Orthodynamic Roundup - Page 1377

Quote:

Originally Posted by kalbee 
 Though one question is the radial rims in the pu foam (the last part in your post)... I didn't fully understand it. Do you mean to put rings of pu foam and memory foam where ever takes the most pressure?

just like a winter tyre - but not as complicated. straight lines with a 1 mm gap and a 3mm bridge with a deepness depending on the thickness of the disc. the memora foam that covers it makes it even and it gives you a continous pressure relief instead of a steep step.

Since I was previously overdamping the HP-50S and wasn't quite happy with the loud treble, I tried to look for smoother alternatives.

The frequency measurements are raw to some degree and should be taken as being indicative and nothing more.

Below is the HP-50S as it was, with two nylon discs in the cup (no stock white disc, driver blu-tacked to baffle):

Below is the HP-50S as it's now, with stock foam and one nylon disc in the cup, the stock white disc in front of the driver, driver not blu-tacked onto the baffle, and an acrylic wool-knit disc on the outside of the baffle:

To avoid confusion, the wool disc is placed like this, slightly tucked under the flaky pad:

The effect of not sealing the driver to the baffle with blu-tack I already just posted about - but basically having the driver attached to the baffle in that way seems to create ringing around 5 kHz. Taking off the blu-tack smooths out the ringing.

The effect of the white stock disc I also mentioned a few posts ago - it does a pretty good job of smoothing out the bass hump without affecting the other frequencies too much (treble changes by a few dB, but nothing massive). Note that I'm only using the white paper disc, not the thinner black one that the white disc comes attached to. I've no idea how the black disc would affect the sound.

The nylon disc in the cup smooths out the bass hump (a bit less than the white disc, actually) without altering anything else very much. My HP-50S is bass-light to some degree, so this is all that's needed to kill the bass hump completely.

The wool disc (loosely knit) in front of the baffle reduces the nasty ~10 kHz peak by about 5 dB, which is exactly what I was looking for. It also cuts the rest of the treble above 5 kHz by a few dB, which isn't a bad thing. The other result from this disc is that it pushes the pads up slightly from the middle (since the disc is tucked under the pad), which seems to enlarge the soundstage just a little bit. I tried a felt disc in place of the wool one, but that did nothing but deaden the sound.

With these mods, the sound is very good. Not quite as showy and forward as before - a bit smoother and slightly more laid-back, but without loosing too much detail and without becoming dull-sounding. Quite nice.

 I know with these they use no screws, so was wondering if you had sealed up the baffle to cup joint around the outside edges?

I used some electrical tape for that and am pretty happy with the results, but the pads i used need to be replaced a bit too hard so I will reserve commenting on them for now, although as they are they are incredibly capable even giving me goosebumps once. ( an HP-50A recabled ) I'd have to go check my notes as far as what exact damping I used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vid 

Since I was previously overdamping the HP-50S and wasn't quite happy with the loud treble, I tried to look for smoother alternatives.

One thing that would be really great would be doing all that stuff with a better sounding yamie, such as the world class YH1

I've heard the HP50 and it sounded like rubbish to my ears compared to a well driven YH1, the latter sounds absolutely amazing off a low jitter source + synergic & beefy headamp combo

nick, I've not tried sealing the cup yet. I'll get some tape on it at some point and see what happens.

lee, what was wrong with the HP-50 you heard?

Everything? The YH1 is a major notch ahead to my ears, the HP50 is a pimped YH3: smaller driver, much cheaper. It was mostly a freebie thrown in with organs, not quite the top of the range YH1.

I take it they had no bass below 200 Hz, the mids had a 20-dB dip from 500 Hz to 2 kHz, the treble was 50 dB above 1 kHz and all with a 90 % THD? More specifics, man. Unless this is about trampling down the HP-50 prices, in which case, rock on!

The HP-50 are much easier to damp than the HP-1/YH-1 due to their better cup design.

They may lack some soundstage and punch compared to their larger siblings, but it's very easy to make them sound great, something which is not true for the HP-1. Backed by a decent amp, the small driver Yamahas are better than 95% of the phones discussed on this site. And since they were very common they can be found easily for little money (especially on Yahoo! Japan), making them the ideal phone for budding orthodynamicists.

FWIW, I had and listened extensively to the HP50 / HP3 / HP1 / YH100 / T20v1 / T20v2 / TDS15 / Pro30 / NAD RP18 and maybe some others I cannot remember now, and the phones I'm wearing now are my original bass heavy HP3, none of the above surpass them. While for portable use, my Sony SFI hybrids are better than any of the low impedance models cited above. My impressions are subjective, but backed by my boss who is a serious audiophile with Magneplanar speakers and a huge powerful tube amp, and who regularly does blind tests of my phones against his (HD650/K340/HP1/HP50/T20v1 etc).

Treating the HP50 as 3rd rate phones does a disservice to new readers...

lol, I said "to my ears" 

I used my good ole left-handed brain and subjectively speaking the HP50 sounds like a freebie thrown in with organs to me, the YH1 like a killer dynamic/stat bastard child. Wualta said that the YH3 would measure better than the YH1 but that subjectively speaking the YH3 wasn't quite there IIRC. You get what you pay for and IIUC the larger/stronger an ortho driver gets, the worse it will measure(like the YH100) but anyway don't expect a freebie to sound anywhere like a TOTL model IMO.

If you like to watch CSD's all day, then the HP50 is a great choice indeed I guess. And the YH1 does need a beefy synergic amp.

Bah, to each his own....

This brief exchange reminds me a lot of the gear-oriented flamewars so common on photography/cellphones forums: something has better specs, then it must be better. Usually it's not, especially if the better specs don't translate easily into usability (eg for phones multicores, faster only in certain apps, increased battery drain, etc).

Wualta spoke of a single pair of YH3, if you have followed this thread for a few years you must know that the hp3/yh3 are the model with the most variance: each sample sounds different from the next. You cannot generalize what someone (even walt) said about a single YH3, especially if you then extend this to encompass all the HP50 in existence, which are a different animal, with much less variance than the yh3/hp3.

As for the hp50 being tossed in with organs, it does not mean anything: Yamaha organs were not toys, but professional products. The HP50 were simply the cheapest, most rugged phones in the excellent Yamaha lineup, not something you find in candies. Compare the store price for the HP-3, which were not given for free, to that of other phones of the time.

As for the "killer dynamic/stat bastard child", I always found the YH1/YH100 drivers really boring: good potential, lots of flaws, very hard to damp. I'd bet 99% of the people listening to the YH1/YH100 would be better off with a properly damped pair of HP50, you included. :P

Well, there's been quite a lot of manufacturing discrepancies in the low grade Yamies indeed so yeah, maybe there are true golden samples out there....and we all use different gear, have different tastes, differently shaped ear canals, expectations, etc etc.

The SS of the YH1 blows me away off a low jitter DAC, I still have a hard time believing that this phone is 35 yo....to me it's all just a big internet hoax, coz when you plug it into a TOTL low jitter + beefy headamp DAC, it turns into a light weighted MONSTER to my ears.

I find the YH1 anything but boring, oh my! the holographic 3D SS, über creamy mids and tight deep bass are all I've ever craved for in a phone tbh. You can see all the stuff I quoted in my aniso HP1 listing, it's all 100% true to my ears: http://www.ebay.com/itm/170792240069

But it's a vintage phone that's quite a bit hard to drive, an i-whatever isn't gonna cut it indeed.

Anyway, you guys love your HP50's, you even score them for dead cheap I'm sure, I didn't mean to spoil the fun 

Quote:

Originally Posted by ludoo 

The HP-50 are much easier to damp than the HP-1/YH-1 due to their better cup design.

 

They may lack some soundstage and punch compared to their larger siblings, but it's very easy to make them sound great, something which is not true for the HP-1. Backed by a decent amp, the small driver Yamahas are better than 95% of the phones discussed on this site. And since they were very common they can be found easily for little money (especially on Yahoo! Japan), making them the ideal phone for budding orthodynamicists.

 

FWIW, I had and listened extensively to the HP50 / HP3 / HP1 / YH100 / T20v1 / T20v2 / TDS15 / Pro30 / NAD RP18 and maybe some others I cannot remember now, and the phones I'm wearing now are my original bass heavy HP3, none of the above surpass them. While for portable use, my Sony SFI hybrids are better than any of the low impedance models cited above. My impressions are subjective, but backed by my boss who is a serious audiophile with Magneplanar speakers and a huge powerful tube amp, and who regularly does blind tests of my phones against his (HD650/K340/HP1/HP50/T20v1 etc).

 

Treating the HP50 as 3rd rate phones does a disservice to new readers...

Well said Ludoo.

FWIW, I do believe that its possible to modify the larger driver yamaha  orthos so that their performance can exceed that of HP50 but its a thankless, arduous task.

It took me only a couple of days to work out a good mod for all six HP50s (despite their variability) that I have worked upon, the HP-1 otoh took several months.

And even then HP50 holds its own in comparison and I could very well live with HP50 as my sole headphone.

Unfortunately it seems there are no longer cheap deals to be had from YJ, the last auction I watched went for for a whopping 10.5k JPY!

I have several pairs of ortho headphones, and of those, quite a few pairs were HP50A/S. I found that each pair had slight variance in the sound characteristics.

One HP3 was almost perfect with stock damping, great soundstage, just a little lacking in the bass, the first pair of HP50S I bought was bass heavy ( and after damping, my favorite portable headset), another HP50A was quite lifeless, yet another HP50A was really good after damping, etc.

So the sound you get depends on your luck. Some of you might ask why did I buy so many HP50A/s, I got them for my friends/family because of the very first set I bought, the HP50S. It was fantastic.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurubhai 

It took me only a couple of days to work out a good mod for all six  HP50s(despite the variability) that I have worked upon, the HP-1 otoh took several months.

Luckily the YH1 doesn't sound anything like the aniso HP1 you have, which is a sloppy YH100 early prototype(only released in UK AFAIK) to my ears(again).

Anyway, some ppl prefer the HP3 to the LCD-2, I was just sharing my personal opinion...and we all seem to disagree, which makes it more interesting 

^ It's only interesting if you describe what was wrong with the HP-50 compared to the YH. Otherwise we may as well put out random words.