Gramophone Dreams

Beyerdynamic's DT 1990 PRO MKII and DT 1770 PRO MKII
Beyerdynamic is one of those pro-audio brands, like AKG in Austria or Shure Inc. in Chicago, that specializes in microphones and headphones for recording studio use. Beyerdynamic has been family owned since its founding in Berlin in 1924. It moved to Heilbronn, Germany, in 1948, and that is where all the company's products are manufactured (footnote 3).

I decided to audition the new, second-generation (MKII) versions of Beyerdynamic's DT 1770 PRO closed-back and DT 1990 PRO open-back headphones because they look artist-cool and sport new polymer "Tesla.45" diaphragms. Both are easy loads, with a 30 ohm impedance and a 95dBmW sensitivity at 500Hz. The MKIIs' looks and build quality are the opposite of boutique: They look sturdy, black, and serious, but also delicately drawn. And they each cost only $599.

As befits a pro headphone, two cables are included with both MKIIs: a 3m straight cable and a 5m coiled cable. Both terminate in a lockable three-pin mini-XLR plug. Both are supplied with two types of ear pads: On the 1990, "Producing Velours" (which have a touch of bass boost) are fitted standard; the "Mixing & Mastering Velours," which offer "a more analytical sound," come in the box. The 1770, too, comes with both leatherette and velour earpads.

The MKIIs also have a new headband with a gap in the middle that helps them fit the head more comfortably and hang more securely on the 3" screws over my desk.

I used two headphone amplifiers for these listening sessions: the dCS Lina and LTA's Z10e.

DT 1990 PRO MKII
I laugh every time it happens. I never notice how fuzzy my room speakers sound until I listen to the same recording with a pair of studio-quality headphones. This time, the "same" recording was Warming by the Devil's Fire and the headphone was the Beyerdynamic 1990 PRO MKII. I was only halfway through Otha Turner & The Rising Star Fife & Drum Band's performance of Willie Dixon's "My Babe," recorded live at St. Ann's Warehouse in 2001, when my brain stopped admiring the ethereal sound of a fife and the layering of percussion instruments behind Otha Turner's vocals and I wondered, what change of sonics would I notice with the supposedly less bassy "Mixing & Mastering" earpads?

With the standard "Producing Velours," the bass was agreeably full, round, and smooth—a little soft on note fronts, a little blurry on note backs, but I think most audiophiles would find this tuning appealing. To me, though, the bass sounded uncertain, as it does on many ported box speakers. When I switched to the Mixing & Mastering Velours, the bass sounded more sealed box, meaning it didn't appear to go as low but seemed to roll off more uniformly below 100Hz. More like my LS3/5a boxes.

With the M&M pads, the song "My Babe" became quicker, tighter, more direct, and more transparent. I left them on for the rest of my auditions.

The Qawwali, Sufism, and Nusrat: Long ago, my old pal and favorite New York radio personality Delphine Blue (WFUV, WLIR, WBAI, Sirius, East Village Radio, her own internet station Little Walter Radio) turned me on to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and the Qawwali musical traditions that have been passed down through Ali Khan's family for more than 600 years. I have a slew of Qawwali recordings, but the best is Back to Qawwali (CD, Long Distance Records 3060592), a masterwork of sound, prayerfulness, and culture.

Qawwali percussion moves these ancient songs forward with a calculated mesmerism intended to hold listeners' minds like ravers on a Techno groove. But what struck me most while studying these Back to Qawwali tracks was the accuracy of their spatial mapping and how closely matched the DT 1990's channels appeared to be. I did not expect this level of precision at this price. Close channel matching puts that last turn of focus on complex stereo proceedings, and here, with the Qawwali, that extra sharpness exposed the layering of voices in the near and far planes.

Veils are lifted: I regard the sound quality of the $4000, 32 ohm, 101dB/mW, Meze Elite open-back headphone as unassailable. I believe anyone using it would immediately appreciate its depth of space, transparency, nanodetailing, and sheer luxuriousness.

The first thing I noticed when I switched to the planar-magnetic Elite after a week listening exclusively with the 1990 MKIIs was how quiet the Elite was—how so much deep, silent, black space surrounded the Qawwali performers. I had not noticed any of the space-graying haze I was obviously—but unknowingly—experiencing with the Beyerdynamic. Besides their black, grainless silence, the most obvious difference sonics-wise was how much more nuanced and open the Elites were.

The Beyerdynamic's presentation put vocals strongly in the foreground, showcasing enunciation and articulation while subtly muting microdetail in the background. In contrast, the Elite exposed massive amounts of reverberant detail hiding deep in the shadows of the soundspace.

On a geezer hunch, I wondered, how will the Meze play reggae? So, for fun, I played This Is Crucial Reggae – Jimmy Cliff (Sanctuary CD 06076-80460-2), first through the Meze Elites, then through the DT 1990 MKIIs. Poor remastering and infantile EQ-ing highlight the rolled-off, distorted sound on this Sanctuary compilation, but the Meze Elite tried its best to put lipstick on the pig. The sound with the Meze was smooth and listenable, but the Rasta 'tude was buried under Meze's smoothness. To my surprise, the greater simplicity of the 1990's presentation conveyed more Rasta 'tude. As a result, the Beyers allowed me to listen past this recording's defects and enjoy one of my lifelong favorite songs: "Many Rivers to Cross."

880 days: Presence, depth, and well-drawn detail are traits that please every time I use my 250 ohm Beyerdynamic DT 880s, a gift from a headphone collector who was thinning their herd.

For this comparison, I played György Ligeti's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, disc 4 of a four-CD Deutsche Grammophon set presenting the Hungarian composer's complete DG, Decca, and Phillips recordings. I knew this demonstration-quality recording would splatter the 880's top octaves with plenty of acoustic energy, and I was curious to see how the DT 880, with its notoriously bright treble, would compare to the DT 1990 MKII.

Switching from the never-bright DT 1990s to the sometimes glary 880s let me immediately see the differences between the new and old Beyers. The DT 880's tendency toward high-frequency glare was there all right, but the plethora of texture and detail in the other eight octaves was so much fun I barely noticed. Compared to the DT 880s, the new DT 1990 MKIIs present as more refined: quieter, more transparent, more sharply focused, better sorted, with greater command of spatial coordinates.

Even with the Mixing & Mastering pads and their tighter bass, the new DT 1990 PRO MKIIs presented recordings with an easy-flowing, never-aggressive sound that I suspect will appeal more to audiophiles than mastering engineers. The beauty of the DT 1990's sound is never cloying; it coexists on equal terms with a decidedly neutral octave-to-octave tone balance and resolution more than sufficient to please any studio pro.

DT 1770 PRO MKII
Beyerdynamic's DT 1770 PRO MKII is the "closed back" version of the open-back DT 1990s. Almost comically, Beyerdynamic's concept of "open" is more closed than mine. With the DT 1990s, I covered the earcups with my hands and observed no change in sound. Not surprisingly then, these two models sounded more alike than different. But the differences seemed worth describing.

I tend to like closed-back headphones, and I took to the 1770 right away. It presented recordings in a slightly brighter, purer, larger manner than the DT 1990. The DT 1770 sounded more neutral and transparent than the DT 1990 and more open than HiFiMan's HE-R10D dynamic closed back (Amazon price, $239), which, in comparison, sounded rough and clouded.

My religious sensibility identifies with the Middle Ages in Europe. I find it easy to imagine being in those feudal villages, in their stone churches, trancing out on chant. During cold, overcast November days, monophonic Grégorien chant is comfort music, and 1000 ans de chant Grégorien (Harmonia Mundi France CD 2908165) is one of my favorite "comfort" listens as well as a perfect recording for observing reverb tails.

Just telling who's singing, whether it's the Deller Consort, Anonymous 4, or the Ensemble Organum, or how or where the diverse recordings on this anthology were made, requires transducers with extra-fine low-level resolve. With Beyerdynamic's DT 1770 MKIIs, the reverb sounded clean and spacious but a little too similar track to track. The tracks on this anthology were recorded in various places at various times—sometimes decades apart—by a variety of people. Monitoring headphones should expose these differences.

This reverb sameness sparked my curiosity, so I pulled out JPS Lab's Abyss Diana TCs (powered by the dCS Lina amp)—just to see what kinds of reverb are really on this disc. With these top-shelf ($4495) planar magnetics, reverberation was conspicuously the main attraction on every track. With the Dianas, with the TEAC 701T transport, the constantly morphing 'verb on these chants was like a wet kiss from my favorite movie star.

Beyerdynamic's 1770 MKIIs transmitted most of this wetness, but compared to the Diana TCs, tails were shortened. The effect of this shortening was to emphasize the solidity and articulation of voices and de-emphasize the reverb clouds pulsing against the room walls containing them.

In contrast, the Diana TCs expanded and emphasized the room-defining energies of each track's harmonic cocktail. The TCs made gothic reverb intoxicating. On this recording, the DT 1770s kept my left brain happier than my right. But then that changed.

When I compared the 1770 to Sony's refined, relaxed, sensuous-sounding $1798 MDR-Z1RM closed back, I was impressed by how similarly elegant and spacious the MKIIs and the Z1Rs sounded playing those French chants. In fact, the 1770 MKIIs were out-reverbing my esteemed Z1Rs.

Experiencing this forced me to compare the closed-back 1770 to the headphone I always bring to monitor Chesky recording sessions: the three-times-more-expensive ($1819) AKG K812 open back, which played dryer and grainier than the 1770. It was during this comparison that I realized I preferred the purity and quiet of the DT 1770 MKIIs because their grainless spatiality exceeded that of well-regarded headphones costing several times more.

The gillion-dollar Abyss Diana showed me what fantastic stuff the MKII couldn't do, but Sony's MDR Z1Rs and AKG's venerable K812s showed me how special and advanced they really are.

Best of all
Beyerdynamic's DT 1990 PRO MKII and DT 1770 PRO MKII headphones are supreme bargains that should be welcomed equally by studio pros and audiophile aficionados. They sound as honest, professional, and modern as they look. Earnestly recommended.

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Footnote 3: Beyerdynamic GmbH & Co. KG, Theresienstr. 8, D-74072 Heilbronn, Germany. Email: info@beyerdynamic.de. Web: beyerdynamic.com. US distributor: Beyerdynamic North America, Tel: (631) 293-3200. Email: info@beyerdynamic-usa.com. Web: north-america.beyerdynamic.com.