If anyone is interested Iāve made my own review of it.
You can check it outā¦ at least for some nice pictures 
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After some sound advice on here Iāve just received my dt1990 as an upgrade to my x2hr and to complement my athm50xs running from my adi-2 dac amp. Iāve set the oratory 1990 harman curve on peace apo and listened to a few tracks. Early impressions are smooth and rich sounding, slightly recessed vocals with instruments mixing nicely. Bass is great deep and clear and smooth. Feels like a solid improvement over the x2hr, which sound good but do distort a little sooner so canāt quite sound as full. Overall think this will keep me satisfied for a long time. Lots to play with and get to understand different sound set ups.
Amazing you got it so soon.
First off, what ear pads are you using? Hopefully the analytical, since thatās what Oratory1990ās EQ is based on. If so, that means you switched to them from the balanced pads. How did that go?
Second, have you tried using Oratoryās 5-band EQ on your ADI? (Thatās what it was written for.)
Third, you might want to experiment reducing the notorious Harman bass boost of the EQ by various amounts. I wonder if that wouldnāt help with the vocal recession you mentionā¦
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Itās the balanced ear pads, not tried to swap them yet. I did notice the oratory 1990 EQ was for the A pads but tried it and felt it sounded better than no EQ, although I donāt think the treble is as harsh as some say. I use the m50s for my synth and piano mainly as they are great with studio gear. So want the dt1990 more for music listening pleasure and think the balanced pads are better for this? Would the analytical be closer to say a sennheiser flat neutral hp? Is there another EQ for the balanced pads? Not tried the rme one yet as still learning how to do it, much more fiddly than peace. Pity there isnāt a windows vst editor for the rme so could run like a plugin. The improvement over the x2hr is good and mostly seems that can run about 10db louder with no loss of quality or distortion.
Hereās roughly how the balanced and analytical pads compare:
Youād almost be better off with no EQ than piling the Harman bass boost on top of the balanced padās bass boost. In your original post in the other thread you said you were looking for a neutral sound for relaxed listening. The balanced pads, despite their name, are the opposite of neutral. Bass boosts that bleed into the mid-range sacrifice vocal naturalness for the sake of bass fun (ditto for much instrumental range). Just depends what a given listener considers important.
Certainly not from Oratory, maybe elsewhere.
Gotcha. of course then just leave that for a rainy day. Instead, to compensate for having the balanced pads on, try using the 5-band EQ in Peace (the 5-band will work there just as well as on the RME) but leave out the 1st band and increase the 2nd bandās dB value for a further 2 or 3 dB reduction.
Well that was short lived! I listened intently to the dt1990 alongside the x2hr and the differences are really small, the dts are a bit cleaner in the bass and soundstage is a bit smaller, but in the end I just couldnāt justify the Ā£370 cost over the philips x2hrs. Build quality was awesome too, but even my superlux 681 evos with EQ where not that far behind, and both these and the x2hr were similar to the dt1990. My ath m50x are different, but in a good way definitely clearer / cleaner in sound. Maybe my hearing/listening skills are not so good, so back to the drawing board.
My original thought was a clear relaxed sound, and donāt think I need as much bass warmth as Iāve got this already. Still tempted by either the sundara or maybe sennheiser - think Iām looking for something a little different from my existing cans.
Cheers
Iām going to assume youāre EQing these three headphones to the same frequency response, perhaps the Harman target, plus matching their loudness levels using pink noise or similar. Eliminating FR differences can indeed significantly reduce the obviousness of differences between headphones.
I donāt have the Philips, but I do have the 1990 and the M50x. Listening to both EQād to the same tuning, I hear similar levels of detail ā which may be due to my not having as good an amp/dac as you ā but the 1990 simply has a more authoritative, more refined, and tighter/cleaner over-all sound with a larger sound stage. Iām listening to a well-recorded piano concerto, BTW, since for me a dense mix of all-acoustic instruments really puts headphones to the test. Not sure how music choice would lnfluence our respective evaluations.
FWIW, I seem to recall more than one reviewer saying that the Sundara is over-all similar to the DT 1990 in level of detail. Which Sennheiser
Yes thatās right, still with peace epo and also hesuvi for a quick harman curve set up, then tweak a bit to taste. Not explored my rme EQ yet but I do like EQ to improve each track, although some sound better with no EQ. Listening to a lot of George Michael and daft punk for the moment, and both seem well suited to my x2hr and also the dt1990. Was originally thinking 560s for a more open balanced classical music sound, mainly piano and orchestra. Iām happy with x2hr for warmth so more about wide sound stage, instrument separation and general openness.
Perhaps I can further EQ the x2hr to sound this way, but would like one more complementary headphone for my collection! Maybe worth trying a planar instead?
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Was one of my favorite headphones. Iāve used that headphone for almost 4 years and really loved that.
Would this be a straight upgrade for the 990 600ohm? Or would I sacrifice some of the sparkly airy treble for better mids, more forward vocals, and better detail?
upgrade? no, different? yes. 1990 is a mix of two headphones in one with it having two sets of pads A and B. A pads are similar to 880 which is a more neutral bright approach and B pads are a V signature like the 990. pads can be identified by the holes in the backā¦ A has the least amount of punch holes and B has holes punched all around the back. Less brightness and less air, still crazy soundstage and imaging. Detail retrieval may actually be better as it is to my earā¦ some have mentioned they donāt find the 1990 worth the extra cash flow so your results may vary. Personally, I prefered it moreā¦ easier to use on the regular for me though I do wish it was 600 ohm for better scalingā¦ I ended up preferring T1.2 over all others though. in terms of the mids of the 1990 though they are better than the 990 considering 990 has recession while the 1990 does not so they are most definitely more present and clearer. Hope that helps!
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For sure helpful thanks!
For what music genres do they work really well/best?
For me, thereās something special about 1990s and Jazz, using the analytical pads. Specifically, Bebop and Hard-bop are major standouts.
Do they sound better on balanced ,single ended or same???
The DT 1990 is a single ended headphone. You would need to modify it to make it balanced. You should not try and plug it into a balanced port as that can short the two grounds.
yeah if i modify it for balanced will it be better? I want to buy asgard 3 or magnius as my amp but heard asgard is better but no balanced.
I havenāt modified my set, Iāll leave it as single ended as I donāt have a reason to change it. If you are looking for different tuning for it then I would recommend pad swapping between the balanced and analytical or even third party Dekoni pads before opening it.
This change can make it warmer or brighter depending on your preference.
Your question may be around power though if you are asking about balanced. Both of those amps should be enough to power the headphones.