Orthodynamic Roundup - Page 897

Well, no, not completely.

Mostly not, no.

Probably.

Could be a cavity resonance, could also be reflections from the clamped perimeter of the diaphragm. Try lining anything that might support a 6.5 kHz wave.

We don't often discuss the problem of standing waves on the diaphragm, but remember Strathearn used bits of fluff and fiberglass to reduce interference nodes on their large mid-tweet unit. Fostex in the T30 tried to damp reflections by laying down a bead of silicone grease right at the point of clamping.

This is one of the disadvantages of the clamped, tensioned type diaphragm, and sometimes you just have to trace around with something like an unsharpened pencil til you find the node. As a string player, MPI will know exactly what I mean. On the other hand, this is likely to be a real PITA task. But if thickening the fiberglass/rockwool pads doesn't help get it under control...


Good question. I should have, but didn't, take the T50 to the meet, but-- keeping in mind these impressions are all from a sample size of one (1), I can tell you it's no contest. Which is, after all, as we'd expect. The HE-5 really is, as it jolly well should be, a next evolutionary step up, and the good news is that it has the headstage (as demonstrated by the socalled open-palm test) of a Lambda. At last!

The better news is that it can only improve (or get cheaper) from here. The T50 pointed the way, and finally, more than 30 years later, its successors have arrived. We'll just have to decide whether the price of a new LCD-2 or HE-5 is worth the money, just as we would've had to decide whether a new T50 in 1978 (or a new SR-X Mk3 in 1976) was worth the money.

I was taken aback by the difference between the HD 800 and the HE-5. But on sober reflection, the HE-5 sounded like a stat, and the HD 800 sounded like a very competent dynamic. This is, of course, a short trial with only two different recordings on one setup, and I tend to be seduced by the effortless fluency of the better stats whether this turns out to be added distortion or not, so plug a lot of experimental slop into the results. But even with some big tolerances accounted for, I'm comfortably certain that the HE-5 is, if not more accurate, sure as heck a lot more yeah! (i.e., fun, entertaining, free, liquid, unrestrained, unbuttoned, lively) sounding than the HD 800. I was hoping for a much closer contest.

By the way, this has nothing to do with value for money. If the HE-5 were unluckily (for us in NA) handmade in Germany instead of [presumably] drop-shipped from the factory in China, it might well be priced higher than the HD 800.

Now, the question of headstage. Here comes the really odd bit, and remember, this is only my impression, strong as it may be-- we can't go back and check those impressions today, tomorrow, or next week, which we'd normally do:
Sennheiser, who, I never tire of telling everyone, practically invented headstage in headphone reproduction with the watershed HD 414 and whose headphones have always been dynamite binaural-recording demonstrators, seems to have created an elaborate headphone with only moderate headstage as indicated by the open-palm reflect-the-backwave test. There is backwave coming out of the HD 800, but it's nasty stuff, and bouncing it back into the earcup put a spike of ear-stinging treble into the sound when I did the test at the meet, whereas the same test on the HE-5 gave the same results you'd get with a Lambda or ESP\950, though perhaps not quite as intense: a smooth comb-filter effect through the mids and up through the treble. Even the HD 600 does better on this test than the 800. This doesn't necessarily reflect (heh) the quality of sound you'll hear on the other side of the diaphragm, it's just a test of the quality and quantity of backwave energy. Still... try the test for yourself. It's one headphone test that doesn't depend on the test[heh]osterone level of the amp.

The YH-100 sounding like (not identical to, but like) the HD 800 was a bit of an eye-opener too. Nothing fraught or fussy about this particular YH-100. Stock everything, with a reflex dot, a plain felt disc for damping, I believe a reflex disc too to compensate for inadequately-dense felt, probably another layer of felt only to make the whole sandwich tight enough to hold everything firmly in place, possibly a blu-tack gasket... Like I said, nothing special or unusual. Just the basic stuff we'd learned at the time the thing was modded, which was most likely sometime in 2006.

I'll be getting a YH-1000 to try in a few days. That should be interesting. Thanks, anonymous lender! [waves]

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x3! If we can get that close with simple mods to a stock 'phone, we don't need to throw crazy money at the problem, money that we'll inevitably regret throwing not too much later.

The upshot: we have a new target. Forget the T50v1; try to audition the socalled Neo Orthos, the LCD-2 and/or the HE-5, and aim in that direction. Not because they're perfect, but because they do more things right-- they've solved some of the problems of headphone listening and ortho listening in particular.