DIY K1000 style phone- *Updated 11/29* - Page 5

I've been listening to them for the last couple hours and my first impressions are very, very good. I haven't installed a low-pass filter yet so I'm still using a simple slope in the foobar EQ.

The soundstage is very natural sounding. The fact that nothing touches your ears lets you forget you're wearing headphones which has it's own benefits for immersion.

These work well for just about any type of music, but they are a little more picky than regular headphones. Albums that have less instrument separation will be a bit worse off with these. I think it's mainly because with badly produced rock albums, there is no benefit of having a larger soundstage, because there isn't one to begin with.

Classical music is the strongest point, but rock is still very good. Again, it's highly album-dependent. Live music and classical does the best because of the real soundstage present in the actual performances. Depending on the mix/master, studio albums can be great.

The low-end is what's trickiest part, and there is notably less than a stock beyerdynamic dt880. The bass that's absent, though, is the sort of boomy bass that you get with any headphone. These are exceptionally clear sounding which I think helps with instrument separation. Bass can be very deep when called for.

For reflection, I was referring to the sound waves produced by the driver going away from the ear, as well as waves bouncing off the ear and returning towards the headphone. Eliminating/weakening these might be important.

I installed some flat cotton material behind the driver. It was just enough to gently press on the back of the driver when the cover was bolted down. The sound has been cleaned up noticeably, with details more clearly audible. I think I was having some diaphragm control or reflection issues when the driver was bare.

Also, I finally tried them with my tube amp, and there was an almost night and day difference between the tube amp and my other small class D amp. The class D amp is great for normal headphones but my earspeakers need a great deal more power and volume to reach their potential. Needless to say I'll be sticking with tubes for now!

I'm also looking forward to the more conventional style headband that should be arriving in the next week. The old Grado headband serves its purpose well but the rotation causes some stability issues with an open design. My new one is a replacement headband for hearing protectors. Cheap, well-built and readily available.

OH!, my friend and I used the Rockbox EQ to create a slope necessary for these headphones. I wanted to have a way to use the phones without a PC and it worked very well. We used the 5-band EQ to start the slope at 180hz and end at 18khz. We started with gentle attenuation at 180hz, continuing linearly to about -15db attenuation at 18khz. This is necessary because the treble travels through the air effortlessly, while bass quickly dies out. There is also a complete lack of conventional headphone style housing, which contains and transfers the bass to the head and ear.

After some a/b comparisons between the earspeakers and dt880, it's all a matter of genre and album. Albums like pink floyd's Animals sound better with the 880 (warmer, more bass impact for percussion). On the flip side, almost any classical work is better with the earspeakers.

Nothing new, sorry. I haven't really used them in a while. I'm sure I'll put away my other cans and have an earspeaker phase for a while though.

 

As great as they sound, I really miss the warmth of my other cans. Some genres (but not all) really benefit from having the additional bass and midbass. I would love to find a different speaker to use that is larger but not overly thick. I believe the only way to bring that kind of bass to the ear is sheer size. There's no replacement for displacement.