Regardless of the pads you use, the mids on the DT1990 Pros are simply outstanding. To AKG and Sennheiser fans, they may find that the DT 1990 Pros are not forward enough, or have that Beyerdynamic "dip" to them. That in my opinion is due to the fact that the upper bass is not pushed forward, and neither is the upper midrange. This means, however, that the mids are neither stuffy, nor shouty with women singers and brass instruments. Yes the DT 1990 has a less bloomy midrange with less rawness than other headphones, but at the same time it makes the DT1990 surprisingly musical without sounding overly mechanical like the DT 880 and DT 990 could be. What I love so much about the DT 1990's midrange more than anything else is its smoothness and its tonality, which in absence of other words sounds "right". There isn't an off-sounding timbre or spot where it sounds too warm or too dry or comes off as dull. Maybe this has something to do with the Tesla magnets, but the DT 1990 has that rare ability to sound uncolored yet highly musical and fun, which few other headphones under 1000 dollars do, aside from the Sennheiser HD650 or HD600. Ear pads are velour and I believe are memory foam for both Analytical and Balanced pads. I find both pads reasonably comfortable, despite being somewhat stiff. The amount of cushion takes off some of the moderate clamp force, but only time will tell before the foam loses cushioning. There are sonic differences between the pads and we'll get to that later. I've seen in different forums mixed reactions of the Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro. Ones who own them praise them (obviously), while others seem to resent them because of the infamous "Beyer treble" banner hanging over a good number of models they have (particularly the DT series). So this made me curious and got a pair. These use beyerdynamic's top Tesla technology for super sensitivity. Even at 250 Ω they are plenty sensitive for use with mobile and iOS devices. At 250 Ω they are extremely easy for any mobile or pro amplifier or headphone output to drive, and drive without distortion, Yes, most amplifiers and headphone outputs have more distortion trying to drive 32 Ω headphones and work much better with 250Ω headphones — so long as the 250Ω headphones are as sensitive as these for use with mobile outputs. Mid. . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 / 8 . . . . . 10 / 7. . . . . 5 / 8 . . . . . . 6 / 8 . . . . . . 6 / 7 . . . . . .7 / 5 . . . . . 4 / 4

However, the DT1990s are not flat. In fact they are considerably worsely tuned than the predecessor DT990. The DT900 Pro were the 'flattest', but none of them are by any means flat. They are all boosted in the high end, but the 990 has 3 peaks, the 900 Pro has a broad peak and the 1990 has a narrow peak (bit higher freq than the others). Therefore, they sound quite musical, the high end (8-12k) on the 1990s is boosted so it sounds all crispy clear and beautiful, but you need a good reference monitor to ground you to reality. But I'll try to be critical. I compared the DT1990 against the 770, 880, 990, 900 Pro, 1770, AKG something, Devine Pro and Neumann's in the store. Of these, the DT1990s were the absolute winner in terms of quality and clarity, there was no question about it. I am not sure how they compare to other brands like LCDs. The low end isn't boosted, and it is deep and flat if you boost the overall volume enough to hear it.

The perfected design of the DT 1990 PRO combines innovation with decades of expertise in headphone technology. High-tech textiles and ear pads make the headphones exceptionally comfortable. They are so comfortable you will almost forget you are wearing them. Measurements were performed on a Macbook Air using Room EQ Wizard (REW) 5.19 Beta 8, with sound output via USB through a Topping NX4 on low gain with bass boost off. Readings were taken from a MiniDSP E.A.R.S attached via USB, with levels set to -40 DBFS as outlined in the E.A.R.S. manual. For purposes of this test, I’m talking about the DT 1990 with the (A)nalytical pads, which only took a few minutes to swap on thanks to decent instructions in the included manual. There's moderate clamp force out of the box, meaning it will be noticeable even after an hour or two of listening.

For music enjoyment with the four newest offerings from beyerdymanic: the DT700PROX, DT900PROX, these DT1990PRO and the DT1770PRO, I prefer the DT900PROX. Remember, as pro headphones, these are all designed to make you work harder to make the music you're creating sound its best. Sennheiser HD 650/660s – Für entspannten Musikgenuss, mit sehr schöner Gesangsdarstellung der etwas höheres Preisklasse Cable Type: 3m Straight cable, or 5m (stretched) Coiled cable, each with a 3-pin mini-XLR cable connector (single sided)With this treble quality, I see some owners describe the DT1990 as being very "revealing", "detailed" and "transparent" of a recordings' flaws. I would disagree with this notion. This type of over-sharpened treble does not extrude "flaws", but in fact masks detail because of this 8kHz peak. I welcome such people to try using a Parametric EQ software like Equalizer APO on your current headphone, apply a Peak filter at 7734 Hz and crank it up to something like 9 dB - you'll get the same effect. This is not real detail, it gives a false sense of detail. If you compare it to something like the Focal Clear, it should be obvious that the Clear does not need such a peak to have excellent detail retrieval, resolution and clarity. The best analogy for this is that an over sharpened image does not exactly mean the camera captured the finer details of a captured shot. What it does is giving an illusion of capturing the micro-details in a photo.

Low . . . . . . . . . . . .10 / 10. . . . 6 / 8. . . . . . 8 / 7. . . . . . 9 / 8. . . . . 10 / 6 . . . . . 9 / 5. . . . . 11 / 7 The included hard case has space to hold the included second set of soft earpads, as well as a small zippered pouch for both included cords and two 3.5mm to ¼″ adapters. Over-sharpened treble does not indicate great detail retrieval and clarity. The inverse of this statement I find is also true, great detail retrieval and clarity does not indicate over-sharpened treble. Great use of plastic (I think it's plastic) on the cups with the sort of matte finish. I love this feel as it's less to retain fingerprint marks or sweat.The long mini-XLR connector on the left earpiece can poke your left shoulder depending on your shape and how you are sitting or relaxing.