beyerdynamic DT-1350-80 Professional Headphones

Affordable Beyerdamamic's Tesla technology. These DT1350-80 are studio monitor headphone that are very revealing in every details - sound is tight and nuanced. Do not get them if you listen to low bit rate Mp3 you will hate them just before you realize how bad your recording are, and your equipment is. They do not need very much power to drive them, but given the nature of on-board sound cards, especially in laptop one needs an external DAC with headphone amplifier. I use them with a Dragonfly, and a NuForce Icon uDAC-3 with various signal processor programs to bypass my laptops on-board shortcomings. This headphone are a poor person's T-series models. They are on ear which makes them uncomfortable for some people, but not me, and once adjusted they are amazing. I just got them, so I will update this review when I hear more......I did not believe in the loosening up of the driver, but they are some changes taking please as I listen. The almost surgical dissection of the music as it is presented is still there as I listening to Irish and Saami traditional music using similar instruments - a bodhran, a wood framed drum made with goatskin. There are aspects of the instrument playing not as obvious with my other headphone. My ventage Sennheiser HD600 are my most forgiving in comparison. Every technique and sound was quite obvious and enjoyable, if not disconcerting when the recording was not up to so close an examination. Handling and beating of the bodhran from muffle beating to being struck with harder things other than a human hand was surprising, if not amazing in detailing. I have also listened to Turkish music play by Erkan Ogur and Djivan Gasparyan - the flute is amazing - each breath and the environment of the recording is discernable. If anything can be said to the negative at the moment is that the music sounds a little nasal, or too tight.I have been listening to Anonymous four - Love's Illusion-Music from the Montpllier Codex 13th century, Alison Krauss, and Vision - Hildegard von Bingen-produce/directed by Richard Souther. None of it is nasal and the recordings are some of the best I have heard. The a capella of a couple of the recordings with the environments they are recorded in are wonderful. The mids are a little forward, and the bass tight, controlled, and deep. The sound is closer to the stage than I am use to. The highs are clear and not strident. On Vision, there are a number of tracks that make use of muffle drum with a attack and detailing clearly heard. Women's voices mix with the environment more clearly than I have heard before, but remain separate. Organ music resonates with a haunting beauty. Veils have been removed. I am using WAV format, and next week a friend is going to a loan me his DAC2 HGC to listen to these headphones with.

First off, I don't believe that I have ever experienced a pair of headphones so picky about position, or one that changed so much doing break in. I don't know if it was the drivers, the ear pads, or if it was just me finally figuring out how to position them properly, but when I first got them, they had a weird, hollow tube midrange that made voices and string instruments sound really unnatural. After awhile I started to notice more bass, but the bass was overpowering and made the headphones sound overly dark and wooly. Now after a week of wearing them for around six hours a day the sound is wonderful; clear, natural, balanced sound with a perfectly linear bass response. The bass isn't boosted by any means; if it isn't in the track they don't add it. If the track has anything in the sub bass however, you will feel it. It is almost like the bass is bottomless, I have never heard anything like it before.Maybe I am a glutton for punishment, but I can wear them all day. They were a bit tight at first, but after only a week they have molded to my head. The isolation is incredible as well. I work in an open office and I can't hear anything with these on. I am typing this on a mechanical keyboard and I can't hear the keys as I type. It's really something else.As for the negatives, the cable sucks; it's thin, tangle prone, not detachable, and microphonic. These cans would be so much better with a removable cable, or at the very least a better/thicker cable similar to what is on the 32 ohm version of the DT770's. They also seem to need some amplification to sound their best. I can get ample volume from portable devices, but that hollow tube midrange reappears and the dynamics go away. I have tried them with a Schiit Modi/Magni stack and a Fiio E10K and they sound great on both.Between the crappy cable and the need for an amp, I feel that there are better headphones out there for portable use (V-Moda XS for example), but I have never heard a closed headphone that sounds this good.Update: After listening to a podcast with these I noticed the glaring issue with the midrange again. Voices and acoustic instruments had a hollow, completely unnatural timbre. Unfortunately after hearing it in speech, I couldn't help hearing it everywhere so I sent the headphones back. I regretted it almost immediately and after a few days ordered another pair. Even with the midrange issues, the combination of isolation, comfort, and detail make these very hard to beat. I received the new pair the other day and it is a completely different pair of headphones. The midrange coloration is nearly completely gone, the upper mids are more balanced, and the sub bass is less present. I miss the bass, but the headphones are far better balanced overall. Now here is the big question; are the differences between these two due to an update to the model (which they have done at least once) or is it due to manufacturing variation? I didn't write down the serial number of my first pair to compare, but the second pair I received is a bit different physically as well and may be a newer version. The corkscrew cable wrapper has been replaced by a velcro strap. The cable is smoother and less microphonic, but unfortunately even thinner! I though that I may just be misremembering the first pair, but compared to pictures of the DT1350 on the internet the cable on mine is noticeably thinner. The cable on my $25 pair of Koss Portapros is better! I honestly do not understand Beyerdynamic's thinking on this; the thin, tangle prone, non removable cable is by far the worst feature of these cans.If these aren't an update then Beyerdynamic has some serious QC issues, because these two headphones sound completely different. I read a lot of reviews prior to ordering these and wondered why the reviews varied so much. I'm wondering if there is just that much variation between units. Between the crappy cable and the completely different sounds between the two units I received I'm not sure that I would recommend these.