CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone Measurements => Topic started by: Marvey on February 09, 2013, 02:24:55 AM
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I really hate these. They don't measure horribly, at least with FR
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=787.0;attach=2941;image)
I hate them much that I've decided to give the FAD 1601 a reprieve from walkin' the plank. These go instead. FYI, the other channel is busted - the volume is lower, but FR is the same. I've omitted the results of that channel.
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CSDs
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Harmonic distortion. Doesn't seem too bad except for highish higher order distortion (D4 + D5) throughout. I do wonder if the noise floor or "blackground" is high-ish because of this. Will run a few full spectrum type of visualizations later.
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Do you hate them because they lack warmth? I always imagined these having cold tonality and basslight based on impressions. FR looks like this is the case. Very clean though!
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They are midrangy / hollow, in a weird medical device (check your hearing) kind of way. There's a slight hardness to the quality of the treble. No much perceived air, although the measurements do not seem to indicate this.
I hope my use of audiophile terms is not too pretentious or ominous (as in Orwell / 1984)
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Pretty clean measurements though I did not like them very much either. Funny how people like to call this 'neutral'.
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Surprisingly not panic inducing measurements, though that bass drops off waaaay to early.
Oh and cool new smiley :boom: DT48
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They are midrangy / hollow, in a weird medical device (check your hearing) kind of way. There's a slight hardness to the quality of the treble. No much perceived air, although the measurements do not seem to indicate this.
I hope my use of audiophile terms is not too pretentious or ominous (as in Orwell / 1984)
One place where the measurements may differ from how you hear them to be is in the seal. I get a much better sound out of them when sweat seals the cans giving a vacuumlike feeling. without that seal, they sound hollow without being modded a little to grip tighter on your head. Can you try putting the mics in your ears while measuring to see the difference vs the dummy head?
I am not a super big fan of the dt48 but when getting the proper seal, I wouldn't put them in the craplist :)p5
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How would you simulate sweat seal? Wet the pads before placing them on the dummy/test thingamajig?
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I think Milos's gallon drum of lube ought to do the trick.
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The dummy head's seal should be fine since those measurements look about similar to how I remember them to sound. I meant maybe on purrin's head they might not have as good a seal as on the dummy head making them measure differently. Kojak for example may enjoy the dt48 more than some thin guy with a phro LOL
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I get similar with the DT1350. It takes a little while to fully seal.
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The DT48S is really half functioning? Strange I would expect this headphone to survive a simple trip to you guys. When I posted my impressions I had stereo but keeping the DT48S on my head even 30 minutes was quite the effort.
It's easy to 'hate' the sound signature. 'Detesting' is simply not severe enough...
Donunus: this is the S-version. The E-version sounds more mellow but for about 300 euros new it's a rip off.
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The dummy head's seal should be fine since those measurements look about similar to how I remember them to sound. I meant maybe on purrin's head they might not have as good a seal as on the dummy head making them measure differently. Kojak for example may enjoy the dt48 more than some thin guy with a phro LOL
Wait, did you just say purrin has a dummy head?
These drivers are screaming to be released from their current crappy medical torture device looking things and be transplanted. Who's gonna do some serious mods?
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My complaint with the DT48s I had is that Beyerdynamic screwed up the ear pads and ear cup padding. If tweaked the DT48-drivers could be used for great midrange oriented headphones...
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Wait, did you just say purrin has a dummy head?
LOL no I meant that maybe he should compare how it measures on his head vs the dummy head just to make sure what differences there are that a different seal between two heads could make. But as deep funk said, My findings aren't going to be exactly 100% significant for this thread since the dt48 that I had was Dale's DT48e :)
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I'd sat that a 10dB difference between the response at 1000Hz and at 50Hz is panic inducing. As it is having noticeable any order distortion above 3rd. Make them walk the plank
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One place where the measurements may differ from how you hear them to be is in the seal. I get a much better sound out of them when sweat seals the cans giving a vacuumlike feeling. without that seal, they sound hollow without being modded a little to grip tighter on your head. Can you try putting the mics in your ears while measuring to see the difference vs the dummy head?
Dude, I don't disagree the with the ameliorating effects of the sweat and vacuum, but that is DISGUSTING! I would rather put a Grado driver in a vagina.
walk the plank
A few more tests or thoughts before the decision.
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They are midrangy / hollow, in a weird medical device (check your hearing) kind of way. There's a slight hardness to the quality of the treble. No much perceived air
Excellent description, newspeak notwithstanding. A good recipe for a headphone that's both boring and increasingly annoying as you continue listening to it.
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Dude, I don't disagree the with the ameliorating effects of the sweat and vacuum, but that is DISGUSTING! I would rather put a Grado driver in a vagina.
Bwaaahahahahaha Disgusting measures for the cans not to sound disgusting... I know but it is the only way to make them sound decent enough (the dt48e anyways).
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It's a DT48-thing...
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Dude, I don't disagree the with the ameliorating effects of the sweat and vacuum, but that is DISGUSTING! I would rather put a Grado driver in a vagina.
There could be problems with room resonances .......
However (hopefully) not a problem of fit.
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Ya gotta just feel like theres some lube around your ears and the cans are gliding around very squooshylike LOL otherwise the sound is going to be thin
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Ya gotta just feel like theres some lube around your ears and the cans are gliding around very squooshylike LOL otherwise the sound is going to be thin
You gotta quit while you're ahead on this one! :gross:
:)p13
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9b7AmC0Uac&list=PL00130A7A29CCA784 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9b7AmC0Uac&list=PL00130A7A29CCA784)
You asked... (NSFW)
There was a longer version of these particular out-takes. ;)
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So this chart says they would sound exactly like the cheap Beyer DT230/235. Perhaps with more resonance and slightly frequency shifted.
Who feels like checking whether the driver is the same?
DT230/235 are semiopen - perhaps they don't have the annoying dual-razor resonance at 5.5k+16.5k, or have less of it.
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Agreed that they sound somewhat hollow and the lack of air is expected. Never liked this one. but for some odd reason, I like the old DT48A with pink and blue cups (the new ones have red/blue). they sound similar with the S though, but without that hollowness (is there such a word?).
next up, DT250! gogo send your pair to purrin donunus :P
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next up, DT250! gogo send your pair to purrin donunus :P
Don't make fun of the dt250-250 unless you've heard it. It doesn't even sound like a beyer :)p17
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sure, send it in then! :)p1
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Shipping to the US and back is going to cost half the price of the cans
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interesting results. always wanted to try these but never got a chance to. if you don't like them you probably won't like the DT48A's too. they are heavy and give a good pressure squeeze on your head(probably because i have a big head). only thing i liked was there midrange at low volumes. turn it up and kinda got echoy- like a room reverb was in your head or something.
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I will c/p an explanation as to why the DT48 sounds the way it does.
To me, the difference between most headphones today and the DT-48 is philosophy. There seems to be three main issues that modern headphone designs are intended to address:
1) Wide bandwidth (extended bass and treble)
2) Tonal characteristics that approach the characteristic of a good speaker in a good room
3) Spatial characteristics that mimic the space heard through a good speaker in a good room
1) and 2) have been largely accomplished, especially in today's best available models, 3) is much more elusive and only tentative moves in this direction have been made by, say, the K-1000, HD-800, perhaps Ultrasone and a few others. But the point is that, today, the intent is to make a headphone that sounds much more like a speaker. Refering again to post 1503 on this thread reinforces this, the way modern headphone responses are tailored is in consideration of the sound of external speaker systems.
The DT-48 was designed before this was, I suspect, even considered. The DT-48 sounds unabashedly like a headphone. No tricks to try to take the sound "out of head" and no reference to far field equalizations to mimic speakers. The DT-48 doesen't even address 1) above, the frequency extremes droop, as a result the phones are "Midrange-centric".
This (in my view) is what makes the DT-48 so unique. NO ONE would manufacture a headphone this way today. The designer would never be able to hold his head up at a Audio Engineering Society meeting!
But wait. Who says that using this external speaker model to design a phone is the be all and end all? Perhaps a headphone sounding like a headphone is not a bad thing.
That is the core of the comparison between the HD-800 and the DT-48. The HD-800 has a "comfy" kind of sound, broadband and somewhat out of head with the familiar sonic thumbprint of a good modern hi-end speaker system. I can go from my HD-800 to my home Harbeth Monitor 40 without too much culture shock (though the Harbeth M-40 does have a warmer sound and there is always the presentation of space to consider).
The DT-48, on the other hand, at first sounds downright claustrophobic with its' rolled off treble and in-head sound. But after a bit, you appreciate the relaxed sound and midrange magic. I wouldn't say the DT-48 midrange is better really, it's just more "exposed" and to my ear draws your attention to the midrange (where most of the music is) and away from the filigree of the treble and (somewhat) from beat of the bass.
(BTW, I will award the "brass figligee with bronze oak leaf palm" to whoever knows who used to say this on the radio...)
The DT-48 reminds me of a speaker system I once heard at a vintage audio dealers house. It was his pride and joy, the pinnacle of his collection and made by Western Electric using a mid-treble horn with the throat bent at a 90 degree angle and a cone woofer in a large bookshelf cabinet beautiful with art deco detailing. It looked like it came right out of a '30's radio station! It suffered at the extremes, didn't image as well and was otherwise not quite as sophisticated sounding as modern systems. But somehow, listening to it made me think of "concentrated music", it seemed to squeeze out all of the music juice. And despite any flaws, communicated the music magnificently.
Now the DT-48 is more technically correct than this vintage system, but the communicative qualities are similar. The HD-800 does sound more like a modern hi-end stereo and, I dare say, closer to the literal sound of the concert hall on recordings that contain that sound. But perhaps, at least with headphones, this more complete sound can be too much and a bit overwhelming at such close quarters. The DT-48 may not give it all, but it gives what is most important and there is something to be said for that. And it's why I would be very loath to modify a DT-48 in any way, the least thing could just break their magic spell...
So maybe it IS sacreligious to compare the DT-48 to anything else. At this point, it's more or less unique to itself and, I suspect, never to be duplicated. So get 'em while you can.
BTW, hell yes, I won the pair recently listed on Audiogon...
Kevin
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Oh. My. God.
Troll account or?
Am I still the president of your "DT48 h8ers club"? ;)
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Hey, I 'memba you from HF from ages back. Why did you get banned? (It's OK, a few of us are banned here.)
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Kevin,
please read the first post and post/introduce yourself: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,302.0.html (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,302.0.html)
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Wow...
Edit:
The first thread: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,716.msg16162.html#msg16162
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Hey, I 'memba you from HF from ages back. Why did you get banned? (It's OK, a few of us are banned here.)
How am I trolling? Yes, you are still numero uno..
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Hey, I 'memba you from HF from ages back. Why did you get banned? (It's OK, a few of us are banned here.)
I was never told. I know I had an argument with another member, and I was banned. My only beef with headfi is there are double standards. I can list many instances, but it's not appriprate in this thread. If you want to know send me a pm.
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Hi Y'all, Thanks for the measurements, I'm using the Kudelski labelled DT48S 25Ω Nagra and with the very soft vinyl ear pads, does not roll off as much as with the new pads or any other DT48 models that i own even the DT48S 5 and 25Ω versions. Driving it only from a Meier Arietta or an Objective2, some other amps colored the sound.
Hello KBI, how are things with you? I hope all is fine.