When Brent Butterworth of SoundStage! Solo unpacked beyerdynamic's T1 and T5, he labeled each pair with painter's tape and a Sharpie, because the open flagship and the closed one look alike. Inside each cup the driver is pushed to the front and angled at the ear, so the sound arrives a little more the way it does from speakers. It is beyerdynamic's Tesla driver, named for the unit of magnetic strength, and its very strong magnetic field pushes harder on the coil for the same current, so the headphone plays loud from little power. Matthew Jens of StereoNET got full volume from an iPad with an Apple adapter. Jens hears "lightning-quick transients" with elevated but controlled bass, and Tyll Hertsens of Stereophile praised the T1's "natural and powerful vocal range reproduction." The brand suits listeners who want studio clarity at home.

Start with the closed DT 770 PRO, which Jens sees everywhere in his live-events work. Chrono of The Headphone Show used one as his daily headphone before he began reviewing, and says the closed cups shut out noise like shooting-range earmuffs while the velour pads are "ear pillows." It comes in several impedances, so pick the version for what you'll plug it into. Todd of Ask DRTK drives the 250 ohm version from most audio interfaces. The 600 ohm DT 880, says Amir Majidimehr of Audio Science Review, needs an amplifier with high output voltage. The PRO X models of 2021 use a newer driver, and Jez Ford of Sound+Image heard the DT 770 PRO X sharpen up when he moved from an iPhone to studio and hifi headphone outputs. The step up is the open T1 or the closed T5, and Butterworth advises hearing both. Passion for Sound calls the T5 "smooth, rich and seductive."

Eugen Beyer was born in St. Petersburg in 1903, and his family was on holiday in Berlin when the First World War broke out and could not go home. They returned to Berlin in 1921 after years in Sweden, and in 1924 he founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik Eugen Beyer to build cinema loudspeakers. The DT 48 of 1937, which beyerdynamic calls the first dynamic headphones, took its initials from "Dynamic Telephone" and stayed in production until the end of 2012. The Berlin factory was destroyed in the war, and Beyer rebuilt in Heilbronn in 1948, where the company still is. The M 160 ribbon microphone of 1957 captured John Bonham's drums on "When the Levee Breaks." The DT 880 arrived in 1980 and the DT 770 PRO and DT 990 PRO in 1985. Jens calls the DT 770 PRO "Built like a tank and comfortable enough to fall asleep in." The T1 of 2009 brought the Tesla driver, and about 85 percent of the microphones and headphones are still built by hand in Heilbronn.