Need more advice on headphones

[martward]

Hi all,

 

 

I recently made some posts about headphones and got some great response. After this I went to a couple of stores where they had (most of) the headphones I was interested in.

For some reason the DT770 PROs sounded quite awful to me, much worse than the ATH-M50X (sorry @rice guru ). However my girlfriend, who is planning to gift me the headphones for my birthday, says I should get bluetooth headphones since she expects I am going to want to have bluetooth headphones in the future (don't tell her I said this, but she tends to be right).

So now I'm thinking about the Audio Technica M50xbt and SR50bt and the Sony WH1000xm3 (the latter one I find way too expensive). I didn't like the sound of the Bose QCX35II.

 

(TLDR;) My main question is this: I'm mostly going to use headphones behind my desk, where I plan to connect them using a 3.5mm jack. I was thinking of getting a FiiO e10k since my laptop isn't exceptionally good soundwise (as far as I can tell). Now I've heard people say that the Sony's have an internal dac so hooking them to a dac doesn't do anything. This sound odd if they are hooked up via the jack since the jack already carries an analogous signal afaik. 

Does it make sense to buy the Sony's and then hook em up via a cable? I've heard the M50xbt sound better over a cable than wireless, which would make sense for me since I will using them mostly wired.

 

Thanks

[ShearMe]

Don't bother hooking bluetooth headphones up via a cable. The WH1000xm3 is a very good set of cans; I'd put them somewhere near the HD650. Using them in noisy environments has made them one of my favorite purchases.

[martward]

17 minutes ago, ShearMe said:

Don't bother hooking bluetooth headphones up via a cable. The WH1000xm3 is a very good set of cans; I'd put them somewhere near the HD650. Using them in noisy environments has made them one of my favorite purchases.

 

The thing is that my home pc doesn't have bluetooth, and at work I use Linux (which should work, but then again it's Linux so who knows what may happen). Because of those reasons and that I plan to use them multiple hours a day I will probably have them wired regularly if not always. Since bluetooth and anc are rather low on my priority list I'm unsure whether the Sony's are worth the extra over the $100 cheaper AudioTechnica's, so if wired is not that good on the Sony's that would be pretty problematic for me.

[rice guru]

Hey man that's your taste not gonna fault that. I also like the odd headphone people tend to hate.  out of pure curiously what was wrong with the 770? 

 

Also from my experience most Bluetooth headphones don't sound great wired just generally. So what I would do is find a headphone you like for home that's wired and and a separate headphone for wireless. I'm also a big fan of the xm3. But since our tastes don't seem to match give them a try first and you can find some pretty cheap pretty decent wired heapdhones. 

[martward]

1 minute ago, rice guru said:

Hey man that's your taste not gonna fault that. I also like the odd headphone people tend to hate.  out of pure curiously what was wrong with the 770? 

 

Also from my experience most Bluetooth headphones don't sound great wired just generally. So what I would do is find a headphone you like for home that's wired and and a separate headphone for wireless. I'm also a big fan of the xm3. But since our tastes don't seem to match give them a try first and you can find some pretty cheap pretty decent wired heapdhones. 

Sorry I forgot to mention, I already tried the xm3's and they sounded very good. Though I didn't think they were better in terms of sound quality than the m50x (I should note that I tried these two in separate stores).

It's just that I've read multiple people saying the xm3's are pretty bad when not turned on, however with the m50xbt I heard it's only a little better wired than wireless. 

I'm thinking of ordering the m50xbt and the sr50bt and then send one of them back, or both if they are significantly worse than the xm3's or m50x.

 

On why I didn't like the 770's, maybe it's because I used them without a dac/amp, though I tried the 32 ohm and 80 ohm so it shouldn't be necessary? They just sounded a bit dark and slightly muffled I guess, I'm not sure I explain it correctly but they just weren't as "clear" as I had expected or hoped.  

 

I wanted to give the K361 and K371 a chance, but there are no stores I can try these out or order them and easily return them unfortunately.

[ShearMe]

1 hour ago, martward said:

The thing is that my home pc doesn't have bluetooth, and at work I use Linux (which should work, but then again it's Linux so who knows what may happen). Because of those reasons and that I plan to use them multiple hours a day I will probably have them wired regularly if not always. Since bluetooth and anc are rather low on my priority list I'm unsure whether the Sony's are worth the extra over the $100 cheaper AudioTechnica's, so if wired is not that good on the Sony's that would be pretty problematic for me.

OH. Well, before now I will honestly say I've never tried that functionality. So here it goes...

 

You lose the DSP when you plug straight in. You can use them powered off, but lose pretty much all bass response. All three modes sound pretty different and I would say that the headphones sound bad when not using the bluetooth functionality. I wanna say... echo-y, like the drivers aren't physically tuned to the housing at all.

[rice guru]

1 hour ago, martward said:

Sorry I forgot to mention, I already tried the xm3's and they sounded very good. Though I didn't think they were better in terms of sound quality than the m50x (I should note that I tried these two in separate stores).

It's just that I've read multiple people saying the xm3's are pretty bad when not turned on, however with the m50xbt I heard it's only a little better wired than wireless. 

I'm thinking of ordering the m50xbt and the sr50bt and then send one of them back, or both if they are significantly worse than the xm3's or m50x.

 

On why I didn't like the 770's, maybe it's because I used them without a dac/amp, though I tried the 32 ohm and 80 ohm so it shouldn't be necessary? They just sounded a bit dark and slightly muffled I guess, I'm not sure I explain it correctly but they just weren't as "clear" as I had expected or hoped.  

 

I wanted to give the K361 and K371 a chance, but there are no stores I can try these out or order them and easily return them unfortunately.

Ah I see that's a bit odd the 80 ohm for a lot of people is the brightest out of the three and seems to be too bright for many. The 250 ohm are my favorites out of the 3. For a slightly brighter headphone maybe the one more triple drivers are good.  The the akg k361 might be up your alley then cause they are fairly bright. And if your into bright then your choose of the m50x makes a lot more sense to me. 

[martward]

46 minutes ago, rice guru said:

Ah I see that's a bit odd the 80 ohm for a lot of people is the brightest out of the three and seems to be too bright for many. The 250 ohm are my favorites out of the 3. For a slightly brighter headphone maybe the one more triple drivers are good.  The the akg k361 might be up your alley then cause they are fairly bright. And if your into bright then your choose of the m50x makes a lot more sense to me. 

I was surprised as well, but I tried two of the dt770pro's at 80 ohm's and two other people with me, and we all heard the same. I'm really curious about the akg's but I don't dare to take the risk ordering them from abroad and not liking them, especially since I know I like the m50x and I can buy them locally for about the same cost.

 

1 hour ago, ShearMe said:

OH. Well, before now I will honestly say I've never tried that functionality. So here it goes...

 

You lose the DSP when you plug straight in. You can use them powered off, but lose pretty much all bass response. All three modes sound pretty different and I would say that the headphones sound bad when not using the bluetooth functionality. I wanna say... echo-y, like the drivers aren't physically tuned to the housing at all.

Yes that was what I was worried about, thanks for confirming. I think I'll probably try the Audiotechnica's with Bluetooth and pick either one of them or the wired m50x.

 

Thanks both of you!

[rice guru]

1 hour ago, martward said:

I was surprised as well, but I tried two of the dt770pro's at 80 ohm's and two other people with me, and we all heard the same. I'm really curious about the akg's but I don't dare to take the risk ordering them from abroad and not liking them, especially since I know I like the m50x and I can buy them locally for about the same cost.

 

Yes that was what I was worried about, thanks for confirming. I think I'll probably try the Audiotechnica's with Bluetooth and pick either one of them or the wired m50x.

 

Thanks both of you!

Possible you have got the worse newer versions of the 770. Beyerdynamic made some pretty bad batches of them that sounded significantly worse and someone on Reddit brought it up pretty recently. Not sure if it's been fixed but possible just not for you in all honesty.

[martward]

15 minutes ago, rice guru said:

Possible you have got the worse newer versions of the 770. Beyerdynamic made some pretty bad batches of them that sounded significantly worse and someone on Reddit brought it up pretty recently. Not sure if it's been fixed but possible just not for you in all honesty.

That could be it. I was really surprised to be honest, maybe if I'd try them for long enough I would get used to them and like them a lot. Since it's a birthday present (and a quite expensive one at that) I'm not willing to risk buying something and then replacing it within a year because I couldn't get used to it.

[rice guru]

2 hours ago, martward said:

That could be it. I was really surprised to be honest, maybe if I'd try them for long enough I would get used to them and like them a lot. Since it's a birthday present (and a quite expensive one at that) I'm not willing to risk buying something and then replacing it within a year because I couldn't get used to it.

True had that happen to me pretty recently I just sent it back after 3 months cause I noticed too many problems.