 8khz peak. The dt1990 overall sounded more exciting due to that peak, which may be a good thing for solely listening to music, but may be a slight disadvantage in terms of mixing audio. The sound is a little colored in the treble which may result in producing slightly darker mixes if this feature is forgoten. This is why its always recommended to mainly check audio from monitor speakers or use eq passive or active eq while using the dt1990. Nevertheless compared to a classic with twice the price (Audeze LCD-2) those headphones did not feel any worse, just slightly different. I think this says a lot about them. I love mine and the fact that they come with lots of accessories is incredibly convenient. I let my girlfriend use them a couple of times, and now she wants them as well... :)

My old 770 broke so I've been looking for a replacement, checked a bunch of reviews and decided to check on these. I don't do any mixing or mastering, I only listen to music, watch movies and play video games with my headphones.

It's my first time ordering from this store so I thought the shipping to the US would take like 2 or 3 weeks, but it only took a week and the packaging came in good condition and everything inside was perfect.

Now for the headphones, I've been using this daily for 8 months now and I only have a 770 to compare.

In terms of the sound is good out of the box although when I first got it I plugged it to my pc through a Magni 3 and the treble was way too bright, the 8khz to 12khz felt like it was stabbing my ears so I had to tune it down with an equalizer and also tuned down a bit the lower mids and tuned up the upper bass and now it's perfect. The treble is still a bit annoying sometimes with the vocals but that's fine.

Overall the sound can be amazing when you tune it with an equalizer, the soundstage is very wide, sometimes I can hear new sounds that I didn't hear before in some songs, the bass is subtle but powerful, if I want more bass I can change to the Analytical pads but I'll lose a bit of soundstage, the mids and treble are very detailed and clear.

The build quality is amazing, I love that it's mostly all metal, the pads are easy to remove unlike my old 770 where I had to heat up the pads a bit in order to put it back on and also had to use a small flat screw driver to push the lips of the pads, with the 1990 there's no need for all that, the small groove on the side really helps putting the pads back on, you just have to twist it a few times and it's done. The headband feels really good as well, I leave it hanging on a 5cm wooden stand and it doesn't show any signs of friction and by the looks of it, it seems to be very durable, hopefully it won't start peeling off any time soon.

The comfort I can't stress this enough, it's really good, it press hard enough that holds in place but not so hard where it start to hurt, sometimes it feels like it's a closed back headphone if there's no one making noise in my house and sometimes I wanna go sleep with the headphones, the first 2 or 3 days of using it gave me headaches because it was pressing a bit hard but after a week the pads started to have the shape of my head and now I don't have any problems, my ears are around 8cm tall and they fit perfectly inside the pads, they don't touch the side or the bottom of the pads and I don't feel my earlobes being squashed by the pads, and the pads itself are really soft, they're easy to remove and clean. Only problem with the comfort is that it makes my tinnitus louder.

The cables are a bit stiff and it's hard to unfold and stretch and put it in a place where it won't fold and tangle all over again, and the mini XLR plug stays in place when it's connected.

For this price range this is one of the best headphones that there is if not the best.

These are very well built headphones. Made out of metal and it looks like it could last for a century. The package includes a case for headphones, two detachable cables (straight and spiral) and an extra pair of ear pads.

Headphones are not very light but they are very stable on the head and comfortable. They might be a bit tight at the beginning but that will improve after a few hours. Suitable for longer sessions.

DT-1990 has a relatively large and detailed sound but it is not neutral at all, which made me wonder how it could be suitable for mixing and mastering (that is what is actually written on the box). Balanced ear pads, which come on the headphones give kind of a “V” sound. There is a very obvious bass boost and big treble spikes around 8kHz and around 10kHz, or 11kHz. The extra pair of pads, the analytical pads, are softer and they put the bass down to normal making a larger area of the frequency response much more neutral. However, the spikes in the trebles remain almost the same. It is worth saying that it is not easy to replace pads and switching from one to another cannot be done very fast.

DT-1990 is officially an open back headphone but it is not actually completely opened. It has many holes on the cups but it is not as open as HD-600 is or K-702. When you put DT-1990 on, you can hear that your surrounding sounds become a bit muffled. The sound of DT-1990 feels a bit like a much more improved version of Beyerdymamic’s closed back headphones (DT-770, for example). Bass is very good (with the analytical pads), fairly detailed middle but the trebles are something that people will either love or hate. It is so called, “the beyer sound”; it will add an extra detail to certain records but it will make a lot of records sound harsh and on the edge of pain.

I thought of taming trebles with an EQ, which is possible and to use DT-1990 as a Hi-Fi headphone but the main question was whether it was all worth the price. The price is kind of justified with the case and two pairs of ear pads you get with the headphones and if you like piercing trebles and “the beyer sound”, this can be a great headphone. For me, those trebles were harsh on too many records.

So, the conclusion is: DT-1990 for listening to music? Maybe, for some. For mixing, mastering and critical listening? I do not believe so.

Coming from 5 years of DT 770 PRO 250 Ohm use, there are some downsides to 1990. And don't take this as 1990 are worse than 770, they are just different.
As most of the reviewers already pointed out there is a pronounced peak at 8.3-8.5k which, for me, was highly uncomfortable on some "reference" tracks at first but my ears got used to it after about 1 hour, 770 in that regard are more "mellow".
And second downside for me is openback design, as I thought it would dampen ambient noise a bit more than it turned out in reality.
I have a PC case sitting on left side at 60 cm with active cooling and with 1990 it's really like you are sitting without any headphones, so bare that in mind when choosing between 1990 and say 1770.

Also I suggest to try SonarWorks SoundID Reference app (there is a 3 week trial) to see the difference out of the box and what is the curve that SonarWorks thinks bring them to what they consider flat response for 1990,
A/B comparison between curves for 1990 and 770 is quite interesting, especially considering that more "mellow" 770s also nerfed alot in high frequency range per their curve, which is especially strange considering that coiled wire eats some of that 9-10k range.
But as my main application of 1990s is music listening and some home demo work, I can live with more high freq response than usual.
But keep that in mind, they are not flat response, if you are looking for that.

Overall 1990s are fantastic in build quality, especially in comparison with 770s. No issues with miniXLR connector, sits real tight.

Downsides that I outlined are really subjective and in my case can be fixed by applying custom EQ curves and moving PC case further from away from where I sit.

The DT 1990 pro. The build is stunning. Sturdy, heavy in appearance but not on the head. Impressions are that this will last for years. Metal, leather and the light use of
plastic. These are a work of art and a very nice blend of form and function.

The comfort is just as well thought out. Hours is use, it doesn't feel heavy, it can cause a hot spot on the top of my head after a 4hr period or so. It's doesn't disappear on your head like a Sennheiser 6 series, but it nearly does. Especially after break in.

The sound. Clean. Bright but not harsh highs. They extend well and deliver all the detail in a cohesive way. Not a "chill" sound. It forces detail, all the time. And it does this with absolute precision.

Mids. High mids are slightly recessed, the rest of the mids are present and add a nice warmth and just enough of a lush sound to balance the highs. Vocals are clear and warm. Even more so with the A pads. B pads recess the mids a little more.

Low end is very present. Deep reaching, accurate, and with great speed. Easily the best dynamic driver I've ever heard. Planar type bass. The A pads reduce the bass, add some mids and bring the highs even more forward in comparison. With either pads the sound is never muddy. Everything stays in its lane while being incredibly detailed.

Good natural soundstage. Wide but not artificial. Every frequency has room to breath and move. If the Sennheiser Hd660s is a 4/10 for soundstage, the DT 1990 pro Is a 8/10 Not HD800 wide, but it sounds right, natural.

This thing sounds analytical warm with the B pads and analytical with the A pads. Best sounding headphones I've had to date. Highly recommend.