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The recipient after Fungi was me
After some extensive modding, they are now one of the best phones I've ever heard. I love them to bits.
Good to hear those were mine! You're the 4th owner of them, then. I got them off eBay.co.uk. I've seen your work on them actually in the photos you've posted. You did beautiful work; stuff I could never have done. I knew they had awesome potential, but I figured modding would have been too tricky and I really liked my ortho's to tell the truth. But the ECR-500 definitely sounds like no other phone I've ever heard, and in a good way.
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The mods have completely transformed them into something special for me. I had a good listen in stock form, then I had a good listen to the drivers out of the housing and went to work knowing the recessed highs could be easily recovered while keeping that great bass and sweet mid section. All the internal wiring is gone from the adapter box and with the Stax cable and felt backing in place of the old foam they sound wonderful. The thick, perforated faceplate was replaced with mesh to free the sound. All-in-all a very worthwhile set of mods. I will be their final owner until I croak
My UR-40 SFI's have been assembled, but are still 'in progress' as far as damping goes. I mounted the drivers at an angle (with one half sticking out of the baffle) and made some cut-silicone inserts to fill in the space between the driver and the earpads, making them basically supraaural (the silicone also covers up the ring of holes in the baffle, mostly).
I'm having to EQ the hell out of 'em to make them usable, though -- no bass to speak of without it. With EQ they sound quite good. My thin dense felt hasn't arrived yet, so right now I'm making do with 1.5" discs of the brown packing paper the drivers were shipped with -- crumpled, pressed flat, and pinholed. Then felt, foam, felt.
One thing I've noticed so far is that a thicker dampening sandwich, that gets squished tight and pushes really hard on the driver, reduces bass but sure makes transients crisp and bass impactful.
I wonder if the bass will come up when I go to felt dampening. Or maybe I need to epoxy the baffle holes completely shut.
My UR-40 SFI's have been assembled... I'm having to EQ the hell out of 'em to make them usable, though -- no bass to speak of without it. With EQ they sound quite good. My thin dense felt hasn't arrived yet, so right now I'm making do with 1.5" discs of the brown packing paper the drivers were shipped with -- crumpled, pressed flat, and pinholed. Then felt, foam, felt.
Your results so far remind me of mine with the YHD-2 driver. You're right, the SFI could be overdamped, but try it with little or no damping and see what you get.
Originally Posted by pdennis
I wonder if the bass will come up when I go to felt dampening. Or maybe I need to epoxy the baffle holes completely shut.
Hard to say, since I don't know how much of the earcup volume you've filled, but make sure there's a decent ear seal and do plug those baffle holes, although epoxy would be overkill.
You've completely covered the inside of the back grille with felt, right?
I'm not old enough to have experienced Talking Heads when they were still producing albums, but I do notice a bit of a trend in regards to the ages of headphones I buy.
I should progress with modding my Fostexen now that I have superfelt from ericj. I'll get to that soon. Meanwhile, I'm still keeping my eyes peeled for a nice cheap foster-phone for the SFI drivers. Are any of the vintage Koss frames any good? They're bulky and look like they weigh a ton, which isn't very promising.
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Last edited by mypasswordis; 06-11-2008 at 12:21 AM..
My original SFI re-pot (perhaps the first ever here?) was in a Realistic Pro 60, which is really a Koss HV/X or something.
Most of the Koss HV series and corresponding radioshack models should work if you carve out the center hole in the baffle and remove the silly individual volume controls some models have.
Two problems:
1: Not as common as you'd think they might be. These are 80's vintage pieces and don't turn up on ebay so often.
2: The stock earpads are often completely inappropriate.
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AudioCubes2 declined to cancel my order, then lied to me and told me it had already shipped a full business day before the date on the shipping label.
Password's guess is correct: old Koss iron weighs a ton. Even when it doesn't have to, and as Eric said, it's not always suitable for an SFI (or other driver) transplant anyway.
Frustrating, this search for the cheap, common, drop-in foster chassis with earpads suitable for planars. Especially galling with the drying up of the used Ortho market.
I got a potentially interesting foster phone. A Pioneer SE-4. It's entirely snap together. The drivers are attached to the back of the cups and the baffle just snaps in. It will be interesting trying mount the drivers and get a seal. They actually don't sound that bad as long as you don't want any bass. They roll off at about 100Hz
Edit: Looking at little more at the ear cups and baffles, it's a very strange design. The driver is glued to the solid center portion of the ear cup. The center of the baffle is completely open and the hole is the same size as the driver. I doubt if much sound exits though the holes in the back of the cup and what does is reflecting off of you ears. It's really a closed headphone masquerading as an an open one. It might not work too well as a foster phone after all.
I got a potentially interesting foster phone. A Pioneer SE-4.
I think with some major surgery they could be made to work. What I would do is similar to what I did to my German fosterphones:
* glue the driver flush to the front of the baffle
* remove as much as possible from the back of the earcups and replace it with wire mesh, dampened on the inside with thin felt
The earpads look thin and largish, so they could work. And they look beautiful. I have a soft spot for the design of '70s and '80s phones, and I am buying a few off ebay. The latest pair I received today are HD 430s, beautiful but totallyunsuitable as fosterphones.
The problem is, what holds the baffle in place is the clamping pressure of the headband. If you hold the cups with the baffle pointing down and shake, they fall out. I think I can make them work, but it'll take some effort. I'll probably drill holes in the side and pin them together
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