Quote:
Originally Posted by
leukoplast 
I am curious, I have the 555's and did the foam removal mod, however hwc's mod is basically putting foam back inside the cans. What is the difference between the foam that was already in the 555's compared to the foam that the hwc mod calls for?
Seems to me the original foam inside the 555's is the best kind to use, since it is the typical absorbing/damping material that is used in many audio products to damp the reflections. So if removing the foam from the 555's sounds so good, then why is putting foam back in there supposed to be such a good thing? It is basically a contradiction.
The foam you removed was very thick and absorbed low frequencies (as well as high-frequencies I guess.) The foam you add back in is very very light weight. It lets low frequencies pass through (keeping the effect of the first mod intact) but blocks higher frequencies progressively more efficiently, the higher the frequency the more it blocks. The light foam should diminish the effect of higher frequencies bouncing of the hard plastic surfaces behind the driver and entering your ear a little later than they should have.
I found that the first mod improved SQ significantly, the second mod is much more subtle, you only really notice it on harsh treble sounds. Also, I have found my HD555s took a lot longer to burn in than I expected, now that they have had about 100 hours, they are sounding really good.