Over the years, the Germans have perfected the art of manufacturing and push to produce some of the highest quality products available. The country’s production ranges from automobiles, to electrical components, or in this case, sound equipment and they all seem to offer superb quality.
When it comes to purchasing sound equipment, the saying ‘You get what you pay for’ is quite true in most cases. The sound equipment market is filled with different brands, some that charge very little, and others that rely on their popularity. It takes hard research to find a company that is dedicated in their products and one that relies not on their popularity, but rather their outstanding products.
With the review numbers counting up, I’ve discovered a good sensation when I get the opportunity to review a Beyerdynamic product. Over the last 90 years, they’ve strived to take professional grade equipment and make it readily available to the consumer market.
For once, and for what I believe to be reasonable pricing, Beyerdynamic offers everything you may need to create your own home music studio and the first place to begin is with the quality of the sound. Like any music studio, you’ll desire rich, clear and uninterrupted audio that outputs to headphones that provide strong bass and outstanding tones.
Welcome to my review of the Beyerdynamic A20 & T90. Throughout this review, I will discuss the design, functionality, and my overall thoughts of the review. I would like to thank Beyerdynamic for providing me with these items.
The Design
I’ll begin with the control module that will be the brains behind your potential new musical setup. Concealed by a brushed aluminum frame, the A20 is a headphone amplifier that converts low-power computer sound to high range frequencies for powerful high impedance headphones.
A physical tour of the A20 reveals a red/green power button, dual 6.35mm headphone outputs, and an ALPS potentiometer, aka a sound adjustment wheel, on the front face. The back holds the three pin wall power port, a left/right audio input as well as a left/right audio output. In my personal setup, I connected the A20 to my Gigabyte G1.Sniper motherboard and used a RadioShack splitter to convert a single headphone jack to the RCA input the A20 uses. I also choose to keep my speakers connected to the system so that I could choose between headphones or speakers, or sometimes even both!
The top uses a rubber-like material that you can use to rest things on such as a speaker, and the unit stands on four rubber feet that lift it off the desk about half an inch. One benefit of the top surface is that it offers a strong scratch resistance to anything you may place on it.
Its elegant design makes the A20 one of the cleanest and nicest headphone amplifiers available on the market. Beyerdynamic even goes beyond and ensures that no screws are openly visible. When placed upon my desk, it looked stunning and quite frankly was an upgrade to the looks of my surroundings.
This story stays constant as we transition into the T90 headphones. The A20 is a powerful amplifier which means you need powerful and serious headphones to match. On the back packaging of the amplifier, Beyerdynamic recommends their T90s and T70s with usage of this product.
The design of the T90s is like most Beyerdynamic headphones and uses an all metal frame that is covered in a soft touch microfiber material. Both the ear cups and headband use, what I could call, a memory foam padding that is quite comfortable for long periods of usage.
Speaking about the ear cups, the outsides have a silver metal ring that wraps around the black metal housing. Furthermore, the outward face of both ear cups have a unique style of a rippled wooden-like finish. Finally, sound is carried over the extremely long non-detachable audio cable. At the end of that cable is a 3.5mm headphone jack that can be converted into the 6.35mm jack with the included gold adapter.
Functionality
My setup of the A20 may differ from what most users will do. As I said earlier, I am connected to a Gigabyte G1.Sniper motherboard that is running the latest Creative Sound card driver and software. From the motherboard is a splitter that sends the signal to both my desktop speakers and the A20. Moreover, I am also using an external ferrite bead on the power cable to stop any excess frequencies that may be interfering with the amplifier. This should allow you to avoid any high pitched whines.
Let me first start by saying that this audio setup is not for everybody. For most general users, your standard motherboard sound chip should be enough to please you. The target market for this situation is for those who tend to constantly listen to music over their headphones or for those who are in the music industry.
Of course, before beginning my testing, I allow the T90s to be dialed in by listening to low volume music and videos for a 12 – 24 hour period. I began with some fairly basic testing by listening to online music based songs, primarily from YouTube. At an audio stream rate of around 126 kbps AAC the music was very strong and well understandable. Voices and the music being played are bass heavy and very rich.
Further testing moved on to local based MP3 files that contained rock and roll songs from AC/DC, Deep Purple, Ozzy, and Led Zeppelin. All of my MP3s play at a bit rate of 128 kbps and these too sounded excellent with voices being crisp, and lows, mids, highs and even bass were superb over any other headphone reviews.
Lastly, I listened to a high bit rate file at 320 kbps to see if there was a noticeable difference. There is a slight variation when turning the volume up and it is more pleasing to listen to higher bit rates. The T90s support Beyerdynamic’s new incredible Telsa technology that does offer minimal distortion in your music playback, especially with better sounding files. More on the Tesla Technology can be found here.
While this section of the review is one of my favorites to write about, it’s one of the hardest as expressing the sound quality of these two devices is difficult in text. It truly is an experience that you have to hear for yourself and I can assure you that the sound output of these two products are far better than what you have lying on your desk.
Finally, the T90s use an open back design meaning noise cancellation is practically nonexistent. When there’s nothing playing you can very easily hear the outside world. On low to medium volume, things slightly improve, but you can still hear your nearby surroundings. That said, things never improve for the person sitting next to you as when the volume is turned up, noise leaks quite heavily and they can hear what you’re listening to with the headphones. Certainly not a deal breaker as medium volume is reasonable for both parties, but something worth mentioning if you happen to be constantly in a room with somebody.
My Overall Thoughts
All in all, the A20 & T90 are an audiophile’s dream setup to own and use. Their partnership for each other allow them to offer some of the best sounds and audio in the comfort of your own home. With the amplifier costing $599 and the headphones priced at $649, it’s worth the cost if you’re interested in this market and you won’t be disappointed with the quality or sound. The product page of both of these units display the product’s awards it has achieved and each one is well deserved.
Buy it Now (A20):
Buy it Now (T90):
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2 Comments
Have you noticed any peaks and exaggeration of the treble which is pretty known for T90’s using A20 amp? How does it sound – natural and neutral or rather with some boost in certain areas of the frequency? Any other amp in comparison – like Lake People G109?
Hello. I haven’t noticed any major increases of treble or peaks in the sound. What I have noticed is that even on a dedicated sound card, the A20 likes to create a strange static if your mouse’s laser is not shielded correctly. This is the only amp I have currently so no other comparison can be made.