When is a headphone "overdamped"?

I heard this term used to describe the Beyer DT880 (as well as many others of course), and I'm not completely sure what to make of it. I do like the DT880's, and they have a dry-as-grandma's-vag presentation, except with that metallic zingy treble spike (god damn it, Beyer!). I love that part though, and it makes sense. There's a fine-ish metal mesh stuck to the back if the driver to dampen it, and there's a thick ring of felt covering the entire back of the cup around the venting hole. So yeah, it's a pretty well behaved driver at that point, huh?

Is there a reason people don't like the tight and clean thing?

Is it just a matter of a very clean CSD and less distortion? Or am I way off there?

 

tight and clean is another mans sucked out mids and presence region with uninvolving bass and ice pick treble. Yet, I owned them for years. They are better than a lot of cans though, just not my flavor profile today.

 

If they could reduce that one peak a bunch, and raise the bass a littke, it would be literally perfect. As long as it's not the DT990 bass though. Yeesh!

You can raise the low end by removing the metal mesh on the driver's rear end. That's the thing that is missing on the DT990, so you'll get the 990 bass but 880 treble.

I actually had a friend design and print some grille replacements for a 990. I gotta work on those more...

 

Good to know you can mod the bass. A friend has some woodied modded Beyers that are real fun. Nice and bassy and without the strong treble peak.

I never used EQ back when I used the 880-600 ohms, but I suppose a good plug in could notch that pike out quite nicely. Really comfy cans for sure. Funny how many Beyers have a spike, only two that I owned that were acceptable were the 1350 and t51p but not comfy at all. Report back when you try the grills.

 

"Overdamped" means that the driver is unable to reach the optimum sound pressure level at its base resonant frequency. As a result, bass rolls off earlier than desired and tends to sound somewhat lackluster and uninvolving.

Note that total damping of a driver is the sum of electrical and mechanical damping, any of which (or both) can be the cause of overdamping.

Here's a pretty good explanation:
https://community.klipsch.com/index...ampedoverdamped/&tab=comments#comment-1266356

And Tyll talks about it more in-depth in his DT880 comparison:
https://www.innerfidelity.com/conte...-dt-880-250-ohm-and-dt-880-600-ohm-headphones

Personally, I have no experience with the DT880. But I've recently auditioned the MySphere 3.1 (15 ohms) and MySphere 3.2 (110 ohms). While there is no difference between these phones in mechanical damping, the low ohm version becomes electrically overdamped, if you drive it from a low output impedance source (by about 4dB at its base resonant frequency, according to the designer). I've listened to both side by side from a low OI source and the difference was easy to hear. Bass on the high ohm version sounded decidedly more snappy and involving than on the low ohm version.

 

THIS is good shit, thanks man!

Speaking of shit, I am getting magni 3 now. It has a sub-0.3 ohm output impedance, and I checked my current amp... 80 ohms. Mother Porker.