Beyerdynamic – T5 Stereo Headphones (3rd Gen)

I am very happy. The Beyerdynamic T5 headphones are tip/top! Everything sounds better.
Much surprise. Of Course the expectation for good sound, but I didn’t anticipate that they would sound MUCH BETTER than my Sennheiser HD 600. That was a complete shock.

They sound like open back, yet they are closed. Now you have to realize they are not going to close off your head and make your ears sweat!! No, they are not like back in the day Koss Pro4 A, but so much better.

As always, you can pay more and probably get more, but the law of diminishing returns will begin to cut in.

The Beyerdynamic T5 headphones fabulous.

Molto comoda, non pesa e non stanca anche dopo ore di ascolto. Isola benissimo dai rumori esterni. Garantisce un ascolto nitido e bilanciato, ottimo su tutte le frequenze, in particolar modo le basse.
Soldi ben spesi

I started with the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro headphones and I thought they were great and the sound probably couldn’t get much better. But once I put on the Beyerdynamic T5 headphones with the Tesla drivers, I knew I’d been missing a lot from my music.
With the studio recorded songs, it sounds like you are right there in the studio with the artist, and the “live” songs make you feel like you’ve got the best seat in the house. The studio songs allow you to pick up on every nuance, along with every instrument and vocal. The soundstage is very present considering the closed-back design.
If you really want to hear your favorite songs, perhaps for the first time again, then I highly recommend the Beyerdynamic T5 headphones. It’s a treat to find out what I’ve been missing on all my favorite songs by using the T5 headphones.
Highly recommend for your listening pleasure.

Who knew that back in 2014, when Meghan Trainer sang, “all about that bass — no treble,” she may have inspired the Beyerdynamic’s engineers to create such an audio device that would meet her approval. In 2020, Beyerdynamic released the T5, 3rd generation closed-back headphones, with bass that rivals loudspeakers IMO. If bold, dynamic and realistic bass response is not your thing when listening with headphones, the T5 is not for you.

Before I get into a sound review, let me remark about the appearance of the T5. It is totally unremarkable. Nobody will think you have high-end headphones over your ears with that perforated sheet metal design. But, when you touch the T5, it feels very high-end. I never thought about how often we touch our headphones until I wore the T5. It feels great and very comfortable to wear. It does a fantastic job of blocking outside noises, which is one reason I prefer this over the open-back models.

The T5 comes with a 4-foot cable that is perfectly sized for my needs. For sound review, I will be using the iFi Micro iDSD Black Label DAC without its bass boost and all songs played from WAV files. I have uploaded a graph of the Beyerdynamic T5’s frequency response (FR) from Crinacle.com. The lower graph in gray color compensates the raw FR to the IEF Neutral Target as a method to compare with all other makes and models. This will be the graph I’ll refer to and its purpose is to give a better understanding on the strengths and weaknesses of the T5.

Upon listening, the first thing I noticed was the power of the bass. I was taken aback by the dynamics, depth and tones that captured unique bass expressions higher up the FR that are being played on contemporary music today, but were missed by other headphones I’ve listened to. A look at the Crinacle.com FR graph shows that the T5 bass response has a huge 10db gain over the IEF Neutral Target at 100Hz, followed by a slow rollover that hits down to the same line around the 280Hz. One would expect the extended bass output of the T5 would muddle up the lower mid-range vocals, but I did not hear that. What I did hear was an accurate reproduction of bass expressions that were similar to my own sub-woofer and near six-foot high loudspeakers, all driven by Bryston Audio equipment. I didn’t expect that, but credit must be given to the quality of the driver system developed by Beyerdynamic.

For example, Twenty-One Pilots explosive bass opening at 21:25 seconds on their song “Chlorine,” has bass levels that would awaken the dead if one played it loud enough at a graveyard. Tyler uses DSP to shape that bold, unique bass expression with distortion heard in the upper bass frequencies. The T5 reproduces it much like a great loudspeaker system. When compared to another elevated bass headphones, the popular Audio-Technica ATH-M50X, in which I also own, I found it misses on depth, dynamics and fails to nail that full distorted bass sound.

Another example comes from Lana Del Rey’s “13 Beaches.” At 42:19 seconds, the dark, haunting bass hit comes in with two peaks together shown on a spectrum analyzer (see uploaded screen shot). One at 125Hz and at the same time, another at 225Hz. It’s the cord composition that creates this big dark sound that causes the two spikes. If the typical headphone bass FR dropped below the neutral target line at 180Hz, you would not fully experience that important upper bass expression to the song. The T5 nails it perfectly as one would have heard it on a great sound system.

I’m a big fan of trance and EDM. The M50X doesn’t quite capture the right tone, size and dynamics of EDM bass. Also, EDM is noted for its bright high frequency and with the M50X, you get that along with a very thin, brittle treble. When listening to ILLITHEAS “Breath of Life,” the track sounds gorgeous, rich and deep with the T5.

In songs where the bass is not a dominate instrument, the T5 correctly places it in its proper order to the music. As I’m writing this review, I’m listening to Dion’s Blues with Friends, with Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamasa, Samantha Fish, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, ZZ Top and others. Nowhere is the bass dominate on this album. The lead guitars are the stars and the bass propels the blues forward without intrusion on the vocals or guitars. However, play The Police’s “The Bed’s Too Big Without You,” where Sting’s bass is the lead instrument, holy Moses, you are in for a treat.

When it comes to dynamics on the T5, just play the first two notes from Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times.” I literally ducked for cover! It was the depth of the dynamics that surprised me. Also, play The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” When Meg hits her drum, your jaw will drop because the dynamics are that good. This is the case of just not hearing the music, but experiencing it.

So, what’s not to like on the T5? Meghan Trainer said, “no treble,” but what the T5 really needed is a .5db rise at the 1kHz and 2kHz FR levels. Without that minor Eq adjustment, I found the mid-range to be slightly dark. You can see it on the uploaded graph. There is a substantial dip at the critical 2kHz area, which can be heard. So, a minor Eq should be done to bring out the best in the vocals. On brightly recorded songs, Eq adjustment won’t be needed. You will find the vocals and instruments to be rich and immersive with a lot of depth. Acoustic and electric guitars are phenomenal with the T5, because of its ability to allow guitars chords to resonate both wide and deep with their complex harmonics.

The T5’s offset drivers create a soundstage which is much like what one hears at a live performance in a moderately-sized theater. The vocals are in front of you, the guitars are behind the vocalist and the drums are further back. It’s a wall-of-sound with depth and superb imaging of vocals and instruments. The open-back headphone designs are more expansive than closed-backs, but the T5 presents a very realistic soundstage.

Not everyone will like the T5’s bold and dynamic bass response. For classical and jazz, I would select different headphones that expands the mid-range and exposes more micro-details. And that is why an audiophile owns multiple headphones to match the mood of music one wants to hear. When the mood is “all about that bass,” the Beyerdynamic T5 will deliver great music for you.