beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro Over-Ear Studio Headphone

Great headphones for monitoring and mixing, wonderful for listening too.
I’ll prefix my review by saying that I’m not an “audiophile”, but I am a musician and a discerning listener. My review is from that perspective.My signal chain is PC -> Oppo HA-1 -> Headphones / Powered Monitors.These headphones are very close to neutral across the spectrum, and make great headphones for monitoring and mixing, as well as for critical listening. I’ve recently gotten back into writing music, and these headphones have made it much easier to produce a usable mixes. As an added bonus, I’ve been using them to listen to some of my favorite recordings, and their clear, neutral sound makes it easy to figure out what I like about the arrangements, identify the various moving parts more clearly. The soundstage is extremely precise, and the sound is very open and natural. It’s very hard to describe how accurate they are, but it suffices to say that with a well-mastered acoustic track, it actually feels like I’m sitting in with the band. Yes, they really are that good.Some examples: On Dire Straits “Sultans of Swing,” the chorus has some very fine work on the ride cymbal, alternating between bow hits, bells and with the occasional wash thrown in. It’s very easy to discern exactly what’s happening in the drum section without losing track of Marc’s voice and guitar or the bassline. On Procupine Tree’s “Lazarus,” the intro is very clear and all the instruments are well separated. All the vocal nuances are very crisp and clear. When the drums come in, there’s real weight not just to the bass hits but also the toms and snare that really drive the rhythm. On Tal Wilkenfeld’s “BC” it’s very easy to keep track of all the instruments, even in places where the distorted guitar and synth play overlapping lines, and the bass joins in for good measure. The bass lines are crisp and clear, and you can hear the dynamics that Tal is playing very clearly. On This is a tough song to do justice to, but the 880s don’t break a sweat. On Joe Bonamassa’s “Blues Deluxe” the attack of the guitar (quite hard to reproduce since it’s all in the transients) is very clear and well separated from the bass line – it’s really easy to follow both lines at once, and the guitar sounds like a real live amp right in the room with you, and the breathiness of his voice comes through very clearly when he chooses to sing with more air.I’ve also tried Audio-Technicas, Sonys and AKGs designed for monitoring, and these easily blow them all out of the water.For casual listening, these headphones tie with my Grados (325is the latter do color the sound, but in a good way – *to my ears*) for my favorite sound. However, they are a lot more comfortable, and since they’re less bright, also more usable for long listening sessions at higher volumes. They also have clearer and deeper bass, and are more suitable as an all-purpose set of cans.Note: When I first got them, they had very little bass response (not uncommon with mid-range and high-end headphones out of the box) – the key was breaking in with pink noise for about 24 hours, which really opened them up.

I was looking to upgrade my headphones and after doing a lot of research, I found these. If you’re looking for headphones to just listen to music, I’d say these are not the headphones for you but if you are an experienced studio engineer and know that studio headphones are not supposed to hype the bottom end or any other sound for mixing, then these will definitely due the job quite nicely. My mixes are already better since getting these .

Beyerdynamic DT880 Pro, 250 Ohm Headphones:This is a superb pair of headphones, the sound quality is excellent – for a discerning hifi enthusiast without an endless budget to spend! The frequency range is well balanced, the placement of instruments on the sound stage is precise and it is easy to distinguish what instruments (and voices) are playing. They have increased my enjoyment in listening to music significantly. Don’t expect booming base from these, they are not rave party headphones, they are intended to provide a well-balanced listening experience and they do that exceptionally well in my opinion! For reference, my musical tastes vary from classical, to jazz, to 1970s and upwards pop and rock music.As stated in the description, these are semi-open headphones, meaning that some sound leaks out and in. So other people close by can hear what you are listening to and it is also possible to hear background noise around you when you are listening to the headphones. But that will always be the price to pay for getting such a good sound stage, there is no getting away from that. That said, the sound leakage into and out of the headphones is not excessive and should not be a problem in reasonable situations. But they might not be appropriate in a location such as an office or library, or where there is a lot of background noise, eg radio/television or on a car, bus, plane, etc. In cases like that you would be better off with some good close-backed, noise-cancelling headphones. However, I do have some noise-cancelling Sennheiser headphones and the listening experience is far inferior to these DT880 headphones, because the noise-cancelling function does impact the sound quality.The build quality is also very good. Note that there are different variations of these and other Beyerdynamic headphones, with different impedance values and headband comfort, so its worth checking out which ones will be most appropriate. The ones I got are 250 ohm impedance, which are most suitable for a hifi amp, or a good quality PC sound card, although I did get listenable sound levels from a mobile phone. The “PRO” version has a coiled cable, whereas the “Edition” version has a straight cable. The headband is supposed to be tighter on the “PRO” version, compared with the “Edition” version, but I find these very comfortable and do not move around on my head like some cheaper phones would. All-in-all I highly recommend these headphones for anyone who wants to sit back and enjoy listening to music without distractions from elsewhere.