Is there anything that sounds GOOD with the beyerdynamic DT990?

Eight years ago the Beyer DD990/600 were my first set of "serious" full size headphones. I'm pretty sure I returned them in less than two weeks. I'd even heard them before I bought them, but at the time I didn't really know what I was looking for or what would end up bothering me in the long run.

I'd only really used IEMs before so listening to them for a few minutes way back at CanJam Chicago was impressive. Bass impact! Soundstage!

Sitting down to listen to a whole album was another matter entirely. Just too bright and fatiguing and I didn't get used to it. FWIW my primary genres are even metal and electronic. I didn't think it was good match, but I know others disagree.

They did work well for games and movies though. They're got an open soundstage by themselves, I remember them becoming incredible with a decent binaural HRTF, and the V shaped sound signature can really enhance immersion.

At least it can if you're not a weeb like me and regularly watch anime where most females have such high pitched voices that the harmonics land smack in the middle of its enormous treble peak. I remember that being the final straw...

 

I remember gun fire from whatever FPS I was playing at the time literally left my ears ringing. (Dt990)

There is realistic, and then there is hearing loss...

 

HAH! As a fellow weeb I either have treble-resistant ears or the DT880 (250) really wasn't as bad as the DT990 over longer listening sessions. The v-sig does help make things sound more exciting, but nowadays the x00 is about as v-shaped as I find acceptable— things got worse (or better) after I loaned an HD650 for a few months, freaking glorious midrange.

I do maintain that v-shaped sigs are great for low-level listening however, which is me about 70% of the time when listening to music or nearly always when watching anime, trawling the interwebs, or other random stuff on Netflix.

By the way, cool Kino avatar! Still much prefer the 2003 adaptation to the 2017 one, but the latter was still pretty cool (in the same way the original FMA anime was better than Brotherhood in some ways).

 

I'm pretty sure the peak on the 990s is quite a bit wider than the 880s but headphone.com's database is kaput and I don't see a 990 measured on IF so I'm not sure where to check.

Also Kugi Lolis + DT990 = Bleeding Ears.

I clearly remember that it was Shakugan no Shana which broke me on them.

Thanks. I've been out of the loop for a while. I didn't even know there was a new one. I could probably ramble on but this is getting enough off topic enough as it is...

 

I get tinnitus when listening to these cans for less than a minute. Sold mine pretty damn fast so couldn't try so many songs with it. It is literally ear torture to me.