[adydula]

These little cans have had my interest for several months and they have an "outstanding" review from Tyll Herstens at:
http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/awesome-beyerdynamic-dt-1350

They just came out with a facelift version called the DT 1350 cc's which have a more padded head area, a coiled cable and new larger earpads....

Tyll rates them the best in this category....supra-aural (on-ear) type.

I ordered a pair and hope to have them this wed!

Here we go again!

Alex

[Noseyears]

The Classic DT 1350 is among the best portables ever.

[adydula]

The drivers are the same, only the earpads and the head padding etc.are different....I would think the sound should be pretty much the same if the drivers are the same.

The new larger earpads might impact the sound....but you could always install the older smaller ones if this is a real issue to you.

I like the idea of the larger soft skin pads for comfort.

The specs are exactly identical on their site:

▲ Supraaural, lightweight and robust design, due to metall headbow
▲ 80 Ohms transducers with Tesla Technology for highest efficiency
▲ Excellent ambient noise attenuation
▲ Flexible split headband
▲ 90° swivelling earcups
▲ Single-sided 1.5 m (4.92 ft.) straight cable - also available with coiled cable - DT 1350 CC
▲ Larger Soft-Skin earpads for better wearing comfort
▲ Newly designed Soft-Skin headband for greater wearing comfort
▲ Carry bag, 6,35 mm (1/4") and in-flight adapter included


technical data
Transmission type                                         Wired
Headphone design (operating principle)         Closed
Headphone impedance                                    80 ohms
Headphone frequency response                        5 - 30.000 Hz
Nominal sound pressure level                         109 dB
Construction         Supraaural (on-ear)
Cable & plug         Straight connecting cable with mini-jack plug (3.5 mm) & ¼“ adapter (6.35 mm)
Net weight without packaging         231 g

We shall see..

Alex

 

[ajzepp]

The 1350s are the best headphones I own in terms of dollar for dollar. I have used them every day for the last year and a half...fantastic sound.

[adydula]

They are hear and am listening...5 min or so!

First impressions..."These are SMALL"...

LOL

Alex

[adydula]

I have about 3 hrs listening to these so far...

general comments:

They are small compared to what I am used to.
Nice carrying case.
Well Built.
Thin cord.
Coiled cord is nice.
New softer pads seem very comfortable to me, don't really know how much bigger they are than the older original dt1350's.
Fairly easy fit to my ears/head.
Comes with the mini-rca and the 1/4 adapter and another two prong adapter? maybe iphone?

After listening to many, many really good music selections...my overall impression is "bass".

These small cans have very good, well articulated bass indeed.

It seems to add to the fullness or body listening to stuff. Makes it warm to me.

I listened over a variety of amps, preamp head sections, receivers, stand alone amps, internal and external dacs.

What stood out to me is the cans are good enough to tell the difference between mediocre source and really good sources.

At first I found that the voices that with other cans I felt were upfront are more recessed to me with the 1350's??

I found myself thinking that there was something wrong, I wound up cranking up the volume to hear the vocals and all the rest of
the music, instruments, etc filled in nicely.

Material and recordings do make a difference with these....Some old Rolling Stones Hot Rocks remastered are absolutely wonderful with these cans
I found myself really smiling listening to Satisfaction and As Tears Go By....simply amazing for these small transducers.

Eva Cassidy songs, Image etc are really nice.

Overall they are good cans, but they seem to be struggling with the soundstage and overall presentation compared to other larger size cans.

Its not that they are not good at imaging etc...its they sound comparatively "small" to me.

I put on the Grados and the AKG...and found them to be immediately "light" in the bass dept....wow.

I will give them some more time and re-examine how they sound to me and post back.

Many other reviews on these cans state these are a bit bass shy...boy not to me....more than enough bass....only the LCD 2's have more
authority here.

Later
Alex

[ajzepp]

Yeah, they are not bass shy at all. But what they have - as you pointed out - is very clean, well-articulated bass. Some bass heads who want the bloated "boom boom" may find them light in the low end, but for anyone preferring tighter, crisper bass they should be very happy. Your assessment is pretty spot on, I'd say. They do in fact scale up with better gear, even though I love how they sound even directly from my iPhone. They image very well but the sound stage will not be what you can get with a full size headphone. I don't find it OVERLY small, though...just relative to larger phones.

[adydula]

I have been using these while gaming and for 2 hours last night I had absolutely no issue with wearing them for this long time.
Seems these new pads are working well for me..

I am going to play with all kinds of combinations later this week. I have many sources, dacs, amps etc..Oppo etc to play with to see how well these sound etc..

Alex

[adydula]

Wow third set....

I was playing a pc game for 2 hrs and then listened for 30 min and it was indeed a very pleasant experience...Donald Fagan's IGY , Diana Krall, Ben Harper, and some Lee Ritenor and Cowboy Junkies...

I put on the AKG Q701's and the Grado 325is....I immediately thougt where is the bass, lots of treble etc...and really though how could I be missing what the 1350's were providing in this low end dept.

They just seem right the more I listen to the overall presentation...

I am wondering how a larger set of Beyers or Senn's would be compared to these 1350's..I have had LCD2's for about a year and sold them. These little things really bring back that overall musical experience....I didnt know I was missing again.

oh boy

Alex

[ajzepp]

Glad you're enjoying them so much, Alex. I was really shocked when I first bought them last year...it's just ridiculous how great they sound out of something simple like a laptop headphone jack, iPod, Kindle, etc. I often will fire up a track just on my iPhone at work and let people listen. Typically they have no idea that headphones sound anywhere near this good. I can't wait to try a pair of the new once, cause the only issue I had with them was that I could only go about an hour or so before I needed a break. I can wear my T1s and my Grados all day with no issues, but while the original 1350s pads keep my ears nice and cool (which is very important to me) they aren't quite as comfy as I would like for a longer session.

[adydula]

I wonder if you can just get a set of the new pads for yours?

This maybe a less expensive way to go?

Alex

[ajzepp]

I wonder if you can just get a set of the new pads for yours?

This maybe a less expensive way to go?

Alex

Good idea...I've heard that the headphones are exactly the same except for the cosmetic changes to the pads and cable, so as long as no other accommodations were made to the cups or drivers that might be a great way to go.

[adydula]

I have had no real issues with sealing....the pads are really soft to me makes it easy to fit to my big fat head!

LOL

Alex

[adydula]

hey dale,

In what way do these new larger pads affect the sound in comparion to the older smaller pads??

To me the newer pads look larger in overall diameter but not in thickness?

I also noticed on mine that they have formed somewhat to my ear/head shape.

Alex

[adydula]

Cool, I have the new pads and to me they work very well, no problem sealing or lacking bass etc..

Alex

[adydula]

[adydula]

They do stick out over the outside diameter of the can assembly..
Alex

[viggen]

The 1350 arrived at my house yesterday.  Plugged them in during the evening directly into my Thinkpad's headphone out as I left my USB dac/amp at work.  Gave it a quick listen and thought it sounded pretty good.  I left the headphones playing overnight to give the new drivers some workout.  Took it with me to work in its nifty carrying case with has enough room for my external drive (kudos).

Plugged the 1350 in at work to the D3 USB dac/amp that is connected to a Toshiba ultrabook running foobar w/ Jplay ASIO.  I thought it sounded OK but didn't get a chance to really listen to it but kept the music playing to keep the drivers moving.  Finally, "clocked out" and packed up the headphones, external drive, the USB dac and a pair of JVC iem/buds in the nifty case.  Love the case.  Has the right pockets for everything.

Got home, plugged in the headphones to give it some more workout for a few hours, went to eat dinner, came home and started to listen to it again now hooked up to the same D3 USB dac connected to a Dell desktop running the same foobar w/ Jplay Asio.  And, I am very ambivalent to not overjoyed about the sound.   Quick and dirty description is that sound is not musical. 

First the low bass.  For reference, my subwoofer is a velodyne ULD15.  This guy crosses over at 100hz fixed and is a downward firing sub with full sensuous bass with just enough distortion to give the mids and highs some enhancement whereas the bass from the 1350 sounds a bit monotonish and detached yet kinda gets in the way.  My quagmire is I perceived this pair of headphones to not "muffle" as it is a studio quality phone.  Yet, the bass does cause the other frequencies to sound kind of like they are playing in a closet especially female voices as it is robbed of its higher frequency shimmer and decay.

Speaking of closet, I am a bit confused about the spacing and layering.  The phones do a good job layering complex portions of the music such as when multiple instruments are playing quickly simultaneously.  It does so with body/weight to each string pluck and horn blown.  And, the more complex the music gets, the more enjoyable the music becomes and intelligible the sound is.  However, the sound does get bland when the vocals or instruments go into solos.  And, this same body/weight added to the instruments and voices seem to be the same reason why there's no decay.

2.1 stereo is a term I recently read used in a manner to describe how good a set of headphones can sound.  However, I always considered anything .1 as something unnatural sounding such as 5.1 dolby or 2.1 bose satellite.  And, the base/mid integration with the 1350s do remind me of the 2.1 sound.  The lows are definitely there and does bring out the instruments' body but at the cost of their decay. 

Want to continue writing this but ears are starting to hurt.  Let me put my JVC HXFT90s back in my ears.  I just got these a day before I got the 1350s.  I used to work for JVC and got a whole mess of freebie headphones from gumys to their mid-high end phones such as HAFX300 and HAM750 which are some of their early generation ones when JVC first started using carbon nano tubing and bi-metal technologies.  The sound was overly warm and lush.  So, I expected the HXFT90 to sound similar but it doesn't.  Instead, it has a much flatter presence with the same very black background. 

Whenever I switch headphones from the 1350 to the HXFT90, I stop trying to analyze the sound and just get immersed.  And, the IEMs come with 3 sizes of ear fittings which I chose the smallest for comfort though it doesn't fully isolate the sound at the cost of a bit of bass I suppose but it's much more comfy this way, and I don't really want to COMPLETELY isolate the sound in case someone is trying to talk to me at work.  So, either by improper use or by design, I definitely don't don't get the closet 2.1 sound I do with the 1350s.

But, I really want to like the 1350s.  I guess I will give it another week to see whether the driver will continue to loosen up and whether the clamp will form to my head better.  Got 30 days before I have to ship it back to Amazon.  Oh, and the price dropped $12 since I ordered it less than a week ago from $185 to $173! 

[viggen]

Was just about ready to turn in for the evening but curiosity got the better of me.  Dug out my impish 1 wpc tube amp from da closet and hooked it up to the D3 USB dac using a 3.5mm to RCA cord.  The amp is Greatech muVac which has a piece of cable that is speakercable on one end and headphone jack on the other end.  So, using this to power the 1350s at the moment. 

The overall characteristics of the sound doesn't change from what I described in previous post.  However, most if not all the detriments are gone.  There's still not a whole lot of decay but there's now a sense of smoothness that stretches at the end of each note that lingers a bit.  The bass where it was a monotone heaviness weighing each note down is now presenting itself in ripples and rolling thunder like. 

Basically, with the amp powering the headphone, there's much more life to the music now.  I really am not thinking about the sound as much anymore.  the D3 might not be adequate to drive the 1350s adequately.  Beats me.  I never used an amp on a headphone before.  My next experiment is to use the Kora Crescendo preamp I have stored in my closet using it's headphone output to power the 1350.  And, I can swap out the DACs to see how the D3 stack up against my Audio Sector NOS USB DAC.... tomorrow.  I had previousy used the HAM750 with the Crescendo, and they sounded heavenly together until I broke the headphone...

Oh the 1350s are so much more enjoyable now....

[hibuckhobby]

I would think it best to reserve judgement until you get at least 50-100 hrs. on those phones.
I'm fully aware that some don't believe in break-in, but IME it has been a time of significant change.
I'm sure you also know that the quality of the headamp you use as well as the synergy with the
phones is going to make quite a difference.
best,
Hibuck...