- I need clarity and headphones that don’t hide my mixing sins
- Moving from closed to open back is a huge upgrade
- But open-back headphones and vocal recording don’t mix
One of the best things about being an adult is that you don’t have to ask Santa for presents: you can just buy them for yourself. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with my latest audio upgrade. To end the year, I just upgraded my work headphones to the Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro – and I’m glad I did.
I already had a pair of Beyerdynamic headphones, the DT770 Pro. I use them for recording music and for mixing and they are very good. But the DT990 Pro is even better because they are open. It makes a huge difference to making music and also to listening to it.
As someone who writes about music and reviews audio equipment, I’m a bit spoiled: I have a set of headphones close at hand that cost more than 10 times the price of my Christmas gift to myself, so I’m not short of good sound options.
But the best headphones aren’t necessarily the smartest or most expensive: they’re the ones that do what you want them to do for the price you want to pay. And the price I would pay was well under £200/$200.
What’s so great about the DT990 Pro?
Don’t get me wrong. The DT770 Pro are pretty good headphones, which is why they’re a popular choice for musicians and producers. But even though they and the DT990 are sonically similar, the transition from closed to open back makes a huge difference in relation to the sound image, which feels wider and more detailed.
Listening critically to your mix is really helpful because it allows you to see things that other headphones might hide.
The other big difference I’ve noticed is the comfort. My previous Beyerdynamics are great, but the DT990 Pro is better. They feel a little looser (a lot of headphones fit me pretty tight because I have a head the size of a planet) and the ear cups feel softer. I’ve already done a few very long shifts wearing the new headphones and I pretty much forgot I had them on.
The big downside for music is that closed-back headphones leak, and because I listen pretty loud, they leak one lot. This makes them a poor choice for recording vocals because everything you hear goes straight back into the mic. But then I already have the solution to that: I just replace them with the DT770s when tracking vocals.
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