Beyerdynamic DT 990

Design

Oh man, sibling rivalry. The DT 990s look cooler, but also appear slightly less professional. Of course, with MANUFAKTUR, you can tweak colors and whatnot and attain the all-gray look.

Overall, the headphones are equal, both in terms of aesthetics and durability. If it surprises you that the DT 990s and DT 990 PROs are remarkably similar, then we, in turn, would be surprised.

Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Frequency Response

The DT 990 PROs have slightly better audio quality. They don’t have as much of a dip before their emphasis hike.

Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Distortion

Low distortion all around. Technically the DT 990 PROs win here, with virtually no distortion whatsoever, but no one will notice the difference between the two.

Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Tracking

The PROs look like they win this match-up, but they actually lose according to our testing robot. We’re guessing they had a spike somewhere that these normalized graphs aren’t really depicting.

Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Isolation

These headphones both have poor isolation.

Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Comfort

Both headphones are about the same. They’re comfortable at first, then get uncomfortable pretty fast.

Wear
Beyerdynamic DT 990	Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO

Verdict

These headphones are basically the same. We’d highly recommend listening to them both, because the differences are so minor that your opinions and proclivities will be the deciding factor. We will say following two things, however:

• We thought the DT 990s had slightly better articulation than the DT 990 PROs
• It’s been a very, very long time since we listened to the DT 990 PROs.