đŸ”¶ Beyerdynamic DT880 600Ω

Just mod them balanced and they become easier to drive.

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But i would have to open them. then move all the wires and stuff around. then use a soldering iron. and i havent used one in years. and id have to drill holes in it. i just
just
ugh :sweat:

I mean, you could just go pay for them to be modded ya know lol.

Who does that?

Dude has been recommended quite a lot for his service he apparently does a damn good job at it. He has also mentioned he can probably work on the tygr too. Theres a few others of course out there but he is someone I see recommended quite a lot

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You don’t have to drill holes to mod them balanced (have a look here: The lazy person's *reversible* DT880/600_Ohm balanced mod) but you have to solder some wires - which I consider to be quite easy.
Before you start excessive amp-shopping I really recommend you to test them balanced with a THX 789. For me, they are outstanding this way.

Having told you that, I did some amp shopping myself and got the Beyerdynamic A20 amp for about 200 EUR used here in Germany a few days ago. Merely out of curiosity what the 100 Ohm output impedance might bring out of the DT880/600 and since I heard my Beyer T1 (1st Gen.; 600 Ohm; I also modded that one balanced) with it once and wanted to own it anyway. The T1 is really driven very nicely and be assured that all my high impedance headphones are loud enough on the A20 (100 mW at 600 Ω, 170 mW at 250 Ω and 150 mW at 30 Ω). Of course that does not mean, that they are driven well. The damping factor with this amp really limits the use of lower impedance headphones. The T1 and the A20 are a nearly perfect match, the DT1990 is ok but the DT880/600 sounds “well” but is much more airy, well-defined, controlled, etc. on the THX789. I run both amps of the RME ADI-2 DAC (THX: balanced XLR, A20 RCA). Might not be a fair comparison since the balanced DAC output may give the THX a little bit more swing in its input


BTW - talking about amp shopping; my 600 Ohm Beyer DTs do not sound great on a RebelAmp I also bought last Month - some other headphones are a heavenly match with the rebel on the other hand).

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replying to myself since having a look at my post, I might sound a bit like a Beyerdynamic Fanboy
 I am not :slight_smile:
I actually usually lean more towards planars (Sundara, HifiMan HE400i, M1060(mod), Blue Ella, Phantoms
) and some other dynamics (Sen HD660s, 6xx, NDH20, Vokyl, Helios, AKG 
). The DT990 pro are the only headphones a gave away as a free bonus gift when I sold a (second) XD05 amp years ago since I simply could not stand the beyer-peak. And the beyer MMX300(2) are the only headphones I returned within 24hrs since their highs killed me. I do however also own the Tygrs and Aventho+Amiron wireless from them (might be a fanboy after all)


So if I say that the DT880/600(balanced) driven by the THX789 are my best set, you may consider this.

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For anyone’s interest, on beyer’s site you can customize the headphone with a different attached cable (e.g. shorter) or even colours and engravings. No balanced optioin though. It is on the european site so i don’t know whether this service is also available for US customers.

LakePeople has them sometimes as jumpers in the device, the RNHP does not have any gain switch.
It is a set it and forget it kind of deal.

That’s only a europe option unfortunately. One of my favorite dt 990 designs came from that stuff

Wish they had this stuff for dt 1990 and T1!

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iFi does this or at least used to. They had jumpers on the bottom to change gain. Violectric puts them on the back. Makes the amp work with almost anything. They call it “pre-gain”.

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Thanks for sharing your experience with the A20 amp! :+1:
Have you tried removing (bypassing) the 100 ohm resistors on the A20 amp to lower the output impedance? I saw this mentioned in another forum but haven’t heard any reviews of someone who’s actually done it though. I’m planning to try it when mine arrives but I’m not sure that I have enough experience to tell the difference? We’ll see


(The mod was mentioned by RĆȘDOLFS PUTNIƅƠ in a comment on February 4, 2014)


Beyerdynamic’s reasoning for the high output impedence:

I guess I will be taking another hard look at the THX 789 now

Would you say that it’s a good combination for gaming?
And do you have any experience with the Asgard 3?

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Beyer’s response to that question is interesting :face_with_monocle:. It’s odd they mentioned nothing about the sound in there. Once reason they make 250+ ohm cans was because the headphone outputs on many receivers/amps have large resistors to reduce the amount of energy that comes from the amp before it blows up a headphone. Using a low impedance headphone with a large output impedance can cause big changes frequency response. So, by driving up headphone impedance they removed the output impedance factor. I would have guessed that one reason they put a large output impedance on their amp is because they designed their high-impedance headphones to be used with a high output impedance.

Thanks for sharing this, btw. Fascinating.

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lol tazerous the dt 880 in general is good for gaming especially competitive. I don’t think you really need to worry about that one. It’s quite something in that regard. It’s just not bass heavy so for the bass lover who wants immersion
 best look elsewhere

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nice. but kinda expensive. especially for 3 headphones. think i’ll stick with trying to find a good amp. the lake people looks very good

I don’t see it as too much honestly. Though, most people I don’t think are going to own all 3 lol. I own the 990s but I won’t be modding them
 I just want my tygrs modded.

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No, I did not try to bypass the A20 output resistors. Actually I bought it to have an amp with a high output resistance matching my high-impedance Beyerdynamics. I am still a bit puzzled how well it drives both my 600 Ohm headphones (in terms of “loudness”) although the output is “only” 100 mW at 600 Ω (THX 789 balanced= 400mW at 600 Ohm).

One of the design criteria for high output impedance from the Beyerdynamic engineers is working indeed. The Volume setting is relatively Independent from the headphone impedances. Of course it differs with sensitivity, etc. But whatever headphone I plug in, I barely have move the volume knob. Low impedance phones sound off however.
Again, the A20 is a very good match for my T1 (1stGen; 600 Ohm) but the DT880/600 really shines on the THX balanced.

I have no experience with the Asgard 3 although I am quite curious how it performs. Getting Schiit products in Europe is a pain 
 and my budget is a bit depleted with the RebelAmp and the A20 now.

One amp I forgot which “kind-of-drives” the DT880/600 is my portable ifi iDSD Micro (silver, not the black label). It has a “turbo” gain setting switch I never used before which outputs (SE)
10.0V/4,000 mW @ 16 Ohm; >1560 mW @ 64 Ohm; > 166 mW @ 600 Ohm
It is definitely “loud” and not bad but it is not really driving the DT880 to its full performance.

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Modding the A20 to have 0 or any other resistance is relatively easy.

I circled the resistors (101 means 10 x 10^1 = 100), put a second 100 next to them for 50 Ohm, put a wire link next to the resistors for 0 ohm etc.

Makes one wonder if they could not have included a jumper or so


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It seems like an odd choice unless it’s a brute force attempt to limit current in the case of an accidental short.

Sorta kinda, yes.
The big solder pads on either end to the resistors shows they expect those to get warm

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