Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X Review: Great Headphones For Most People!

Beyerdynamic calls these their headphones for creative professionals, but honestly, it’s a good pair of headphones for anybody. If you’re looking for a pair of accurate headphones, whether it’s for creative needs or for enjoying your music, the Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X headphones should be on your list to consider.

So, let’s talk design. It’s pretty classically Beyer, and the DT 900 Pro X is open-back with the accompanying DT 700 Pro X being the closed-back version. Since I prefer to use headphones solely at home, I went with the open-back. Long story short, open-back headphones provide better clarity and more immersiveness in a wider soundstage, but they also end up leaking noise out and you’ll be able to hear ambient noise too, so they’re not really suitable for use on the go. Since I’m only using them at home, it's perfectly fine for my use case.

The earpads are made with velour and they’re incredibly plush and comfortable. The yokes are metal and they feel incredibly sturdy and durable, with a hardy plastic for the headband. There’s also quite a bit of padding on the headband, and on the inside, you get a tiny orange line on the left side so you can immediately figure out left and right. Well, the other way would be to see where the 3-pin mini-XLR cable plugs in since it’s also on the left.

The earcups themselves don’t swivel though, and there’s no way to fold these up, so again, they’re really not built for portability. But something that I applaud Beyer for doing is that they’ve made it really easy to replace parts for these headphones, especially the earpads and headband, which is great for sustainability since you don’t have to buy a new pair of headphones once the earpads or headband wear out.

Included in the box are a soft carrying pouch and two lengths of cables, a 1.8m cable and a 3m cable, both coming with a 3.5mm termination, although both have their own ¼ inch screw-on adapter, which is very nice.

As for comfort, I do have to say that the clamping force on these headphones was really quite strong out of the box, making it pretty painful for me to wear them for longer than an hour or two at a go. But after about four or five days, they finally loosened up and now, I can usually wear them for around five hours or so without any sort of pain or discomfort. The velour earpads combined with the open-back design also mean my ears don’t get too overheated even here in Singapore.

Moving onto specs, these are using Beyer’s new proprietary STELLAR.45 drivers and they come with a pretty low impedance of 48 ohms, which means they’re easily driven without the need for external amps. Plugging them straight into my desktop, they get plenty loud, and I usually set my system audio to just around 20 when I’m using these.

But how do they sound? Well, pretty good. The biggest problem with the DT 990 was that the treble was usually too sharp for most people. Even for me, someone who really likes bright treble, sometimes it got a bit too much. But with these, Beyer has brought down the highs and really balanced them out with the mids. There’s also a good amount of bass, although it’s more focused on speed and control rather than raw power.

Given that Beyer is marketing these as studio headphones, I’d say they’ve done a great job at ensuring these produce an accurate sound. You hear music as it’s intended, without that emphasis on the bass that most other headphones nowadays tend to introduce. That being said, if you’re looking for bassy headphones, these will definitely not be what you’re looking for, but I commend you for staying this long into the video. Also, if you’re thinking that these sound like overly analytical headphones, they aren’t. Beyer has struck a pretty good balance between analytical and musical with these, in my opinion, but if you’re looking for very musically engaging headphones, these might not be for you either. That being said, because of how accurate they are, these will be a good pair of headphones to EQ with.

The soundstage is superb, as expected out of open-back headphones. Instrument imaging and layering are great, and you really can pick out each individual instrument in the mix without too much difficulty at all.

Personally, I used these for everything during the time I tested them. Music listening, even checking the audio and such for these YouTube videos, games, they handled everything with ease. At the US$299 or S$399 price tag, these are really great all-rounders if you’re looking for a pair of headphones that’s not overly emphasised in any one area.