My Very FIRST Mod! Franken PhilKoss (NO 56K!)

[mADmAN]

well...we had a mini meet here yesterday, and because of that....i had a rather mAD idea and itchy hands...

and so i present to u...my Franken PhilKoss (as named by an attendee at the meet).

what i did was transplant the Koss KSC75 into the housing of a Philips HP2000. if ur wondering why i chose the HP2000....simple.. i wanted a fully black headphone to go with my all black PC. and the HP2000 was the only one i could think of and it was cheap...bought it used for RM35 (+/- USD10) specifically for this mod .

i also had the choice of putting it into the Koss UR20 (also all black) housing which i have, but i dont really like wearing those cans. hence the choice of the hp2k. that and also the housing is exactly like the Philips HP250 which i have and have found quite comfortable. only a different colour.

ok...seriously...i thought this was gonna be a simple plug and play mod...boy was i wrong!!! first off the KSC75 drivers CANT be taken out of the grey housing... so i had to figure out a way to fit them into the HP2000. this mod took me 2 weeks...as i dont really have much free time to myself..up to a point i was drilling stuff for the mod at 2-4 am for 2 nights...best part is....i did all the drilling in my toilet...hahahahahah..so u can imagine the noise...im surprised my neighbour didnt complain as my toilet window is right next to their house

anyway, on with the prawn pix....

first off... we have the stock standard and very good condition used Philips HP2000. yes, the background is my bedsheet



next, a pair of brand spanking new Koss KSC75 (thank god i bought 2...ull see why later on)



heres a pic of the HP2000 driver housing from the outside with the pads taken off... notice the holes..



unscrewed the driver housing from the cup..



heres a closeup of the original driver in the driver housing and the insides of the cup and the stock cables as well...notice the high tech "strain-relief" for the cable. i was wondering how to make a strain relief for my new cables, and this was a very good and very simple idea...which i of course implemented



here we have the KSC75 drivers...as u can see i shaved off the sides (the part where the pad hooks on to). side by side with stock... pls notice that i also shaved off the part where the cables are supposed to be.... DO NOT DO THAT!!! I KILLED THOSE DRIVERS BECAUSE OF IT!!!

top n bottom image



heres why i said i was lucky i bought 2 pairs... i had another pair to play with. i shaved off the same section of the driver housing again.. but this time i left the part where the cables are supposed to be alone...didnt wanna screw it up again coz thats where the wires from the connections to the membrane are at. i used a round file and stuck it in a corded drill to shave it off. much better results than the previous pair where i used a scissors which hurt my hand.



closeup..notice the part where the cable comes out...i left it untouched this time...



a closeup of the cable connection cover...i used the drill+file again to enlarge the exit point coz ill be using thicker cables than the stock. yes...i wanted them in there as well...to hlp keep the cables in place.




next i drilled the driver housing...remember the stock holes? friggin puny...decided to "kramer mod" the housing... check out muh ULTRA L33T drilling skills LOL!!! gimme a break ok??? i havent touched a power tool in years! :P

i also enlarged the balance of the holes n made them just slightly bigger...




now comes the part where im actually slightly good at (at least better than all the rest ive been doing with this mod :P) ... DIY cables.. made new cables for the cans.. used Canare L-4E6S StarQuad cable and Canare F-12 3.5mm stereo mini plug with black sleeves.






trimming the sides of the KSC75 actually made it fit nicely into the driver housing (that ring part) but seeing how i DIDNT trim the part where the cables come out...i had to trim the driver housing a little...so i used a nail clipper and clipped away a little of the housing ring thingy...the part i cut off is in the yellow box... this means the drivers can only fit into the house in 1 direction/ 1 way only.



test fitting the drivers in the housing after cutting off the housing.



next after recabling them with the starquad, i secured the drivers into place. secured only using a little super glue. this is because i plan to take them out again 1 day and plan to totally cut out and replace those stupid holes i drilled with a proper wire mesh...provided i can find something good and strong enough...mosquitor nets are too soft...might go for some kitchen sink crap stopper.. will probably epoxy the mesh directly to the driver housing...after thats done ill probably epoxy the KSC75 drivers to the housing as well. making them permanent.

heres a pic of the back and front after securing the drivers into place with superglue. and no im NOT promoting the superglue :P



well...after its all said and done... i put it back together, brought it to my office for my colleague (owns HD595+GoVibe 5) and my director (HD650+Darkvoice 336i) to test...i wanted to test it as well as i havent really listened to it...and after the 3 of us tested...the result? crap. seriously..crap.

reason for the crappy result? the cup. it was so thin and plasticky that it made the headphones sound so 'can-ish'. the sound was so friggin thin...and so friggin hollow.. it really had no body watsoever. we realized it was the cup that made it sound that way so we decided to add a little something into the cup to make it more...'sturdy'.

so i added the blue stuff (using double sided tape)..its a foam/spongy thingy...originally bought as a huge mat for the office toilet floor..hahahah yes, im serious..but the thing soaked up water and made the toilet squishy..so we washed it off, dried it.. and stored it for over a year...it occasionally gets cut out for some use here and there...we even cut off some to line a door to block out some noise (which worked very well). but the best use is as a padding of sorts to not scratch valuable stuff LOL. adding this gave the headphones a little body...it considerably improved the sound...but it still sounded very 'can-ish'.



next i had the idea of buying some cheap sound insulation material from a car audio shop. but my director came up with a good on the spot idea. we added a different type of foam. this foam is from a cheapo MSI motherboard. u know when u buy some motherboards it comes with a black foam thingy right? well this is the foam. we cut it out to size and just shoved it in the cup. i was worried the drivers wouldnt fit...but it did..with only VERY little force.



sorry for the last 2 blurry pix...only had my phone (w810i) at the time.

adding the black foam helped to improve the sound even more. gave it much more body... so finally i packed everything up and assembled everything... next are beauty shots of the completed headphones accompanied by the headphone stand i got from Jaben Network.







so my take on the cans? first off...lemme state that im more used to the DT990 which are superb in bass and highs. and i also prefer that. theyre not that bright either...i listen to metal, and getting the bass 'kick' with metal is no real easy task especially with headphones. the DT990 does it quite well imho but ive always thought the stock KSC75s had almost no bass. although for metal i do think the KSC75s sound way better than the Senn HD595. especially with the in-your-face mids.

anyway...theyre typical of unburned KSC75, it sounded bright..the ones i modded havent been burned in yet though. and also even though it had ALOT mroe body than it first did...i think it still sounded thin... i plan on changing the black foam with sound insulation material from the car audio shops. perhaps i might line the cup with blue-tak as well hoping that it gives more body.

also, for some reason these cans are hard to drive. i did NOT do any mods to directly affect the efficiency or increase the impedance. could be the whole foam thingy in the cup..

but other than that, im happy with the mod.. some attendees at the meet found them quite good during the meet.

total cost? no idea. but for me, i guess it was roughly around RM180 if u buy all brand new parts not inclusive of the foam thingy.

is this mod worth it? yes, if u have the tools and ESPECIALLY the time. it was tough for me considering i had to rush it with the very little time i have (finish work 10-11pm everynight) in order to make it for the mini meet. plus killing one pair of the drivers seriously didnt help matters. i also didnt have a drill...luckily my sis has one so i borrowed hers. i also bought the round file specifically for this mod.


anyway. thats it. pls do post ur comments on what u guys think of the mod...but do spare me on my drilling skills LOL

also, its my 29th bday today!! god, im old.... make sure u wish me yah! hahahahhahahahaha

[lutwey]

damn..............nice job!!!
i use to own one of those before headfi.

[akabane@drjackel]

Madman, you really did it a good job here...yesterday gathering i hear this can like a normal headphone. my own view on this "can" is really soundstage is wider than before and is confortable tooo....but as you said is not a worth to modd right??? cause of time???

[elbrickodaviso]

Nice job and happy birthday. I hope you learned a thing or two, or the sound/comfort level improved, or some other extra good stuff happened for your hard work.

[EFN]

Malaysia Boleh!

[Albatross05]

That's a pretty nice looking mod. Sound is all important, though. I've found blue tack has a much better effect on the sound than any kind of foam or cotton or whatever. Anytime I ever tried using foam or cotton balls (even tiny amounts of it) it just seemed to dull the mids and highs unacceptably. But that was with open cans. Closed cans might be different. I've never liked the sound of completely closed cans.

About drilling. The first time I drilled plastic screwed up and used the actual pieces for my headphones instead of practicing first on a scrap piece. I really messed up on the first earcup. The second one turned out really professional looking. Lesson learned. Practice on scrap first.

Nice job though. I've been thinking about getting some of those Koss and some junk cheapie cans with comfy cups to try and make them tolerable for me.

[souperman]

Happy birthday my man. or should i say MADman? :P

[d-cee]

hehe thanks for sharing!

sounds like you work with a few head-files all my work mates mock me lol

also, that headphone stand from jaben is a lot like those from woo audio except wood...

http://www.wooaudio.com/images/fulls..._silvernbk.jpg

[mADmAN]

thanks for the wishes guys...and glad u guys liked the mod.

@akabane@drjackel
yeah....time...if u have alot of time then i say go ahead with this mod...but i dont..so abit hard...even yuheng oso want me to do for him i cant coz lack of time.

although im pretty sure someone whos used to modding and cabling would take a very short time to do it.

LOL @ EFN :P

@Albatross05
these cans are open cans.. if u look at the pic of the blue foam ull see the cups actually have these vent holes. on stock and even modded they leak hell of a lot of sound. and i mean ALOT! even more than my DT990.

i plan on doing the blue tak. only thing is i didnt have any at the time of the mod. now im gonna take my own sweet time doing it.. gonna try a few configs which includes the tak only, tak+blue pad or tak+foam or tak+pad&foam.

but im also curious as to how itll sound with the car sound insulation foam....hmmm....

@d-cee
yeah theyre the same exact design except its made from wood. the black woo audio stand is way sexier though

[Albatross05]

Originally Posted by mADmAN

@Albatross05
these cans are open cans.. if u look at the pic of the blue foam ull see the cups actually have these vent holes. on stock and even modded they leak hell of a lot of sound. and i mean ALOT! even more than my DT990.

Oh. Sorry. My monitor stinks and I usually can;t make out many details on anything that's black.

i plan on doing the blue tak. only thing is i didnt have any at the time of the mod. now im gonna take my own sweet time doing it.. gonna try a few configs which includes the tak only, tak+blue pad or tak+foam or tak+pad&foam.

but im also curious as to how itll sound with the car sound insulation foam....hmmm....

Well, every headphone enclosure is different but I had very poor results with cotton batting on mine. I used quite a bit of putty on mine on the back of the driver and all areas of the cups that didn't block air flow. I think it makes a significant difference in tightening up the bass (depending on how dense your cups are). I think Blu Tack makes horns sound much better on mine.

[Claus-DK]

That is a massive drill you are using there....

[mADmAN]

@Albatross05
what cans did u use the bluetak on?

time to get a new monitor heh

@Claus-DK
eh? theyre normal sized corded drill dude.. about the same size as a cordless drill..just that the round file was meant for hand use...not a drill

[Shunyata]

It looks closed. Maybe a few holes on the outside cover would improve the sound. Unless you wanted it closed?

[mADmAN]

i wanted to leave it stock looking. theyre open cans...u can check the official specs for them.

and if u look at the pic of the blue foam/pad...ull see there are vent holes in sides of the cups.