leeperry
Galvanically isolated his brain
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dremel? you plan on opening the top fake vents?
Just listened to some Fostex T50RPs today... WOW!
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drez
Headphoneus Supremus
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Quote:
Hope so - super glue seems to have been drawn along tulle around opening in baffle - not sure if it got to the memebrane, probably not an issue but if I'm going to build a thunderpants I would want to be sure my drivers are pristine.
dogears
Headphoneus Supremus
Tenemos el mismo problema T_T
Quote:
Quote:
My O2 pads are in the spanish customs. I hope they will pass the pads without bleeding out my money...
SLaRe
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Quote:
Not at this point, but maybe in a near future. I will use the dremel to rectify a few things inside the cups.
ununennium
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Are the power requirements high on the Fostex like an LCD2? If so I may have to make it an investment.
drez
Headphoneus Supremus
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the fostex is actually a little less sensitive stock, and a lot less if you add damping to the cup.
deadspider187
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I'm getting some rattling in the right cup on certain bass notes. If I put some pressure on the cup to my head (just a little), it goes away. Has anyone else had this issue? I can't find any loose screws or anything like that.
Downtheline1973
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Quote:
I had the same problem. When I put the phones back together, I put the driver/baffle on upside down, and the wire was hanging over the driver. The wire would rattle with certain notes, but would stop when I tilted my head.
wdahm519
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Never heard of that problem before but I guess the upside down thing might be a solution.
dogears
Headphoneus Supremus
Or blutak it so it can't move
dyna10x
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Great to see everyone exploring the effect of damping the driver differently to achieve a preferred sound. Personally at the moment I enjoy a lightly damped driver for more bass slam. Just tried an interesting thing that others have reported on previously. I made up a cable to run the tps direct from the speaker terminals on my rotel ra840bx2 amp instead of the headphone connection on the front. I only had a chance to listen to one album so far but at the moment I am impressed by the improvement. Immediate impression was that it sounds like a veil has been lifted and opened and brightened the overall sound as well as increasing dynamics. The tps love the unrestrained power coming from the speaker terminals. The vol dial is now on the 7 o'clock position compared to 9 on the headphone out socket. So if you have a standard amp designed to drive speakers give it a go. A cheap vintage amp would be a great option to help unleash these phones.
200poundsofamp
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OK, guys. With a drum-roll, and thanks to Hennyo who did some of the last testing while I was traveling to help speed the process along:
Rastapants 2!
The original Rastapants design produced really excellent and enjoyable sound, to my ears. The sound was super detailed, having excellent attack and decay, and a nice velvet darkness between the notes. However, I kept feeling I’d peaked at about 85% of the LCD-2. Then LFF posted that he felt he had a version he thought his current mystery mod had taken him further in sound than the LCD-2.
Being competitive, my competitive juices got pumping. Could I get these to sound better than my favorite phone?
There were two areas where I felt it slightly deficient in regards to the LCD-2:
BlueMonkey made a few comments that got me thinking about trying a reflex dot, and alternates to felt. While I tried a few loose knit fabrics, these all seemed to me to sound like a bare driver and the mids were horrid, and my prior experience with Micropore and Transpore led me to conclude they were really inferior to felt, so I stuck with the felt. The reflex dot, made the mids harsh and lost the liquid smoothness I wanted, so that was out for me as a solution. I don’t say this to criticize the BMF concept, which I haven’t implemented, it just didn’t work with my design, and as I thought the Rastapants were VERY close to ideal I didn’t want to go back to the transpore/micropore approach of yore and start from scratch.
Design Changes
There are two assumptions I made in my original mods that seemed to me to be questionable; first was that there wasn’t enough energy in the cup to warrant vibration control, and second was that the black post in the rear cup was a reflex dot and needed to keep the tonal balance.
I have written before that there are two problems with the T50: plastic resonances and reflections/standing waves. Both of these come into play for the Rastapants 2 mod. I decided to do a full frontal assault on both plastic vibration/resonance and standing wave/reflections.
The key was relatively simple:
1) Dynamat the entire back of the cup and cover that with paxmate
2) Cover the entire interior baffle that’s been stuffed with Plasticine with paxmate
3) Totally close the vent with tape and cover that and the center post with paxmate
Someone mentioned FatMat for price, which is what I used. Same material as dynamat at a fraction of the price. Because I’m covering the FatMat entirely with Paxmate, I left the on the foil, and pressed it tightly into the cup with the back of a BIC pen, as shown in the photo.
The FatMat slightly decreases cup volume, which required adjusting the vent, again. The vent is now totally closed with the O2 pads. Hennyo is using 840 pads and reported closed worked ideally.
The effect? Significant increase in separation and localization in the mids, while totally tightening up the bass, reducing distortion and preserving (increasing) extension. The phones are remarkably balanced with a tremendously powerful and low distortion bottom octace. The top goes way out there; cymbals are presented with incredible attack and a real sense of brass. This is the sound on my current set, and Hennyo reports that my last set of mods I asked him to run pushed this over the top to "better than LCD-2" for him, as well.
The next mod was totally closing the vent and covering it with electrical tape then paxmate. This elimated the mid bass warmth and also even that tiny bit of paxmate cleared up some harshness in those female vocals. A detail touch was putting paxmate on op of the post in the center of the earcup, which had a further impact on that midrange resonance. The only final detail was adding the foam around the interior of the driver baffle to surround the driver.
The Complete Mod
So here is the new Rastapants 2 mod in short form (if you did the italics on the first mod skip those):
Inside the baffle:
When complete, the inside of the baffle will look like this. Don't use too much in the outer ring, this actually makes a gasket that seals the enclosure all the way.
On the ear-side of the baffle:
On the ear cup:
The rear cup looks like this when finished (Note, PHOTO NEEDS UPDATE WITH PAXMATE ON CENTER POST):
When it's done, it will look like this PHOTO OF FINAL NEEDED:
Earpads:
Listening
I was listening to “Games without frontiers” by Peter Gabriel, an old favorite, and for the first time heard that the opening vocals were actually several voices blending… Listening to Brian Eno and John Cale’s “Empty Frame,” the wonderful interplay of the backing vocals has never been clearer and for the first time, ever, I heard an acoustic guitar being picked, deep down in the mix.
Electronica from Bluetech has never grooved so hard. The bass just slams with power, precision, and heft. Transients were natural, easy and had no sense of overshoot. Dave Allen's driving bass in Wolgang Press' clear come through with an ominous intensity, never overwhelming, but always present.
Everything I have heard to date has exceed my expectations and left me really, really enthralled with the music. I'm just grooving on listening right now.
According to Hennyo who implemented the one mod I hadn't tested:
"This is an amazing closed phone! Never more speed, clairty, faster detailed response, less boominess (!!!) have I ever heard before out of a closed phone! This is something to marvel at sir!
LCD-2 COULDN'T MATCH THIS. I mean that entirely. This is much more coherent / revealingly true."
Summary:
By adding FatMat to kill rear cup resonance, and an additional layer of Paxmate on the interior of the driver baffle, plus closing the vent and covering that and the center post with paxmate, the T50 has now passed the LCD-2 as my favorite phone. These are not minor improvements over the Rastapants, these are serious upgrades that elevate this to a world class contender.
Thanks again to Hennyo for testing, LFF for being a sounding board, Smeggy, Sachu, Leeperry, Joelpierce, and all the other contributors who inspired this with great ideas that served as a spring board. I hope that this design can truly be as enjoyable for anyone, and look forward to hearing feedback, and maybe other optimizations.
I will try to get to Purrin in the next week for tests.
Rastapants 2!
The original Rastapants design produced really excellent and enjoyable sound, to my ears. The sound was super detailed, having excellent attack and decay, and a nice velvet darkness between the notes. However, I kept feeling I’d peaked at about 85% of the LCD-2. Then LFF posted that he felt he had a version he thought his current mystery mod had taken him further in sound than the LCD-2.
Being competitive, my competitive juices got pumping. Could I get these to sound better than my favorite phone?
There were two areas where I felt it slightly deficient in regards to the LCD-2:
- The upper treble was all there, but a couple of db softer than I’d wanted. It had the right tone but needed a lift. The phones weren’t quite dark, but had too much mid bass to really outdo the LCD-2.
- In complex passages, certain vocal overdubs or choral pieces, especially for women, would not have the separation of the LCD-2, and there was a resonance that female vocals hit that I wanted to eliminate
BlueMonkey made a few comments that got me thinking about trying a reflex dot, and alternates to felt. While I tried a few loose knit fabrics, these all seemed to me to sound like a bare driver and the mids were horrid, and my prior experience with Micropore and Transpore led me to conclude they were really inferior to felt, so I stuck with the felt. The reflex dot, made the mids harsh and lost the liquid smoothness I wanted, so that was out for me as a solution. I don’t say this to criticize the BMF concept, which I haven’t implemented, it just didn’t work with my design, and as I thought the Rastapants were VERY close to ideal I didn’t want to go back to the transpore/micropore approach of yore and start from scratch.
Design Changes
There are two assumptions I made in my original mods that seemed to me to be questionable; first was that there wasn’t enough energy in the cup to warrant vibration control, and second was that the black post in the rear cup was a reflex dot and needed to keep the tonal balance.
I have written before that there are two problems with the T50: plastic resonances and reflections/standing waves. Both of these come into play for the Rastapants 2 mod. I decided to do a full frontal assault on both plastic vibration/resonance and standing wave/reflections.
The key was relatively simple:
1) Dynamat the entire back of the cup and cover that with paxmate
2) Cover the entire interior baffle that’s been stuffed with Plasticine with paxmate
3) Totally close the vent with tape and cover that and the center post with paxmate
Someone mentioned FatMat for price, which is what I used. Same material as dynamat at a fraction of the price. Because I’m covering the FatMat entirely with Paxmate, I left the on the foil, and pressed it tightly into the cup with the back of a BIC pen, as shown in the photo.
The FatMat slightly decreases cup volume, which required adjusting the vent, again. The vent is now totally closed with the O2 pads. Hennyo is using 840 pads and reported closed worked ideally.
The effect? Significant increase in separation and localization in the mids, while totally tightening up the bass, reducing distortion and preserving (increasing) extension. The phones are remarkably balanced with a tremendously powerful and low distortion bottom octace. The top goes way out there; cymbals are presented with incredible attack and a real sense of brass. This is the sound on my current set, and Hennyo reports that my last set of mods I asked him to run pushed this over the top to "better than LCD-2" for him, as well.
The next mod was totally closing the vent and covering it with electrical tape then paxmate. This elimated the mid bass warmth and also even that tiny bit of paxmate cleared up some harshness in those female vocals. A detail touch was putting paxmate on op of the post in the center of the earcup, which had a further impact on that midrange resonance. The only final detail was adding the foam around the interior of the driver baffle to surround the driver.
The Complete Mod
So here is the new Rastapants 2 mod in short form (if you did the italics on the first mod skip those):
Inside the baffle:
- Fill all holes but the two small vents around the driver. Plasticine is way better than BluTak (or equivalents) because of mass and damping. No comparison. Newplast might be too heavy, though it has a higher damping factor I’m not sure it will add value. Anyone who tries the mod and can A/B would be appreciated.
- In the Rastapants 2 mod, I added in additional plasticine all around the outside rim of the baffle, as shown below. This creates a bit of a gasket to reduce air leakage.
- Remove the white gauze and on a border of rubber cement replace it with a square of stiff 2mm craft felt.
When complete, the inside of the baffle will look like this. Don't use too much in the outer ring, this actually makes a gasket that seals the enclosure all the way.
On the ear-side of the baffle:
- Cut away the felt on top of the driver, leaving only the dust-filter.
- Surround the driver with Paxmate foam (it's ok to cover those equalizing holes you didn't fill with clay).
On the ear cup:
- Line the entire inside of the cup with FatMat/Dynamat, leaving the foil on. Be VERY careful the aluminum does not cut or nick the wires. I didn't, but I can see it happen. I cut a big piece out and left slots to allow 1 piece to go around the major obstacles and wires. Press it down to conform to the surface as best as possible to avoid losing cup volume, then rub it with a small, hard flat object (I used the back of a BIC pen). I took the little foam dots off the posts and pressed over those, and made a cutout in the FatMat to get around the cable jack and center post. Note that I ended up NOT using the reflex dot...
- Cover the entire foil surface with Paxmate
- Remove the vent felt and cover the vent with electrical tape, then cover this with paxmate
The rear cup looks like this when finished (Note, PHOTO NEEDS UPDATE WITH PAXMATE ON CENTER POST):
When it's done, it will look like this PHOTO OF FINAL NEEDED:
Earpads:
- O2 still by far the winner for comfort over the Shure 840 pads but I haven't done a test with the 840 or stock pads yet. The stock, 840 or Sony 5000 pads might need minor bass tweaks or risers under the pads.
Listening
I was listening to “Games without frontiers” by Peter Gabriel, an old favorite, and for the first time heard that the opening vocals were actually several voices blending… Listening to Brian Eno and John Cale’s “Empty Frame,” the wonderful interplay of the backing vocals has never been clearer and for the first time, ever, I heard an acoustic guitar being picked, deep down in the mix.
Electronica from Bluetech has never grooved so hard. The bass just slams with power, precision, and heft. Transients were natural, easy and had no sense of overshoot. Dave Allen's driving bass in Wolgang Press' clear come through with an ominous intensity, never overwhelming, but always present.
Everything I have heard to date has exceed my expectations and left me really, really enthralled with the music. I'm just grooving on listening right now.
According to Hennyo who implemented the one mod I hadn't tested:
"This is an amazing closed phone! Never more speed, clairty, faster detailed response, less boominess (!!!) have I ever heard before out of a closed phone! This is something to marvel at sir!
LCD-2 COULDN'T MATCH THIS. I mean that entirely. This is much more coherent / revealingly true."
Summary:
By adding FatMat to kill rear cup resonance, and an additional layer of Paxmate on the interior of the driver baffle, plus closing the vent and covering that and the center post with paxmate, the T50 has now passed the LCD-2 as my favorite phone. These are not minor improvements over the Rastapants, these are serious upgrades that elevate this to a world class contender.
Thanks again to Hennyo for testing, LFF for being a sounding board, Smeggy, Sachu, Leeperry, Joelpierce, and all the other contributors who inspired this with great ideas that served as a spring board. I hope that this design can truly be as enjoyable for anyone, and look forward to hearing feedback, and maybe other optimizations.
I will try to get to Purrin in the next week for tests.
Hennyo
Caution: Incomplete trades.
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- Dec 26, 2010
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Hey all, Welcome to the interior of Rastapants 2! I mean the endgame headphone to ultimatum happiness. (TREMBLE IN FEAR Audez'e.) There's a new designer in town. Dan the Mrspeakers man!
Mrspeakers has produced a great bit of kit. I hope you all LOVE it!
Been using it over the last few days, (About a week at this point, and have been helping him further tweak it through outside opinion / critical impressions. At first I thought he may have been exaggerating in his claims of 'on lcd-2 level' and then 'even beyond.' But about two three days ago I realized this was spot on. Plz at least consider this mod. It is no fluff-entirely something new altogether - the next level of T 50rp.
You're going to be satisfied with this mod.. Sadly so.. No need for moar headphones other than another T50RP's.. (I consider this headphone a godsend headphone at this point.
Thank MrSpeakers for his great work!
RastaPants 2! STAX O~T50's. ~ How they'll look.(!!!)
Plain amazing.
These two are Flysweeps pics as mine have not arrived yet.
But they'll be here soon!
Mrspeakers has produced a great bit of kit. I hope you all LOVE it!
Been using it over the last few days, (About a week at this point, and have been helping him further tweak it through outside opinion / critical impressions. At first I thought he may have been exaggerating in his claims of 'on lcd-2 level' and then 'even beyond.' But about two three days ago I realized this was spot on. Plz at least consider this mod. It is no fluff-entirely something new altogether - the next level of T 50rp.
You're going to be satisfied with this mod.. Sadly so.. No need for moar headphones other than another T50RP's.. (I consider this headphone a godsend headphone at this point.
Thank MrSpeakers for his great work!
RastaPants 2! STAX O~T50's. ~ How they'll look.(!!!)
Plain amazing.
These two are Flysweeps pics as mine have not arrived yet.
dogears
Headphoneus Supremus
Man oh man! The looks, the tweaks and specially the sound - stupendously awesome man! Many thanks to both of you for the sharing
I hope to get my Silver T40 next week and looking forward to applying RP2!
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