Pioneer se-505, Another Golden Oldie + a funny advert from the 70's

Hey guys,

I just wanted to mention one headphone I managed to get pretty cheap that is easily worth the price of entry.

The Pioneer SE-505 (dated 1973).

They weigh a tone because they are pretty much 100% metal and leather.
They clamp with authority, but really are not horrible once positioned on your head (not nearly as bad as MS2's or 325's, especially with flats.).

The sound sig is like a mux up of an ES7, k340, and Sennheiser HD580.

The mids are the star part of the spectrum.
The bass is not huge, but everything seems to have plenty of weight.
Treble is not *sparkley* and sounstage is not particularly airy.

However, it is a pretty huge soundstage, especially for a closed headphone.
Detail is quite nice, maybe not as good as the TOTL ones from the major manufactureres, but certainly holds its own.

The impedance must be somewhere near 600ohms, as it is the only headphone that I have ever gone past half power with my amp. It actually needs 3/4 !

I suggest throwing some cotton under the pads to give a bit more space between your ear and the driver.

They have two drivers for each cup, one bass and one treble. I think that this is how they got around teh bass defeciency issues with drivers at the time.

I would say that they are forgiving, much like how a Senn is - just forget the veil.

If you can pick a set up for less than $50, it is a great deal!
Apparently the other SE line up is not very good (sans the se700) from what others say.

Definately a toe-tapper... I just don't know if I need yet another in the stable! Such is life.

Funny cartoon advert that is on EBay for this headphone:

Yeah, I thought about making a franken-phone from the drivers.
The things sound pretty darn good.

Got any housing reccomendations?

Hey Guys,

I decided to mod these suckers.

First, I pulled them apart in every single way. Then I cleaned it all.
Quickly decided to get rid of the dual pots on each side as they could do nothing but degrade the sound and add extra weight.

-Removed all foam covering bass driver and in the cups.
-Rewired all internals
-Filled the Cups with Cotton Stuffing
-Filled gaps with Cotton
-Filled corners/edges with cotton
-Taped down all wiring/coverd vibration areas
-Covered bass driver with very thin cotton
-Created more direct music sound
-Tuned the drivers for better balance and staging
-Plugged the holes of the pots with soldered on dimes

I kept the original cable as it was in pretty decent condition and one of the better stock cables I had seen.

WOW! What a difference in the sound. Very clean sound and much more detail. The treble reach is nice a sparkly! Good rumble to the bass. The Dual pots in each headphone and the metal knobs added a buch of weight, much lighter now that they are removed. Still heavy, but not bad really.

A real bargain if you are willing to put a little effort into them. You can get closed cans that are a d1000 presentation with a soundstage wider than ES7's, and the durability/isolation of HD25-II.

I tuned them for vocal performance and it delivers. Plenty of helf to everything and you *feel* the music.

Everything is held together by screws and it is pretty darn easy to open up and work on.

BTW: It took quite a bit of trial and error to get it right, so don't get discouraged if it sounds bad from your first try. You need to get the damping just right and tuned the drivers since you got rid of the pots.

No, but I could always open them up for anyone who needs assistance.

Be sure to keep the capacitor that feeds the treble driver. That is essential! I would add resistors to taste as the pot that you remove is 60 Ohm and you are also getting rid of the tone pot.

Wire the input to the bass driver first and then to capacitor and to the treble driver.

The cotton stuffing is the same as I stated above. Think Markl Mod only without the Dynamat.

I might take pics once I get through finals and go home.