Orthodynamic Roundup - Page 1175

Count yourself lucky, that is a very reasonable price for such a high tech driver. The enigma is how they can sell the TR50P for only $75-80, this headphone is the best bang for the buck in the trade. No other manufacturer offers something similar at the price level.

The headband on my YH3 seems to be getting stretched with use.  Anyone else have this problem?  It doesn't clamp very hard at all anymore, their neutral position leaves the earpads about 2-3 inches apart.  They feel nice this way, but I think the bass looses a little somethin special.  The milnt HP50 I just got by comparison, clamps the earpads together tightly in neutral.  Which is way too tight and much pain, so something in between with both would be nice..

 

Any ideas for giving them some more clamp?  All I can think of is to add a bent metal band around the outside.  Even if I could bend this old plastic, it wouldn't really work since the cups just hit.  Maybe I'll just have to wear them with a rubber band around my head?

Edited by rhythmdevils - 7/2/11 at 11:03am

I'm not sure about orthos, but dynamic drivers need to be paired by impedance and FR...otherwise mismatches can occur. It seems that some T50RP drivers have a blue marker dot on them, and some others red.

 

Edited by leeperry - 7/2/11 at 5:04am

Both of mine have blue dots. Dbel offered to see if he could fix the driver for me. I hope he can, I really dont want to buy another set.

 

 

Somewhere on page 1! of this never ending story I was named with my site about how to refurbish the Yamaha HP1. Never thought that it would come this far! . Read all over the world internet pages about refurbishing that HP1, some almost copied some with own path and solutions. I'm impressed! Now yesterday I did something stupid . Guess what? I bought a Phonitor, yes, that box from SPL. Really bad, now I'm really hooked to my phones. So my advice is not to follow me like my solution with my HP1 . Oh yes, my Yamaha HP1's were the first to taste that Phonitor. Meters set on PPM, input adjusted to about 0dB with sometimes overshoot up to +5dB's. That's way below the maximum of +24dB before clipping internal amps. CD direct into the Phonitor. Master volume knob set on +6 marking. Output measured with my headphone sound level meter is about 90dBspl. Most depressing fact is that you don't notice or hear the amp, just the way it should be. Now what next?

Now back to the T20v2.

 

Always liked it, but I hated the discomfort of the stock pads, and I wasn't able to dig out circumaural pads that provided bass worth mentioning. Till yesterday. I got an offer by one of my german buddies I couldn't refuse, a pair of 2nd hand O2 pads for 20€. They work great, I get tons of bass, a nice warm mids section and more presence glitter than stock. Moreover, things get presented at least a bit more clearly due to the increased width of the soundscape. And the most important thing, they can be worn for hours nonstop.

 

They almost rival my Mylar RP18 now. Of course the NAD still has more authority in the lower registers and is more "audiophile", but I do prefer the Fostex's tonality quite a bit, especially in the mids section, where the NAD lacks a bit warmth (at least the Mylar, the Kaplon fared better here IMO). I guess I could send my preciousssss NAD on a promotion tour among my german buddies now, which I always had refused. I will be fine with just the T20 for a couple of weeks I guess...

 

Specs:

There were surprising little damping alterations to be done, I kept it with alubutyl and tac, a bit transpore and micropore, a piece of wool felt and the stock foam thing. The only thing I changed was opening half a hole of the driver's back, and I added a piece of tape as reflex dot.

 

It sounded still a bit lean on the bass and had an increased accent in the upper mids in the beginning. The mids coloration could be cured completely with AKG K271 foam disks that I put over the driver on the ear's side. NoXter gave me that tip, these disks consist of foam and a very dense textile on top, the best tinkering material of that sort I've ever tried. Now to the bass, for some reason it got stronger when I put the flat RP18 supraaural pads under the O2-pads (and over the foam disks).

 

 

Downsides:

Look at it... ...

try denon d2000 pads, they are black and seem to look identical to your pads otherwise

Edited by ourfpshero - 7/3/11 at 9:00am

I think I rather turn on my lathe again in medium terms...

@Nickchen : the O2 pads indeed spruce up the bass on fostexen & T20 really has some very nice mids. BTW, Did you try the O2 pads on your NAD. I suppose you would like that .

 

The reason the stock RP18 increase the bass when stuffed under o2 pads is because they are acting as 'bass lens'.

Nope, but I put them on my DT880'600, and it converted into a total dullhead with Ultrasone bass and no presence at all. After that, I left my NAD untouched, moreover as the W11 pads are (sort of) glued, and as Brian once uttered harsh criticism about the pairing RP18 and O2 pads. The T20 "needs" them more desperately anyhow. I'll try later, they are already in the post package and get sent around tomorrow.

 

Thanks for the other input  :)

 

 

Edited by nickchen - 7/3/11 at 11:43am

Brian tried the O2 pads with kapton NADs which should explain his dislike. The mylars NADs synergise much better with O2 pads.

 

 

Thank the senior ninjas, I just reproduced what has already been discussed in this thread.

Do yall think putting foam in front of the whole driver reduces detail?  I thought it would simply reduce the treble and thereby create the illusion of less apparent detail, but whenever I try it to reduce treble, I feel like I'm not just altering FR but actually loosing subtle details as well. 

 

On a slightly different note, I've noticed the speaker cloth in the O2 pads has a detrimental effect on the sound.  I was tuning my T20v1 with O2 pads with the speaker cloth removed, and once I had something I wanted to keep for awhile, I put the screws into the cups and put the speaker cloth back and it suddenly seemed to loose something, some transparency and air/sparkle in the treble.  I thought it was the screws or damping, but when I tried taking the cloth out and the sound went back as it was before. 

Edited by rhythmdevils - 7/3/11 at 3:31pm

I don't really notice anything like that on my T50RP MKII and I've got two layers of felt over the driver.  As far as I can tell it mostly affects FR.

If you have anything in the way of the diaphragm and your ear it  produces an air impedance. If it has large open holes it may alow detail through but affect bass/treble balance. but if its denser, it will impeded the air, thereby cutting off details as you say. Its pretty much the same as sticking a pillow onto your ears. the thinner the pillow the less it blocks the sound, but blocks the sound nonetheless. Sometimes this may be a good thing or a bad thing, it depends on the phone in question.

Yes the O2 pad cloth , whilst quite open, does impede the air to a degree. The best test is to blow into it and feel the other side, you will see that the force of air is radically changed. Thats whats happening to the sound waves.

 

So when you put a pillow to your ears, the loss of detail isn't just from attenuation of higher frequencies, there is additional loss of detail?  How does this happen?

 

I wonder what the right density is to reduce treble but let detail in.  It reminds me of the grills that many dynamic headphones have over the drivers, which are often dome shaped pieces of metal with a pattern of holes.  It seems like it must be there to change the FR.  I've thought about trying to install something like that over an ortho driver to see what happens.