Sennheiser HD238: Brief Review and Modding - Page 3

still waiting to do this mod, not quite fully burnt in yet so i'll wait, but am keen to try the aluminium foil. will post when i have it done.

i actually quite like the stock sound, but am hoping that this will make them sound even better.

I did the foil mod and bought some thick felt, but don't know whether to put the thick felt on the grille and the aluminum foil above or vice versa...

Please help

I removed the foam padding which brought the mids forward and increased clarity.. also lined the grill with just foil..

It sounds good pretty good.. at low volume levels.  But the bass still seems to distort easily at moderate to high volume levels.. subsequently distorting other parts of the frequency spectrum (vocals, etc.).  These have been burned in for quite a few hours.. over 50 I'd say.. perhaps they need more play?

Anyone else experiencing this or is the consensus that these can't really be pushed to even decent volume levels when it comes to bass -centric music (i.e. hip hop at 70% volume on an iPhone 3GS)?  Would be a shame cause I enjoy their sound sig.  I've amped them too and it didn't resolve the issue..

has anyone dried dampening the driver too?

Update

I used the aluminum foil on the ear area of the headphone, then on top of the foil placed a cup holding cardboard the same size as the foil. The sound is great, with excellent soundstage, less distortion, higher volume levels, and more balanced lows, mids ,and highs

how do you recable these bad boys....anyone

Wow, just did the foil mod for this headphone and I must say, it really makes this headphone much more enjoyable than it was originally. It sounds less congested and far more capable of handling busier tracks. The bass is much more improved and doesn't have the gigantic mid-bass boost.

I got this thing for $25.99 refurbished on Amazon.com. I attached it to a Fiio E5 and my Zune HD and I must say it's quite the combo for what I paid.

HOW do you recable these? Anyone

@Melvins: what do you mean? You have to open them up and replace the wires, I suppose. They are very thin and difficult to work with, though (you can see it in the photos).

I don't listen to hip-hop, but on taiko drums you have to keep the volume modest or they distort, so yeah.
 

does the original foam padding work instead of the felt for the aluminum mod?

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephancho 

Update

I used the aluminum foil on the ear area of the headphone, then on top of the foil placed a cup holding cardboard the same size as the foil. The sound is great, with excellent soundstage, less distortion, higher volume levels, and more balanced lows, mids ,and highs

Sorry to dig up a very old thread, but I think there is no point in opening a new one since my question is directly related to this one.

I've recently bought these headphones and tried the aluminium only, aluminium + center foam, aluminium + cotton pads, aluminium +  cardboard and also center foam + cardboard.

This were attempts to reduce the bass distortion at high volumes in bass tracks, but all pretty much failed. The most noticeable difference were the aluminium mods, that brightened up the highs. However, I did find them very harsh when modded.

However IMHO I do not find the highs unexistant or recessed. It's quite the opposite: the headphones sound surprisingly well balanced, excepting for the highs. I often find myself lowering everything above 4Khz just a little. Did Sennheiser made any changes to the headphones recently?

Probably I should just wait till I get 100hours of burn-in, since they have been only playing for about 20 hours at moderately high volumes. Has anyone tried any other combinations trying to solve this?

HI. I bought these headphones like 2 years ago. I replaced the plug with an L plug, then the super long cord (I'm using these with an iriver H340 w Rockbox) got caught in my car door. I'm driving down the road thinking what's that clanking noise? And when I realized it was my plug banging on the door wanting back inside it was too late and I was NOT about to search the woods at night for my lost plug.  I cut off the plug  (and some wire) off a pair of earbuds and soldered that mess together. Well that mess is now buzzy and crappy and so I think I need to recable.

While I'm in there, I could do the tinfoil mod, but was wondering how that also compares with adding in like the cotton. Mine are very well burned-in as I have had them for so long. I listen to all kinds of music, so genre-specific I'm not. I do like these for at work, does tinfoil and a little cotton/felt/original padding  make them too closed? I have most of my coworkers trained to understand that I CAN still hear them!

Recabling doesn't seem hard... except how do I open the suckers? And where's a good place to buy new cables?

Hello everyone! I'm from Brazil. I made the change in my headphones but used cork instead of aluminum!

Anyone tried to mod the HD 239? I removed the ear pads and it seems to look similar / identical. 

Thanks for this thread. 

I got a pair of 239 for portable use, felt the sound was a bit too dark to my like. Found this thread, did some simple mod on my 239: added aluminum foil at the back, put the original foam (the thin one behind the drivers) on top of the foil, replaced the thick foam/insert in the earpads w/ another foam ring (it's like cutting a 1cm diameter hole at the center of the foam insert). Now the 239 sound really good. Just love it.