[Review] Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro

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Background

 

I’m a major fanboy of the Beyerdynamic headphone design.  About a year ago they released this headphone, and it flew under the radar for me a bit at the time, mostly because it looks exactly the same as every other headphone they’ve ever made, all the way down to the metal forks.  Their major selling point was that you could change how it looked, and I found it a pretty silly concept since they required four Allen wrench screws to be removed to change out the side panels.  Also a sliding bass port, because we figure the average consumer wants to fiddle with their frequency response.  Nothing to see here, move along.  Or was there more than met the eye?

 

I was re-introduced to this headphone when I was forced to refute its compatibility with yet another 10 Ohm output-impedanced soundcard.  I took a look at the specs, which are pretty standard fair these day for low impedance headphones with light drivers.  96 db/mW SPL, 5Hz-35KHz frequency response, 16 Ohms impedance.  Wait? Sixteen Ohm impedance?  If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought you were looking at a pair of earbuds.  These definitely aren’t earbuds, they’re headphones.  Which means Beyerdynamic had just done something insane, they’d jumped under the 32 Ohms limit, whereby their headphone would surely play with way too little bass in the average Joe’s mp3 player or smartphone.

 

Nominal impedance is an AVERAGE measurement across a headphone’s frequency range.  Perhaps “16 Ohms” was a bit more variable, or the lowest frequency measurement (As it’s a trick used by a number of headphone manufactures)?  I looked up the headphone measurement from innerfidelity:

 

 

There’s the trick!  To combat poor amplifier output impedance, the Custom One Pro was design to crank up the impedance about 150% between around 50 and 500 Hz.  If you look at MOST headphones, their impedance curve is quite flat until 15Khz (some, ruler flat!).  With this curve, the headphone will sound fine in a good source, but in a poor source the output impedance will be resisted twice as much between the frequencies where it would be “re-equalized” the most.  The result SHOULD BE a headphone that has the same sound signature in about everything.  So at this point, I was interested.

 

Build and Comfort

 

This headphone is clearly built to be used with portable devices and not really for DJs despite the fun colors you can customize it with.  The cups are a BIT smaller than the normal Beyerdynamic design, and the cord is much shorter.  Everything else is as you’d expect, except the normal signature velor pads have been replaced with plether pads with a pretty soft foam of some sort underneath.  It’s pretty soft, but I still like their velor pads better.  Perhaps they’ll sell velor pads that can fit this headphone eventually(or maybe they already do, and I missed it).  The headband cushion is detachable, but it’s Velcro instead of the usual snaps that the pro versions of Beyerdynamic’s headphones normally use.  Overall I’ve found this a very comfortable headphone to wear, even if the cups are a little small for my ears.

 

Isolation is pretty darn nice.  I can't hear a thing.  I thought the marketing for this was a bit over the top on the box, but this headphone really does isolate very well.

 

Sound Quality

 

Usually I’d just say this headphone sounds good with my O2+ODAC and leave it at that.  However, this headphone is technically 4 headphones in one.  Using the bass port slider you can make major changes in the overall sound signature of this headphone.  Position one (fully closed) is an almost analytical signature, with almost no bass to speak of.  The only other time I’ve heard anything like this is on mastering monitors like the AKG K702s.  It’s not as detailed as my AKG K7s, but not by too much.  Position four (fully open) sounds a bit like the Audio Technica ATH M50: very bass heavy.  I like position two, personally.  Beyerdynamic describes the positions as “light bass”, “linear”, “strong bass”, and “heavy bass”.  It’s a very detailed sound on every position, except for maybe position four where the bass starts to get uncontrolled.  High frequencies come through excellently, with only a slightly audible roll-off.  I dare say this headphone is more controlled and detailed than either the DT880 or DT990 that I’ve tried before.  So as for the “velocity driver”, consider me a fan.

 

One more thing.  I tried this headphone for a couple of hours on *gasp* a Xonar Essence STX.  That 10 Ohm output impedance should kill the bass on a mere 16 Ohm headphone.  It turns out it’s slightly weaker, but not nearly as bad as you would expect.  What you’ll probably notice much faster is the much higher noise floor of the Essence over the O2+ODAC, not to mention the short cord makes plugging it into the back of your case a feat of engineering (or an extension cable).  I’ve never measured my Galaxy Nexus, but my guess is it’s between 7 and 15 Ohms in the output impedance category.  The headphone is harder to drive than you would expect on a smartphone, but it gets the job done at about the 80% level.  Bass is also slightly less than on my O2+ODAC, but it’s barely noticeable.  No noise comes through on my smartphone.  My listening tests are no proof, but I have some rather weak evidence and some measurement data to suggest that indeed this headphone was designed to resist the effects of bad sources, and I think it shows in its overall sound quality.

 

Conclusion

 

This is one of the more interesting headphones I’ve had the pleasure of listening to for a while.  It’s extremely low impedance, yet much harder to drive than in-ears.  It’s extremely sensitive to bad source noise, but resistant to poor impedance matching with sources.  I’d like to think this is probably what the future of headphones looks like.  About an 8 Ohm nominal impedance with a steep impedance skew toward the low frequencies, and a pretty low sensitivity at around 92 SPL.  Beyerdynamic has proved to me the real power of a lighter driver.  Those old 600 Ohm drivers have been long been a thing of the past, but 250 Ohm drivers will be the next endangered species if Beyerdynamic, and a lot of other headphone manufacturers, have anything to do with it.

[ShearMe]

But.... my wallet... 

[mr moose]

Do you think it is possible that this bass port design has somehow helped to offset the side effects of poor impedance matching?  I have seen similar (sort of similar) situations in ported re-enforcement enclosures where the enclosure dampens the driver to a point that the amp can control it.

[h264]

Do you think it is possible that this bass port design has somehow helped to offset the side effects of poor impedance matching?  I have seen similar (sort of similar) situations in ported re-enforcement enclosures where the enclosure dampens the driver to a point that the amp can control it.

 

Well, it definitely helps give the headphone more bass, so I'd assume Beyer figured if the headphone became too thin despite the impedance curve the user could simply up the bass response with the bass ports.

[Focux]

I want to buy this but can it be as good as the AD-700X for FPS..? My M50 Red LTD recently died on me(right ear cup) :'( in RMA now..

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I want to buy this but can it be as good as the AD-700X for FPS..? My M50 Red LTD recently died on me(right ear cup) :'( in RMA now..

 

Yeah, that M50 headband can fold in very complex ways.  I'd think the AD700x would be more comfortable over long periods of time than the custom one pro, but the custom one pro is definitely more portable than either Audio Technica.

[ShearMe]

@Focux If you want a good open headphone for around the house, Pioneer SE-A1000 is my new recommendation. Audiotechnica's prices shot up recently and I call BS.

[MayflowerElectronics]

@Focux If you want a good open headphone for around the house, Pioneer SE-A1000 is my new recommendation. Audiotechnica's prices shot up recently and I call BS.

 

Supply < Demand

[Focux]

@Focux If you want a good open headphone for around the house, Pioneer SE-A1000 is my new recommendation. Audiotechnica's prices shot up recently and I call BS.

Looks horrid

[ShearMe]

Looks horrid

How so?

[h264]

How so?

It looks like it has eyes

[ShearMe]

It looks like it has eyes

So do butterflies but they're still pretty!

The headphones look better irl, plus anyone using it at home shouldn't care about looks.

[Focux]

It looks like it has eyes

Lawl

[mr moose]

you guys are shallow , some people think beats look cool but I'm guessin' the pioneers still sound better.

[Mogwai]

So do butterflies but they're still pretty!

The headphones look better irl, plus anyone using it at home shouldn't care about looks.

Haha , +1 for intimidation factor, maybe people will be scared to steal them now 

[Mogwai]

you guys are shallow , some people think beats look cool but I'm guessin' the pioneers still sound better.

Yep better quality at a fraction of the of the cost. But man if you want to look cool and fit in you got to get beats. haha

[penance]

I have been looking at getting a set of these myself. I love my PC360's but there are times i just don't want a open headset. Dang wife and her tv shows and vacuum, lol. I'm no audiophile but how do these stack against the PC360?