Alessandro MS1000 and MS Ultimate - DIY & modding [56K warning] - Page 5

I'd say $30 would be fair. $40 would be doable, but pushing it, especially if shipping is on top of that.

Thanks, i prob don't have much of a choice in wood, will just take the biggest block of the densest wood leftover i can find in the factory.

Also, I prob can't get my hands on the GS1000 pads until i get back to Singapore, so will have to make do with the stock MS1 pads for the moment.

One more question, does the thickness of the wall affect the sound?

I just got mine directly from Grado Labs for the same price as Todd. But yeah demand probably has gone up!

James

Ah, too bad. I was already sorting things out how to get money to todd. Modding has got me really tight. However, I'm not finished yet; the glue I used for my grill mod today was kind of aggresive and colored some of the black plastic to white (prolly the gas that came of it)... Need to repair that and get some better glue + mesh. Don't know whether to be happy or not

Not that i don't trust you Nickchen () but has anyone else tried this mod with similar success? I'm really keen to try this but with the cost of getting the pads to NZ I just want to check it's worth it!

I just received a pair of jumbo pads to go with my distancers. Hope I'll be able to test the mod on my MS-Pro this week.

It's kind of FOTM in Germany and in the meantime quite a few members of the german HiFi-forum.de have modded their own headphones or listened to the mod at mini meets.
I've tried it with my RS-1s, MS-1s and with the SR225s of my spouse.
The modded RS-1s do sound really crappy.Totally unlistenable IMO.
The modded SR225s and the modded MS-1s on the other hand are interesting though.
Is it worth it?
It depends.It's probably not for everyone but surely many listeners would prefer the modded cans.
What you get is an unique and very attractive headstage.
Unique like in "not really comparable to any other headphones".
Not perfect since it's lacking in depth and layering precision, but this might be due to the mediocre performance of the mid-fi Grados/Alessandros in the resolution department and the modded Alessandro MS-Pros might be better in this regard.
However, you'd be hard pressed to get a similarly attractive headstage for less than $200 anywhere else so if headstage is paramount for you a modded MS-1 represents the best bang for the buck ratio I've encountered so far especially when you take into account that you don't need an expensive amplifier.
The modded cans do sound like very different headphones.Still somewhat forward sounding but you are not sitting on the laps of the musicians anymore, and the tonal balance is not exactly the same.
You could even call it a (mild) suckout in the mids and therefor human and especially female voices sometimes don't sound as good anymore.
I guess it's dependant on your preferences and therefor unpredictabe whether you'd like the modded cans better or not but I certainly do.

One caveat though: The modded headphones are not suitable for hot and humid weather.The Grados with jumbo pads do block the flow of air like no other pads and actually to me the modded Alessandros/Grados are worse than my Sony MDR-CD3000s, and the latter are closed cans with pleather pads !!!

One additional hint: For a first test or even for a permanent solution you don't have to utilize glue.A small rolled out amount of blu tak (or similar) does the trick very well and it's easily reversible in case you don't like the mod.

Yeah I'm a bit annoyed as I have to glue the distancers to the MS-Pros (don't want to damage the cans) so I'll need to figure out another way to do it.

Just look at the end of the post above yours .........

Tx, I was too quick to post