šŸ”¶ Beyerdynamic T1 Gen3

How would you compare the T1.3 with DT1990 now that you have more experience it?

Edit: @Falenkor

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lol had to tag me eh? Alright, Brief summarizing cause I am rather tired here. May update this later, may not. Depends if I want to come back to this once I am fully awake tomorrow lol.

T1 3rd gen vs 1990

With Dampener: Bass galore extremely deep, extremely warm, very impactful but still rounded off vs neutral bass with a planar like slam and good impact, pushed back mids still detailed and noticeably warm in the lower mids but theres definitely a dip potentially in the upper mids vs relatively neutral clean and very apparent mids that sound somewhat forward, extremely smooth detailed treble but very dark sounding vs peaky as hell somewhat grainy and sibilant in some cases depending on the recording, also downright revealing and ā€œover detailedā€. Rich rather full and large presentation vs aggressive, rather lite yet large presentation. Fun vs studio analytical. Yes, I am taking into account that 1990 has B pads even then, T1.3 is bassier itā€™s just crazy warm.

Without Dampener. Bass is still somewhat elevated or warm vs neutral(or around the same with B pads), Mids are definitely more apparent and front and center with a lot of detail and texture especially on female vocals vs while very neutral and clean it just doesnā€™t sound as good here for the 1990 in my opinion(B pads make the mids sound more recessed due to the added bass. Then again in my opinion T1.2 always had a slight edge in the vocals if driven correctly so without dampener I am glad this is still a thing). Bright, revealing, yet still very smooth, teetering on potential sibilance but not going over the edge vs peaky, some grain, and sibilant in some areas. Presentation wise, T1 sounds more full and has a lot of texture and detail without that grainy ness yet still becomes revealing and quite analytical it can definitely pick apart a bad recording granted not as well as the 1990

Gaming? 1990 takes the win over budget. Sound Versatility ignoring pricepoint? T1.3 wins hands down. 1990 wins on competitive gaming due to the best tuning needed for such a thing, T1 wins in being the all rounder and downright way better for movies and podcasts at the same time removal of the dampener makes it incredibly good for competitives outside the slight bass thump you get from time to time that will get in the way of things

Sound quality? Bright headphone wise I think the 1990 sounds more detailed maybe a bit more textured until you remove that dampenerā€¦ once you remove that dampener that T1.3 really comes alive against a 1990ā€¦ Bass wise the dampener being in the T1.3 is quite overbearing itā€™s just so incredibly aggressive it attacks your ears very very warm headphone

Would I personally buy the T1.3? (it was a gift after all) No, not at $1000. Much like the clears I wouldnā€™t buy that at $1000+ either. Around $800 maybe $900? yeah I can see thatā€¦ if its at $750? Oh 100% at that point any lower than that and its a incredible deal Speaking of $800 they are priced this way over here https://audio46.com/products/beyerdynamic-t1-high-end-tesla-headphones-3rd-gen-open-box?variant=36428019368092&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=Google%20Shopping incase you wanna snag one :wink: one left better be quick

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lol yeah sorry, youā€™re one of the few that I know that own both and is a competitive gamer. Thank you so much for the write-up, it was really helpful!

Got to hear a pair of these a while ago, never commented on it, imo not worth lol. I really donā€™t like what they did for this headphone, and the asking price is way too high imo, it feels like a souped up tygr almost, which is fine on itā€™s own, but combine the lackluster performance for the asking price, and the fact that imo it replaced a headphone that ended up being superior to it in most ways I can think of, Iā€™m pretty disappointed. I guess if there was something positive I could say itā€™s that it offers good performance with lackluster amps, but admittedly if you were buying in this price range anyway you would be willing to invest in a proper signal chain so it wouldnā€™t matter as much in the end

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A hard pass? :joy:

Itā€™s not a bad headphone to be clear, itā€™s just that for how itā€™s positioned and what it replaces would make it a hard pass for me. I think if they dropped the price by 500 and didnā€™t put it under the t line, it could be more reasonable like a successor to an amiron home and for 500 bucks thatā€™s more reasonable. But man I just so much prefer the 1.2 in every way lol in terms of both signature and technicalities. Even if you are a fan of the signature of the 1.3, it just doesnā€™t have the capabilities as the 1.2, and also canā€™t scale like the 1.2 either, I sure hope these drop down to like 400 used where it could be a reasonable upgrade for someone who likes the sound of the tygr almost. This does remind me of when the 660s came out and sounded pretty different from the previous 6?? headphones, but the difference is that there were some more compelling reasons to go for a 660s (for myself I still prefer a 600 or 650 depending on the amp, but I can acknowledge the 660s benefits over the older 6 series), and they still sell the 600 and 650 (and while the 660s was expensive it isnā€™t as badly priced as the 1.3), whereas beyer just kinda messed up here to me lol

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Soā€¦ I am quite curious how much the T1.3 sounds in comparison to the T1.2. Mind you, I am using the Dekoni Fenestrated pads with the T1.3 and most of the time I have the dampeners removed. (Currently I have them in because with the Fenestrated pads it seems to balance the sound out a bit while keeping the dampeners in.)

@M0N did you try the headphone out without the dampeners remove?

Does it sound a bit closer to the T1.2 when removed? (asking cause I havenā€™t heard the T1.2 version.)

Unfortunately I did not, wasnā€™t my pair so I wasnā€™t going to mess with it. I will say stock they donā€™t really sound much alike, perhaps you could say they have some beyer blood in them but itā€™s a pretty massive deviation from the 1.2 and the rest of the beyers imo. You get almost a more consumer esque tuning to them, this means really quelling down the beyer treble (which might be a plus for some), get a bit of a warmer v shaped sound actually, interesting but not my jam, the biggest offender to me was the poor technicalities. I do think it could have more impact in the bass than the t1.2, but it was nowhere near as controlled, textured, and detailed at the same time, sounded bloated and flabby. Soundstage did get a bit more width but lost a ton of depth and didnā€™t have really all that organic placement as the 1.2 can. The midrange did sound a bit thicker on the 1.3, but it also had not as good timbre, was a bit smeared, and didnā€™t really sound all that detailed or nuanced imo. Treble wise the t1.3 did remove some of the brightness and smoothed things out, but itā€™s nowhere as detailed and sounds somewhat veiled whereas the 1.2 has much more openness and sparkle without being offensive imo, while still having that better detail. In terms of dynamics the 1.2 was more accurate for how things should sound whereas the 1.3 sounded a bit artificial, not compressed but just dynamics were slightly off imo. Generally ignoring the signature change the 1.3 is a sizable step down in technical performance imo. For what overall frequency response you prefer will most likely be preference, but really itā€™s a shame how limited the 1.3 feels at times, and I would argue that once you get into these higher end headphones that raw frequency response really doesnā€™t matter all that much and the sound is moreso colored by other aspects of the headphone.

Now something to keep in mind about these impressions is that this is with ideal source gear selection for the t1.2, they are incredibly dependent on the source gear used for their performance and can scale like crazy if you let them. I did try some more budget amp pairings, and while it did reduce the massive performance gap between the two, I still preferred the t1.2 overall unless it was plugged into my phone or the most budget amps where I think the 1.2 got too unpleasant and unimpressive. Generally I found that I didnā€™t always like the same chains for the headphones, on some the t1.2 sounded excellent the 1.3 sounded meh, and vice versa depending on the amp and dac used. The t1.2 was clearly more demanding and picky than the 1.3 as the 1.3 never really sounded bad on any of the higher end stuff I threw at it, whereas the 1.2 let me know when I had a bad match and rewarded me when I had a good one lol. I have a feeling that by making the t1.3 easy to drive and also not source gear picky they have handicapped itā€™s ability to scale and somewhat limited what it is technically capable of, so thatā€™s rather disappointing imo.

If you want to hear what classic beyer can sound like, a dt880 600 ohm or potentially a 990 600 ohm (as that might have more in line with the t1.2 signature wise but itā€™s still different, whereas the 880 600 is going to be closer to the t1.2 in technical aspects, but neither headphones are on the same technical level of course) is a great option and I would highly suggest grabbing one as imo they are great cans that you can scale with later on with better quality source gear. An interesting note is that with the chains I have I can actually get the 880 600 ohm to similar or higher technical performance levels than the t1.3 with actually more refinement, but with most entry to midrange amps and some of the entry level high end the t1.3 should still pull ahead on a technical front over the 880 600 ohm, but it was interesting to experience.

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Yea I do have the DT 880. When I got it (I think it was about 6 months ago now) I also bought the Asgard 3 around that time. I have recently upgraded to the Bifrost 2 which is really nice. The DT 880 does sound really solid on my current setup.

So with that said would say using the T1.2 version on that said chain perform pretty well then?

If you liked what the 880 has to offer and wanted to get something that is an upgrade in technicalities but a bit of a side grade in signature, a 1.2 is a worthwhile buy. I would say that perhaps consider upgrading your source gear if you do go with it, you are just fine with the bf2, but on the amp front you might want to take that next step (either tube or ss depending on preference). I will say if you are liking the 1.3, just stick with that, but if you wanted to be closer to that 880 type sound then the 1.2 might make more sense

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Ok cool, thanks for the suggestion.

Probably think on that for a bit thenā€¦ trying to take a break from spending. Think I went a little to quick and to fast in the last year or so lol. But I did learn a lot. This forum and the community has been quite helpful.

the crazy thing is that when you remove that dampener, it becomes rather close to the 1.2. I completely agree that the price tag is a bit ridiculousā€¦ I donā€™t see it truly worth $1000 margin. Itā€™s practically a slightly modded low ohm 1.2 with a real thick piece of felt on that driver. If it does go to likeā€¦ $500 - $600 range I could definitely see it being worthwhile, especially if you like the Tygrā€™s signature because you gain that darker bassy signature but removing the felt gives you a real nice brighter signature as wellā€¦ two for the price of one similar to the 1990 and its pad swaps. As of right now though, in terms of scaling 1.2 easily beats out 1.3 in my book.

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So mainly in terms of signature correct then when you remove the felt?

yeah, the bass dials back and the brightness picks up big time definitely above neutral you get that signature beyer brightness back the moment you take that felt out. I have seen a few make the comment that they prefer the third gen without that felt in.

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Alright soā€¦ picked up the T1.2. Been listening to it through my Modius/Maginus stack. ā€¦really wished I had heard this headphone first lol. Itā€™s more resolving. Also comparing the T1.3 with the dampeners off, the T1.2 is still a bit more cleaner sounding. Was really hoping I would not enjoy this more, cause I picked it up hoping that hey they are close in sound and I wouldnā€™t hear a differenceā€¦ but nopeā€¦ now decisions will need to be made lolā€¦ damn.

Yeah it really is pretty different lol, and it gets even more different as you go up amp wise

@M0N what would you suggest to go with the Bifrost 2 for an amp pairing to use with the T1.2?

Tube or solid state? And what type of signature would you want to tilt it towards (or what aspects would you want to focus on)? Also Iā€™m going to assume under 1k?

I think I will stick with solid state for now. Since it is a bit of a warm headphone, probably want to swing the other way a tad? I donā€™t want to make them any warmer sounding than they are. I think itā€™s decent where it is. And yea under 1k would be ideal.

Hmmm most of the stuff I tend to like with the 1.2 tends to be tube (the hagerman tuba sounds like something you might like with it, neutral clean and resolving while being organic). Another tube amp that I shouldnā€™t be suggesting since you are leaning solid state would be a used ray samuels raptor (used 750 ish typically) is a neutral cleaner tube amp, really punchy and energetic, pretty sweet.

On solid state generally I might say something like a rnhp if you wanted to prioritize treble and midrange organicness and also really good spatial recreation although itā€™s not the most impactful as a combo (but still really good). A lake people g111 is also pretty solid imo, pretty neutral studio clean, a bit dry but pretty high preforming with great impact and width

Unfortunately a lot of the good stuff I like with the 1.2 tends to be just right outside the 1k price range