What could be more satisfying than taking a 9-iron to your MDR-G63 Streetstyles? Yep, drilling a few holes in them...
I often wondered whether the semi-closed design was responsible for those woolly upper mids. Only one way to find out...
Opening up my streetstyles, I noticed a fibre paper ring blocking off 16 and two halves of the 18 air holes in the back metal plate of the driver. Thinking this was all part of Sony's evil plan to flood the streets with phones which have neither crisp, airy sound nor closed-can isolation (ie. the worst of both worlds), I decided the paper ring had to go... Big mistake! Now I had serious closed can colouration around 150Hz, even less bass than the original design and, worst of all, a
massive hole in the treble around 1-4kHz!! I was definitely in the rough.
Drilling the cup holes fixed the closed can colouration but the whole top-end was still dead. Time to reach for the surgical tape...
Here you can see how I've replaced the paper ring, leaving just two half-holes open as per the original design. Luckily the treble came back. [geek]Is this due to high frequency reflection, or does the paper vibrate like a kazoo
or Chinese flute? [/geek]
The two half-holes seem to cause the cup space to act like a tuned port, boosting mid-bass. Once I had finished with the Ryobi, mid-bass was slightly weaker but bass extension was improved. Bear in mind that this is a supra-aural design, so bending the headband for a snug fit is far more important than drilling any holes.
You can relive the original Streetstyle experience at any time (Yay!
) by simply clipping on the covers:-
In full stealth mode (pictured above), you won't even have to put up with people asking what your handicap is, unless you're in the habit of practising your swing in public.
Tips for anyone crazy enough to give this a go:-
1. Go easy on the plastic clips since they are only designed to be clipped together once, not clipped and unclipped 20 times. Use a small screwdriver and apply a gentle twist to separate the clip as you lever the baffle from the casing. Watch for fatigue marks in the plastic.
2. Don't remove the paper gasket from the back of the driver.
3. Drill from the inside outwards so the drill doesn't wander and so you don't cut through any important structural elements or wires.
4. Use a sharp drill and support the cup with a soft wooden block (or a phone book) for a clean cut.
The Caddyshack Mod: "Holey Streetstyles, Batman!"
Linear Mode
