Hey guys. Like many of you, I own the ES7 headphones by Audio Technica. When you get them, you will find that the headband is bent in a weird way that makes the headphones look weird on you as well as making them more uncomfortable. There was another thread on this, but I figured I would start my own rather than bumping that one. I did the mod and got many pictures of the process, figured I would post here. 
To start, here are a couple pictures showing what the headphones look like before the mod.
You will notice that there is a headband and then conntecting that to the headphones are two parallel metal rods. These have grooves and click to adjust to your head size. At the end of these, there is a strong angle; purpose of this is to use leverage to clamp the headphones to your head creating good isolation. In reality, it works; but it looks weird and makes the clamp too tight which can hurt after a while.
The idea of this mod is to lessen that angle so to reduce this pressure and making it look better. The idea is not to straighten it, as that would ruin the concept of clamping that Audio-Technica was trying to create. The idea is just to lessen the angle.
To do this, you need to move the metal rods inward until all you can see is the angled piece. You can see that in this picture:
You then want to grip the plastic parts of the headphones. I put my thumb on the textured area and the word right/left. I then pinch the plastic pieces with my other fingers. You can see this grip here:
You then want to bend the headphone can away from the other making this angled piece of metal lessen. You do not want to straighten it, as that makes the headphones really weird and ruins isolation. You just want to lessen the angle. I did this and you can see the lesser angle here:
As soon as you do this to both sides, you will notice the headphones are much different already. When you pick them up, the cups ill dangle freely rather than clamping tightly together. They will feel looser and less tight than they were before. You will not need to have them extended as far as you did before, and they will look more normal. Here is a picture of the metal part extended after doing the mod:
Here you can see the cans of the headphones to not clamp together like they did before:
In the end, they will look better, feel better, and sound just the same; amazing. Hopefully this helps everyone. They are a big investment, so do not do this until you know what you are doing. Feel free to ask questions.
For more pictures of the headphones including the box, you can check out my gallery here: Picasa Web Albums - GCTonyHawk7 - Audio-Technic...
To start, here are a couple pictures showing what the headphones look like before the mod.
You will notice that there is a headband and then conntecting that to the headphones are two parallel metal rods. These have grooves and click to adjust to your head size. At the end of these, there is a strong angle; purpose of this is to use leverage to clamp the headphones to your head creating good isolation. In reality, it works; but it looks weird and makes the clamp too tight which can hurt after a while.
The idea of this mod is to lessen that angle so to reduce this pressure and making it look better. The idea is not to straighten it, as that would ruin the concept of clamping that Audio-Technica was trying to create. The idea is just to lessen the angle.
To do this, you need to move the metal rods inward until all you can see is the angled piece. You can see that in this picture:
You then want to grip the plastic parts of the headphones. I put my thumb on the textured area and the word right/left. I then pinch the plastic pieces with my other fingers. You can see this grip here:
You then want to bend the headphone can away from the other making this angled piece of metal lessen. You do not want to straighten it, as that makes the headphones really weird and ruins isolation. You just want to lessen the angle. I did this and you can see the lesser angle here:
As soon as you do this to both sides, you will notice the headphones are much different already. When you pick them up, the cups ill dangle freely rather than clamping tightly together. They will feel looser and less tight than they were before. You will not need to have them extended as far as you did before, and they will look more normal. Here is a picture of the metal part extended after doing the mod:
Here you can see the cans of the headphones to not clamp together like they did before:
In the end, they will look better, feel better, and sound just the same; amazing. Hopefully this helps everyone. They are a big investment, so do not do this until you know what you are doing. Feel free to ask questions.
For more pictures of the headphones including the box, you can check out my gallery here: Picasa Web Albums - GCTonyHawk7 - Audio-Technic...
