Gaming headsets, audiophiles and beyerdynamic DT 70 IE
A few months ago I treated myself to beyerdynamic DT 70 IE in-ear-monitors. As per my own policy I use something for a few month before talking about it. It is easy to get super excited about something in the first week or two just for it to fall apart during daily use. Now instead of doing a typical review talking about a random classic piece of music you listen to sitting in a closed off room most people will not be able to relate to I decided to take a slightly different approach.
You are most likely reading this because you are either subscribed to my blog and read everything I publish (kudos, you are my favourite person), you are planning to buy the DT 7x and want someone to confirm your choice (it is hereby confirmed, they are amazing, go for it) or you are looking for a pair of in ear headphones or gaming headphones and found this post via web search (welcome to the one place on the Internet where a random guy has a universally true and correct opinion on this topic).
Audio is very subjective. There are people who seemed to have enjoyed the original Beats by Dre headphones. I personally do not know how, but they did. And this is a major problem when talking about audio products. A lot of it is subjective. When you talk to a self proclaimed audiophile they will likely explain how a specific frequency response curve is absolutely necessary to enjoy the listening experience. If, for some reasons unknown to me, you end up in r/audiophile and you do not immediately close the tab you will see the equivalent of asking an antivaxxer for healthcare advice. No measurement showing how close a headphone gets to a predefined curve will tell you if you actually enjoy using it.
Just to address a few things up first in case you took a wrong turn on the Internet.
- There is no such thing as breaking in headphones: if a difference cannot be measured it does not exist
- You will not hear a difference in cables: assuming the one you use does not hold together with thoughts and prayers while the last little bit of coper is oxidising.
- It does not matter if your headphone is 80 or 600 Ohm: I talked to one of beyerdynamic engineers who literally builds and QAs them, he should know.
If you feel personally offended by any of the three points above and think I am an idiot that is fine. Just do me a favour and do not reach out to me about it.
Me and audio
I like listening to music. And I like a fairly balanced sound with a slight emphasising bass. Even more when you feel the bass, not when you only hear it. Our living room has a mix of Jamo (before they were bought by Klipsch) and Klipsch, in my office I have Kef speakers with an Edifier subwoofer. The avid DMS enjoyer might now ask why not an SVS subwoofer and the answer is pretty simple - it is not worth it. I just have background music playing in my office or game sound on those speakers.
I enjoy good sound. But there is also a pragmatic part of me that accepts "good enough" for the price I am willing to pay for a given piece of equipment. And pragmatic I learned. Back in the day (early 2000s) when we organised a little LAN party for "100 of our closest friends" I setup a sound system in a gym. The budget was "whatever hardware we got has to work". A good, old Sony amplifier passed down from my dad and a few 50 meters of 1.5mm electric cable later I had four PA speaker well positioned, dialled in (they sounded bad, but good enough) and we were off to the races. Let me repeat that, 1.5mm electric cable. Thankfully the amp was powerful enough for that.
I have listened to music on many speaker systems and headphones over the last two decades. I also have some very unrefined, basically primitive test tracks I like to play. Not because they are good (well, Daft Punk: one more time is), but because I know to which parts of the song I have to listen to, to get a feeling if I would enjoy a piece of audio equipment.
Gaming headsets
I will say the part that will ruffle some feathers out loud. Gaming headsets are a scam. You pay multiple times what the headphones are worth because they are marketed to gamers. Do not buy a headset or headphones that are marketed as "gamer headset".
There is nothing "special" that makes a headphone a gamer headphone. Well, maybe RGB. A small tangent: Who sees the RGB on their headphones? I could understand it if you are a streamer and your online personality is giving people a seizure. I am not saying do not get any of the rainbow unicorn vomit gear. If you enjoy the aesthetic go for it! Keyboard, mouse, case, monitor, mousepad, above and behind your screen, even your chair! But on a headset? You literally cannot see any of it.
What people often refer to when talking about gaming headsets is a very specific tuning curve with an emphasis on bass and highs while the mids are a bit muted (commonly called a v-shape curve or tuning). The audio-enthusiast-must-read Excel spreadsheet creator themself who is famous for this tuning is Crinacle. Crinacle also tests headphones and makes videos about them. Aside from that he’s also selling some of his own in ears and collaborates with brands tuning to his taste.
Why this tuning? Because these two are the sound ranges in competitive shooters that allow you to hear enemies moving and interacting with things. (I am a bit vague and less technical here. The exact details do not matter much, but if you are interested check out some of Crinacle’s YouTube videos) Personally I do not fancy this tuning too much, but if you are slightly hard of hearing or overwhelmed with multiple sound cues it might help.
You can always take good headphones and an equaliser and get them closer to this tuning. You will not hit it without much work, but you should be able to dial it in with a few minutes in a training mode and bots running around. But what you cannot do is using an equaliser to make bad headphones sound good, even if occasional improvements are possible. For a really good outcome the hardware at least needs the capabilities to reproduce the required range, and many gaming headphones that are basically e-waste out of the factory cannot do that.
Why in-ear monitors?
There are two types of headphones I like to use. In-ears and over the ear. I cannot stand on ear headphones. Historically I preferred over the ear headphones but over the last few years I grew more and more fond of in-ear monitors. The MMX 300 Pro are by far the most comfortable headphones that ever touched my head. Not even close! But when your ML system heats up your room by 7 degree celsius during a 35 celsius summer day anything touching you will make you sweat and feel uncomfortable... (They also look a bit ridiculous while on video calls.)
Save to say, the MMX are a bit too warm for my liking in summer, while they’re super comfortable they really do not play nicely with my glasses and the microphone is annoying when playing single player games. I know I shouldn't wear them that long and the microphone part sounds stupid even to me. But it was one of the things that just get more annoying the longer you deal with them.
The avid esport fan might point at me and claim I am just following a random trend of in-ear monitors for gaming kicked off by TenZ or Kenzo. I hate to break it to you, but most players on competitive stages wear in ears with white noise, and wear noise cancelling headphones on top, and have done so for years.
So I ended up trying a few different in-ears, some tuned by Crinacle, some from other brands. I already used Sennheiser IE100 Pro when traveling (cherry on top? THEY COME IN A CLEAR CASE! We need to bring clear cases back.). They are okay, comfortable, but they were lacking in the soundstage department when gaming. (You do not need to Google soundstage for an explanation, just assume I am saying it was hard to pin the location of enemies on the map.)
From $30 to DT 70 IE
When you look at reviews, tests and tuning curves you might think you are about to write a doctor thesis. The amount of in-ears from various Asian brands flooding the market is absurd.
I started with the KZ Zex Pro. They might deliver an okay gaming performance but I could not stand listening to music on them.
One step up were the Truthear x Crinacle ZERO:BLUE2. What a name. The 2 at the end is relevant. Also this is the price range packaging starts to become an experience. Plus starting at this price some companies have Anime waifus on the packaging, just mentioning it in case this is your jam. These were actually solid for gaming but not that good for listening to music.
Next try were the Simgot EM6L. I know many people are super happy with them. I am not one of them. They were simply bad. Cheap feeling, bad fit and with the bad fit worse sound than the ZERO:BLUE2.
Last attempt at hyped in-ears were the Kiwi Ears Astral. (Last attempt because I could not get my hands on Moondrop.) They were okay. But also not good enough to justify the price. It did not feel like a significant enough step from the ZERO:BLUE2 except that the bass was better, making music more enjoyable.
Enter: DT 70 IE
So far I tested in-ears based on suggestions I got from people in my larger gaming network. Some of them have to either been reading Reddit or actively participate there, the pitch for some of the in-ears was very similar. And I was about to give up, none of the in-ears were either good enough or justified the price.
By accident I saw beyerdynamic release their new in-ear monitors. Above any price point I set for myself but I was curious. So I got the 70 which seem tob e well tuned for everything. I feel like I have to say this again: I do not like the price. They are more expensive than I want my in-ears to be. But they are so good.
They fit extremely well. They are also the first in-ears where I could hear details of a song I only could hear with more expensive headphones or speakers so far. The performance and the fit really got me. The noise isolation is amazing, as in: I cannot hear someone talking to me about 2 meter away when nothing is playing. Kind of expected with memory foam eartips, but others did not seal that well. While I am still a bit grumpy about the price I enjoyed them too much to return them. (also thanks to German tax law I could charge back the VAT and deduct them from my income taxes which made it way easier to stomach.)
The included cable was way too stiff for my liking, so I got a 20 Euro Linsoul cable from Amazon as replacement. And guess what? It did not change how they sounded. insert mind blown galaxy brain meme I also did not need a separate headphone amplifier. As long as it has a 3.5mm headphone jack it can drive the headphones.
As I sometimes need to tell my teammates that I am dead and they will not get any support if they push in I needed a microphone. Something that is obviously missing and in cable microphones are horrible. I paired the DT 70 with a Shure MV6. No, I am not paying for an SM7B for gaming and chances of me streaming or starting a podcast are really, really low. Really good microphone, works under Linux, people clearly hear what you say. Nothing to add here.
Buying advice?
Oh absolutely not. When it comes to audio products the best advice I can give you is find a few recommendations. Get the cheapest one and the next more expensive one on the list. Set yourself a price point at which you simply stop. Test the product, return what you do not like, get the next more expensive one until you are satisfied with fit and sound. Neither me, nor Crinacle nor DMS can tell you what will sound and feel good to you.
Except the Simgot listed above I think all of the listed in ears are worth testing. The Simgot might be good if your ear is noticeable different than mine. Personally if around 100 Euro sounds good to you I would try the Sennheiser IE 100 Pro first. Shure SE215 Pro are also a solid option around this price.
For over-ear you can in my opinion not go wrong with beyerdynamic. It mostly depends if you want a microphone attached to them or not. Sennheisers HD620 are also a very solid choice. If you want to try your hand at wireless and potentially "perfection" (lol) the HDB 630 might be good.