Beyer T1

[cetoole]

I never said that, I never got a chance to listen to your ET1000. Didnt like my meet impression of the T1 though. Plenty of stuff I would take over it sub $500 too, pretty much any Lambda frame stax, srx, vintage orthos, lots of stuff.

[mypasswordis]

You sure? Maybe I remembered wrong, then. As to vintage Stax and 'stats in general, I would take them over pretty much anything period.

[cetoole]

You sure? Maybe I remembered wrong, then. As to vintage Stax and 'stats in general, I would take them over pretty much anything period.

Touche.

[Iron_Dreamer]

^ Exactly.

I think that both the HD650 & DT880/600's are very good, and for not too much $$ (relatively speaking), a very nice setup can be built around either of them. While the T1 is more refined than either of these in many areas, it is of a debatable percentage. If the T1 was only twice their price ($7-800 range) they'd be ultra-competitive. At their intro price ($1000), they still offered a performance value that could be justified, albeit not a slam-dunk. At $1300, it's a difficult sell.

A VERY difficult sale at that price. The T1 is definitely the best sounding Beyer headphone yet made, but that is just a tough price to swallow for what I heard from them. They did nothing exceptionally enough to compete with the highest-end headphones, but do outperform the sub-$500 crowd.

[Silenced]

I find it particularly ironic that the price hike coincided with the massive hype surrounding the LCD-2. Of course, I am sure Beyer did not take the tiny American company seriously enough.

[Asr]

I find it particularly ironic that the price hike coincided with the massive hype surrounding the LCD-2. Of course, I am sure Beyer did not take the tiny American company seriously enough.

FYI: the T1 price hike occurred before the LCD-2 Head-Fi hype. Grasp at straws much? Like Reks said, Audeze is most likely unknown to Beyer.

As for "ironic":

[Silenced]

i doubt Beyer had even heard of them. i also doubt that there was any massive hype outside of head-fi. head-fi is not the world.

You are probably right but I was wondering how many people actually buy a 1000 $ headphone without doing any research and research would inevitably lead them to HF.

FYI: the T1 price hike occurred before the LCD-2 Head-Fi hype. Grasp at straws much? Like Reks said, Audeze is most likely unknown to Beyer.

As for "ironic":

You are right that made no sense... I feel stupid now. Head fi had the beginnings of hype occurring when the hike occurred I think...

[manaox2]

You are probably right but I was wondering how many people actually buy a 1000 $ headphone without doing any research and research would inevitably lead them to HF.

The idea of someone buying a $1000 headphone after doing their research at head-fi is about as appalling as someone who bought them on impulse in my book. OTOH, I guess it would not be surprising that they ended up with a beyer.

[Dusty Chalk]

You are probably right but I was wondering how many people actually buy a 1000 $ headphone without doing any research and research would inevitably lead them to HF.

Would it? Back before I discovered forums (I believe the years still began with "In the year of our lord, nineteen-hundred and..."), I never paid a lot of attention to the ramblings of laypeople, I only cared if it appeared to be a full-on legitimate review, like Stereophile, Bound for Sound, and whatnot.

Also, different things mean different things to different people -- while $1000 may be the interesting threshold to you and me, it may be a drop in the bucket for someone else, or...maybe not a drop in the bucket, but they only wanted the best/most expensivest/most exclusive headphone/speakers/etc.

[Ypoknons]

Some are, some don't ... Some language/cultures have their own webforums, rather good, others don't. Better or worse than the other site, I don't really care...

[nikongod]

Someone loaned me their T1 and I am very thankful for that. I guess I should post what I think about them.

Components of my system that may be relevant are:

A small transformer coupled SS amp that is on loan to me. Im not sure what its called, but it sounds awesome.

Behringer SRC2496 doing its thing to convert to 24/96, and DEQ2496 as DAC. No EQ is applied.

I volume matched the 2 headphones to within 1db using a cheap SPL meter with both a 440hz tone and white noise.

Conclusions:

Overall both headphones sound great and IMO deserve their flagship status. They are both similarly balanced from the lower midrange up although they do deviate slightly in the very low end with the T1 having just a touch more bass. The sound stage of these 2 headphones is another place they both differ somewhat. The HD800 has a very large although somewhat “bowl” shaped sound stage where the T1 has a slightly flatter although smaller sound stage to my ears.

By “bowl shaped” I mean that if the recording has sound panned hard left/right the HD800 plays hard left/right and everything curves to fit like on a fisheye lens. The T1 tends to push sounds on the very far left/right forwards to be more like its in front of you rather than to the direct side like a rectillnear lens. I think this is a slightly more natural presentation although it may not technically be true to the recording. On that note, are recordings with anything hard panned true to LIFE?

I would not classify either headphone as distant or forwards: they both put instruments/musicians which are near the center of the recording at about the same place front to back. I think the HD800 has a slight edge for front to back placement on things that are really far back or forwards, but the T1 still shows depth layering well. Probably the best way to explain it is that the T1 compresses sound stage without loosing detail/layering. Sounds coming from the back of the stage are still at the back of the stage, and the front is still the front, they are just closer together.

Like anyone cares what my opinion is, and at the risk of an opinion during the honey-moon phase of headphone ownership (or on a loan) I actually prefer the way the T1 does things. Weird, right? Its at least as good as most other headphones with regards to sound stage (where it looses out to the HD800) and I think its relative weakness compared to the HD800 here is a benefit in recordings that the HD800 portrays as being annoyingly mixed.

Some quick listening impressions

Track 1:

Album: The sound track from the movie Garden state

Artist: Remmy zero

Song: Fair

Both headphones put the singer direclty above the guitar, in the same plane front to back. Very nice! The tambourine also sounds like its coming from about the same place front to back on both headphones. Im not sure why but the sonar blip sounds like it is coming from further in the backround on the HD800.

Track2:

Album: The fat of the land

Artist: Prodigy

Song: smack my bitch up

Both headphones catch the “windy” sound around the deep bass hit well although the T1 sound like they go a hair deeper.

Track 3:

Artist: Regina Spector

Album: Laughing with

Song: Folding chair

This song starts off with an electric Piano/synth and a close miked piano that seems to stretch from left to right across the whole soundstage. I would like to extend my speshul thanks to whoever decided that close mic'ing a piano to achieve this effect was “good”. Congratulations, your a retard.

Anyways, the lower notes are all stacked up on the right ear. On the HD800 they sound like they are coming from exactly right of me. The effect is like I am sitting in the piano which is how I immagine the recording was done. On the T1 the sound comes from somewhere in front of me. It is still clearly far right, but about 30* in front of the line drawn between my ears.

Edited May 29, 2010 by nikongod
fized double spaces between paragraphs.

[boomana]

Nice write up, ari. I'm looking forward to hearing them, at least, at CanJam. I've been curious for awhile.

[Dusty Chalk]

This song starts off with an electric Piano/synth and a close miked piano that seems to stretch from left to right across the whole soundstage. I would like to extend my speshul thanks to whoever decided that close mic'ing a piano to achieve this effect was “good”. Congratulations, your a retard.

Okay, first of all, that wasn't me, but I am just as retarded, and that was still funny.

[The Monkey]

Your impressions are what I had hoped to hear out of the T1, Ari. I think that the Beta might not be the best pairing for that phone. Will try some other combos at CJ.

[Lone Midranger]

Conclusions:

Overall both headphones sound great and IMO deserve their flagship status. They are both similarly balanced from the lower midrange up although they do deviate slightly in the very low end with the T1 having just a touch more bass. The sound stage of these 2 headphones is another place they both differ somewhat. The HD800 has a very large although somewhat

[Ben Gramain]

^ Exactly.

I think that both the HD650 & DT880/600's are very good, and for not too much $$ (relatively speaking), a very nice setup can be built around either of them. While the T1 is more refined than either of these in many areas, it is of a debatable percentage. If the T1 was only twice their price ($7-800 range) they'd be ultra-competitive. At their intro price ($1000), they still offered a performance value that could be justified, albeit not a slam-dunk. At $1300, it's a difficult sell.

If they were made the same, maybe. I know the mere mention of wood gets some drooling but just because it hasn't got any doesn't necessarily mean there's some material refinements in there as a statement product, not just work in the drivers. They probably figured out that once it had to crack $1K, they could price it at a level they could get a recoupment-worthy profit - and that potential buyers wouldn't really care whether it was $1K or $1.3K.

I'm just talking out of my arse for now. Should have it next week, where they will face the gimlet gaze of the long-time-resident HD650 which has so far seen off all dynamic comers.

[oqvist]

I think they sound good by dynamic standards anyway. I am impressed how efficient they are. I don

[Upstateguy]

It's all kinda "average"-sounding - there's nothing particularly great about it. It sounds like it should be in the $300-$500 range of headphones along with the K701, HD600/HD650, etc. If it was in that price range, I'd call it a pretty good headphone. But at $1.3K it deserves a facepalm and shovel.

I have several hours of burn-in on it so far and my opinion still hasn't changed, but we'll see what develops, if anything.

I'm usually not one to bash others' opinions but I seriously have to call into question the raving at HF over this headphone by people such as Skylab, Macedonianhero, et al. Their standards have to be really low or they haven't heard many headphones if they think the T1 is as good as they claim.

I've been listening to the T-1s for a few days and I'm in agreement with Asr.

IMHO, the T-1s are nothing more than upgraded 880s and share the same sound signature. They have less bass, but more soundstage, transparency, and detail. If you like 880s you will probably recognize the T-1s as an upgrade and like them too.

Unfortunately, they are not the order of magnitude better that their price implies. I think they are over hyped and over priced at $1300. If 880s can be had for $249 on ebay, these should go for around $500.

One thing I didn't care for with the T-1s was that they were not very good for the low level listening I usually do. When I turned down the volume, the mids faded out, disproportionately to the top and the already sparse bottom diminished even further, throwing off the tonal balance. Another thing I didn't care for (with low level listening) was a seemingly exaggerated sense of dynamic range. What I mean is that the quieter sounds became difficult to hear and the louder sounds seemed too pronounced. Again, the balance was restored as I increased the volume but I never noticed this problem with 650s or 880s.

Are they worth keeping? Sure, if you don't mind spending the money.

Btw, very nice review Ari.

[stuff used: Laptop > Hiface/Thingee > North Star MKII > 2 box M^3/GS-1]

[Shahrose]

Hey E, I know you were considering the HD800 to replace the T1, but after reading your comments, I think you'd have pretty much the same issues with the Senns.

They have a bit less bass than the T1, they aren't great for low-volume listening, and you may still feel they're priced too far above the HD600/650 for what they offer. The $250-500 is the sweet spot for headphones IMO; you get a lot of bang for your buck.

[spritzer]

I spent some time with the T1 off the Woo5 and it's certainly better then most of the other stuff they've done but unimpressive comes to mind.

[monsieurguzel]

Totaly agree with you spritzer. Listened to the T1 about 4-5 times at the show on a bunch of different amps and indeed they were very uninspiring and didn't really do anything really well in my eyes. I really don't quite understand what all fuss was about them...

[Upstateguy]

I spent some time with the T1 off the Woo5 and it's certainly better then most of the other stuff they've done but unimpressive comes to mind.

They're just a really good pair of 880s... (that are a little too heavy and clamp a little to hard)

And I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I tried them with the Woo3 I originally bought for my 880s and found the Woo had the same synergy with the T-1s. Now the T-1s sound like a nice pair of headphones. Still "unimpressive", but much nicer with the Woo than either of my SSs. So now what? A better Woo?

One more gripe and I'm done... There's a spot on top of my head that is starting to feel like I've been wearing the 701s again..... I don't know what Beyer was thinking with these headphones?

USG

[boomana]

i listened to the T1s this weekend with the TTVJ Peak amp, the Woo 22 and 6SE, the Isabella, and probably one or two more set ups I don't remember. I found them to be decent, but nothing special. I was very underwowed by them.

[The Monkey]

^Agree. The HD800 out of the Apex amps sounded better than the T1. It wasn't close. The HD800 is still a bit steely for my taste, but it's a good headphone. The T1 is boring. Definitely not an awful can, but it just doesn't do much for me. I still love the build, though. And it shows me that there is still room for some mfr to come in and make the best new dynamic phones.

[shellylh]

I only listened to the T1 once at Drew's table (out of some Burson Audio amp); I was not impressed.