oh alright so i keep my plan then, 560s/ 660s (660s for more than 300$ not worth it) to upgrade later to a 1990 pro unless i get them used like 400 450.
you scared me with that 3 hifiman dead. its really dificult to send them for warranty to me.
thanks for the help man, its really hard to choose when you cant test them before so you sure what you buying.
anything that i could be missing here? or its a good plan?
btw @Falenkor what amp do you recommend for the dt 1990 pro?
Good things here. I’ve made some updates to my overall gear, including updating my headphone amp.
I got a Soundblaster G6 as a secondary device to test the Tempest 3D Audiotech that Sony is hyping up, as they don’t support UAC2 dacs. What I’m wondering is that is this type of setup viable at all:
-Powering the G6 through powered hub/other method.
-PS5 via usb on G6
-Xbox Series X & Other TV sounds via optical in to G6
-Optical out from G6 to my main DAC
-RCA out to Amp.
I know it’s a digital signal and thus wouldn’t have a real difference, but are there any caveats with this passthrough approach? Only use 2.0.
yeah, if you have issues with dealing with potential rma or warranties… I do recommend skipping on a hifiman… I know a lot of people here do swear by the company but I don’t… I have had far too many problems with them to not inform others about their quality issues.
I do wish there was a way for people to try before buying when it comes to this stuff… it really would help its just that most people dont live near audio stores and the like that provide these kinds of things. I happen to live near 3 stores that carry alot of the brands not to mention the pro gamer background so I get around rather easily
not particularly… it sounds like a solid plan… 660 and 1990 both work exceptionally well however both will need an amp. I am not a fan of the sennheisers as like I said… the comfort is a miss for me… the oval cups are very small and are practically on ear for me instead of over ear… which pushes me away from them. No issues with 1990s other than I will say that they are obscenely bright and not for everyone… oh and out of the box new 1990s head clamp as well as sennheiser are just dreadful… you will want to stretch them out over their box or like a foam cube or something for atleast a couple of days especially the sennheiser.
depends on budget… any of the entry levels will do within the $200 price point… you can still stick with a g6 its just not the best audiophile quality… ideally I would say something like a schiit asgard 3 or if that isnt available then lake people amps or maybe a geshelli would work fine… donald dac would be potentially the more extreme case dac for a competitive gamer but I couldn’t care less on that… I would rather suggest someone take the other part of their stack or like a topping e30
from my knowledge and experience g6 works fine connecting with the new gen consoles depending on the setup though youd need specific cables or adapters is all.
to my knowledge this will not work but worth trying I suppose… the optical ports are the ones designed to go to the consoles while the usb is designed for pc or power supply. regardless youd need a kind of adapter for most of this setup… most of this should work and / or can be tested.
I’ve used G6 with USB on PS5 and it works. Also, I’ve had optical in and USB happen at the same time - weirdest mix…
Hmm, comfort is a big deal for me too. I wear headphones almost all the time, both at work and at home. Maybe I’ll wait for the Tygrs and see if I can find a cheap DT990 used for now.
I was thinking of getting a Schiit stack but have also heard good things about the Liquid Spark. I was also debating getting a refurb G6 in addition for portability.
Thanks for the info!
the sennheisers typically share a design with one another… I think a good similarity is if your familiar with the hyperx cloud series over there… as they are relatively close in small oval cup design though sennheiser is a bit tighter on the fitting depending on which your going with. For someone with bigger ears like myself it definitely is quite uncomfortable.
Tygrs are a 32 ohm 990 retuned with dialed back treble but still having a more V shaped yet warmer tuning to them… they share in soundstage and imaging to that of the dt 990. The dt 990 is the superior headphone in technicalities and in terms of treble clarity it should be no brainer that the razor sharp sounding 990 is the clear winner between the two of them however the 990 is so intensely sharp it can be a huge miss for a lot of people or it could sound gorgeous depending on the person… to me they sound fantastic its just the mids sound quite lacking. Both of the two work just fine however 990 easily wins on sound quality between that vs the tygr especially in its 600 ohm variation if one can power them. In terms of comfort and build the tygr uses a lighter build and clamp while the 990 is built a bit sturdier however they use essentially the same pads if the 990 comes with its black pads known as edt 990 vb. It is possible to tame the 990s treble through multiple changes but not to the extent of the same signature the tygr possesses… however, the tygr is not as good on the pad swaps as a 990 and it also isn’t as good on equalizing… its very picky about that. No matter how I look at it the tygr is simply put for gamers who don’t really want to invest towards the amp and dac or rather audiophile market yet want an amazing headphone… 32 ohms is easily to drive for most things however, it still cannot be feasibly driven off the ps4 without an amp to help it along… several motherboards though can run them fine and the new gen consoles can run tygrs without issue ampless. This same ampless feature can be found on 560s and 58x jubilee from sennheiser however tygr easily bests them in terms of soundstage and imaging… tygr 300r over there is essentially, to my knowledge currently, the king of the open back gaming based headphones on the market for a competitive gamer with of course the others being mmx300 again beyerdynamic… which is just the gamer variant of a dt 770. Wireless goes to audeze with their penrose
depends on what your looking for… liquid spark is a great amp especially for 990 but it is a warmer amp with rolled treble. If your looking for a clean sound with good clarity I would take a schiit stack or jds stack instead as the spark will add warmth to headphones(bass tones) and roll the treble(which is what helps deal with the peaky brightness on beyers). Good rule of thumb really for most headphones right now is an amp like asgard 3 as that one seems to get along with just about anything I have thrown out it sub $600.
@Falenkor man, i read your last post and then makes me wonder if for a budget option instead of a 560s go for the DT990 (which is not clear to me if its the 250ohms PRO version or the 990s 600 premium or is it another one) because atm i dont find any 660s used cheap enough which its the headphone i like the most.
I really want the best budget headphone with soundstage/imaging/separation to play valorant/tarkov. and i thknk after rechecking the whole thread that you talk wonders about the 990 in that regard.
Im ready to pull the trigger but i need to know what are the technical details of an amp to drive a 600ohms. as i said before i have a little dot1+ its an hybrid amp with 2 tubes and a ss.
Do you know how much power its the minimum required so i can check the manual. i really love this amp and i gave it too much love with lots of tubes for tube rolling, the best opamp , i dont wanna change it.
Also theres the dekoni pads, do you recommend them? but by any means i dont want to have less soundstage or imaging with the change.
lol, you will get that… the issue is that while both are good… you won’t truly know if you love that headphone less you try it ya know?
For further clarification and for others that are reading(seriously, I have a ton of people that read this so it needs clarified) the beyers ohms are all different. Anything under 250 ohms for the dt series is considered quite bad, which I can verify as I have sat with them… they take a very large sound quality hit and just sound… well… horrible honestly. The only exception to that was dt 770 at 80 ohms which is just like 250 ohms just a bit less on the treble and was bassier pretty much the only change.
As for the pro vs premium. Pro is designed for studio use and comes with a coiled cable meanwhile premium aka edition comes with a straight cable and is designed for regular consumer or home use. They do have a different aesthetic, clamp, and cable and only the premium version can come in 600 ohms… the 600 ohm variations of the dt beyers are that particular headphone in its top form in other words… theoretically its at its best.
600 ohm beyers need a lot of power however, can be driven just fine off of things like g6, liquid spark, etc essentialy any of the entry levels you will see generally recommended can drive them fine… however, and this is a big note… the 600 ohm beyers have a lot of synergy and scaling to take into account… in other words if used on a higher essentially better setup(more expensive obviously) the sound will change by quite a good amount potentially sounding cleaner, crisp, more slam, more spacious, etc. This has its limitations but its something to take note of that a 600 ohm beyer can grow with ones setup if that person plans to upgrade their amp and dac in the future at some point. Though if you plan to get a T1 like what I use or a 1990… go with the budget option for now and just grab the next step up later… as the T1 over there scales just as much as is essentially just the better headphone over the others in most cases… 1990 is a 250 ohm and while scales well only goes so far…
essentially for beyers the max amp price is around… I want to say $400 before its rather negligible on changing its tonality… this is looking at the monoprice liquid platinum if you love the warmer sound of like the liquid spark, jotunheim 2 if you prefer the asgard 3 can also go with a violectric but thats quite expensive, or the rnhp which is that very clean sound that is known to be exceptional with a 1990 as well as focal headphones.
I talk wonders about the 990 because it truly is a special headphone, however it is absolutely without a doubt NOT FOR EVERYONE and I cannot stress that enough. The level of treble from a 990 is quite intensive and can be quite uncomfortable for many people. It also is V shaped so you do not have that mid frequency benefit(the 1990 fixes this btw as does the T1) and you also have a bit too much in the bass(again… the others fix this as well).
I would as said previously reach out to the others on that amp… I have my doubts it will fully drive the 600 ohm variations of the beyers since the little dot was designed more for low impedance.
Sensitivity by voltage: 97.56 dB/V SPL · Sensitivity by power : 95.43 dB/mW SPL · Average impedance : 612.02 ohm Power handling capacity. . . . . . . . . . 100 mW
those are the specs of one of the 600 ohm beyers. 100 mw per channel @ 600 ohms looks to be what you want roughly as the minimum…
if you prefer the sennheisers I would just wait it out then and put up some wanted ads. or at the very least find a way to try them out yourself
@Falenkor well after checking i think it will be underpowered with the little dot because from what i read it has 300mw @ 120ohms // 150mw @ 300ohms
but it not say for 600ohms but i guess it will be around 60mw to 75mw.
being underpowered lose its ability to stay clear and keep the soundstage and imaging? because i still believe its the best choice.
and thanks again for the help man seriously… much love
never underpower a headphone… plain and simple just don’t. Whole world of issues from that ontop of the headphone being quiet
noticed I skipped this comment… dekoni pads for beyers are wonderful… it really just depends on what kind of sound your looking for though. If for competitive gaming though keep it the velour material. Beyers will actually gain a little more soundstage from the thicker dekoni pads without taking a big hit to imaging… its just that the signature changes by any pad swap. I own all the dekoni beyer pad styles except sheepskin which I got rid of as it makes almost of them sound quite bad.
pad rolling changes a headphones signature usually and in the case of beyers… that change is quite significant… something to keep in mind. For example a suede pad will dial back that treble by a pretty drastic amount but at the same time bring up the bass by a drastic amount as well…
@Falenkor oh well, to invest 400$, 200 on the asgard 3 and 200 on the 990, i prefer going for the 1990 pro that i know that my current amp will drive it alot better and i get a endgame headphone.
thanks for the guidance through this process man
@Falenkor quick question bro, pure soundwise not build quality or comfort, DT770 250ohms vs hd 560s for fps gaming, i never considered closed headphones due to its small sounstage and poor separation, but after reading more about headphones in general waiting for a good offer on the dt 1990 , i found that alot of ppl including you like the soundstage and imaging of this headphone for gaming, also its a plus for me to not hear ambient noise in my house. and another plus is that i found the headphone for 140$.
also do you think it could be tweaked via pads to increase the soundstage?
770s can have slightly larger soundstage if you swap the pads but they suffer bass issues in game…
560s are nice… not as good imaging but have slightly above the average soundstage for open back and still very good on the imaging… though quite reference grade in sound with some slight tones of higher treble they are more well rounded than the 770 and fit into more areas due to that… the sound also surrounds the head better due to being open back of course…
regardless I don’t think there is a real clear winner between the two… I would say just go with whichever of those two suits you more as both of them do the job just fine.
I’m bummed out with the never ending out of stock for the tygr 300r. Apparently it’s back ordered, back logged, back whateverd until August. I was thinking of getting other Beyer’s, but with a fiio e10k currently (using a shp9500 for like almost 4 or 5 years), I feel it’s a no go. Don’t really want to invest in a new amp right away. I’ve been seeing the hd560s being compared to the tygr’s. From what I research and what I’ve read from lurking in this thread, seems to be a decent fit for me. Been really into insurgency sandstorm and ironsight recently. They are close quarters fps games for the most part. Probably could save up for a decent amp as my next upgrade. Been eyeing the schiit magni 3+/ heresy since I hear a lot of good about them.
search the used markets… they are quite common… just checked and saw like 3 or 4
Yup just checked too. Listings are a week to a month old. They are all sold even though the listings are there 
. One was a 600ohm mod. Wonder how that works. Probably a driver swap or something?
yea that would be a driver swap probably with a 600 ohm 990 driver… not sure why someone would do that but whatever floats their boat I suppose.
The alternative is the 990 but only if you can tolerate its treble peak and drive it… though its best in its 600 ohm.
560s doesn’t particularly compete with the tygrs and 990 in terms of imaging and staging but it is quite good… just not as good… it does fit into more critieria though as its more of a reference neutral kind of sound
I’d totally go for Beyer’s, no doubt, but my shp9500s’ are like 5 years old and I just need a new set of cans. My plan is after upgrading to the hd560s or whatever I decide soon, in the future I’m probably going to upgrade my fiio e10k to a decent amp. I feel like then I will have a better upgrade path to the Beyer’s or whatever else I decide to get. I just need better cans for now.
Just joined but have been lurking the forums for a bit now. I just wanted to give you another opinion in regards to FPS sounds, as I use my headphones primarily for gaming. I have had the 600ohm DT990 for about a year now, powered by a modi(multibit)/magni 3+ stack. And while they were good the had their issues for me. I recently purchased 560s as a second pair of cans to try to see if something was more of what I was looking for. I really prefer the 560s sound over 990, the soundstage on the 990 is a good bit larger then the 560s, and that was my issue.
They both image phenomenally, but do to the soundstage difference I had a hard time knowing how far things were from me when using my DT990. Things sounded far off from me even if they were right next to me. Accuracy of the sound was good, but not knowing how far that sound actually was annoying and I couldn’t seem to learn to adjust to it. As for the 560s, the sound is good, I would say its not as good as the 990s, but pretty damn close. But to me the soundstage is near perfect for FPS and detail retrieval is top notch. So for me I do prefer the 560s for gaming over the 990.
But I do love soundstage for music listening. So if your use is for mostly gaming I’d lean towards the 560s, but if gaming is second to music I’d go 990.
this isn’t an issue with the game nor the headphones so much as the experience with the person which simply takes time… more specifically is that we are more used to a very small soundstage to begin with coming from gaming headsets which usually have extremely little staging so that level of narrow intimate staging is a bit more comfortable on something like a sennheiser since its more familiar and we are a bit more experienced with that kind of sound presentation.
I personally wouldn’t take the 560s over a 990 but it would depend on the game really… beyers are naturally built tougher so they can potentially outlast the sennheisers but the capabilities of the 990 exceed that of a 560s… however, in games where large soundstage really isn’t particularly necessary… regular cod, overwatch, csgo, etc this really doesn’t matter and 560s works just fine and may be found a bit more comfortable as mentioned due to its familiarity and intimate sound presentation… its due to this that quite a few gamers who frequent the more smaller map style fps games also love the Focals as Focals have exceptional imaging but again a much more intimate presentation to them… while the soundstage is good on them its not as good as the beyers so to speak. Soundstages issues rears up if your playing very large games… hunt showdown, apex in some games, fortnite in some cases, battlefield, arma, planetside, etc those games where the player can be really far away the soundstage can give you just a pure edge on them especially if dealing with someone fireing sniper rounds or something. However, being able to place at a certain distance comes strictly from a players skill… every headphone will distance differently it just takes time from the player to really adapt to this… could even take potentially months. Due to this needing for adapting is another reason I do tell players who come to me for advice to forget about large soundstage headphones if they plan to attend the big league competitives… because by the time your used to large soundstage cans like a beyer your not that used to the junky small soundstage crap you have to use during tournaments which is a big detriment.
nonetheless, I am glad to hear you found that the 560s work for you and that you enjoy both headphones… thanks for swinging by and dropping your thoughts on it