My unexpected experience trying Beyerdynamics DT series

I have been searching for solid studio headphones for mixing and mastering for a few months already.

Last weeks I was in between Sennheiser HD 600/660s, Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro or 900 Pro, and the Hifiman Sundara.

Where I live in Spain it was absolutely imposible trying any of them without flying or taking boats + 5-10 hours drives. I had to go for work reason to Madrid a few days ago, so I tool the chance to visit one of the only distributors of Beyerdynamics in Spain and try out the DT series.

Already in Madrid, went to their warehouse and they only had the DT 770 Pro 80 ohms, but told me that it represented well the sound signature of the company and despite being closed, the sound quality was similar to 990, 900 and 1990. The audio engineer that attended me told me that with 80 ohms, I didn’t need amp and I could connect it straight to my phone and check the sound. I was very surprised by that but he was supposed to be the “professional” there.

I plugged the headphones to my iPhone and play a few songs of different genres + a few of my mixed demos.

What it was like? Well, after months investigating Beyerdynamic’s sound and “amazing” headphones and reading incredible reviews, I expected to be impressed. What I got? Basically, the same sound of my 20€ earpods but muffled and lower in volume. Yes, thats what I got from those headphones. I can tell that I prefer tje way my 20€ 2017 apple earbuds sound over those DT 770 I heared.

Was there anything redeeming? I mean, you could scratch a little bit and say that perhaps the bass seemed to reach lower Hz than my earbuds, but aside from that, I couldn’t confidently put one over the other.

Obviously, the elephant under the carpet here is the amp. Was it the case that a 89ohms impedance requires an amp 100% to sound good? Thats what I thought but the sound engineer seemed to think otherwise, and told me that the lower volume was because Beyerdynamic protect their users from higher volumes.

Anyway, after that experience, I can’t certainly take the risk to but the DT 1990 Pro, as promising as it looked. I still give them the benefit of the doubt for the amp issue, but I am probably going to go for the Hifiman Sundara…

Opinions on this situation? Should I trust the test I made without amp for that particular model and impedance ?