I use a layer of felt as damping material. Gives IMO a more natural sound than foam disks.

Tiemen have you tried cotton? I've been wondering if this material would be worth a try...
 
I have only played around with the damping materials provided by German Maestro, mostly foam disks and very thin felt layers...
I haven't tried dynamat or something like that, nor other advanced insulating materials, has anyone played around with such?
 
Honestly, the double-padded sound on the GMP 450 Pro is so good and free of ressonances that I simply lost the will to try different damping materials inside it's closed enclosures... I don't think it  makes much of a difference...
 
With the materials, I have here I've tried a lot of possible combinations and haven't found a positively relevant change in sound.
 

 
 
Quote:

kkl10 said:

Tiemen have you tried cotton? I've been wondering if this material would be worth a try...
 
 

Click to expand...

 
I tried cotton, among thin velour and other material.
But I keep coming back to black felt layers of 1 mm. I put them on the drivers instead of the stock foam disks. 
For some headphones I use two pieces of felt.
The sound is warmer and fuller, and the loss of (upper) detail is not that dramatic.
 

kkl10 said:

Playing with the damping materials inside the earcups of the GMP 450 Pro won't yield any significant changes in tonal balance nor coloration.
I won't recommend to, since there isn't any benefit in doing so, at least with the materials I have here.
Playing around with damping materials inside the GMP 400 open enclosures is much more interesting.
 
It is possible, however, to combine those damping materials with the 41-6049 or 41-6050 earpads to create less bright and flatter sounding variations of those earpads.
For example placing a layer of thin foam under one of those earpads will tame down upper mids and lower treble peaks providing a more linear response at those frequencies, like the stock earpads 41-6086 do.
 
To be honest double-padding gives me such a big gain in sound quality that it renders any damping material mod to irrelevance.
Beware, that if you have a very big head and find the GMP 450 Pro very small and if you have to adjust it's fitting range to close to max to fit it in your head, wearing it double-padded might not be possible for you. I think it's deffinitely worth a try anyway.
 
You can order spare earpads and dust protectors on the German Maestro online shop (freight charges on the bottom of the page), if you also want damping materials or other spares or have some kind of custom requirement you'll have to contact them by mail:
info@german-maestro.de
 
I think that the 41-6050 earpads and dust protectors are all you need...
German maestro sell other earpads besides the ones I have but I don't know how they will change the sound...
 

Click to expand...

Thanks... Heh, GM rip-off customers on shipping AND spare parts costs lol...
25 eur earpads and 26 eur shipping if you take 2 pairs instead of 1... and 38 eur shipping if you add a dust protector... Something is definitely wrong with them

You used the link I gave you right?
 
1 pair 41-6050 oval earpads - 19,20Eur (I recommend these)
1 pair 41-6049 round earpads - 25,60Eur
 
Not sure how you came up with those numbers... I don't believe that the dust protectors would lift the shipping costs that much knowing that it's the weight of the package what sets the value.
 
I just simulated an order, here's the result: (Using DHL World delivery method)
 
If you take 1 pair of any earpads the shipping costs are 10,90Eur and remain the same if you add 1 pair of dust protectors 18-6052 - 3,70Eur.
So 1 pair of 41-6050 earpads + 1 pair of 18-6052 dust protectors = Totals 33,8Eur shipping costs included.
 
Now, if you add 1 more pair of earpads the shipping costs jump to 38Eur, a rip-off indeed.
Or even more ridiculous is that, instead of 1 pair of earpads, you only add 1 more pair of dust protectors, which are nearly weightless, the shipping costs jump to 35Eur...
 
I don't think that 2 pairs of earpads with 20 pairs of dust protectors would weight nowhere near 0,7kg, even if they were packaged in a small card box like the one on which my spares came in.
Hell, the headphone itself doesn't weigh more than 240g!
 
If you want more than 1 pair of earpads you could try to contact GM by mail and clarify on the shipping costs.
Still, I think that just 1 pair of 41-6050 earpads with 1 pair of dust protectors would be enough for you, so there's no need to deal with those shipping overpricings.
 
 
Personaly, I would pay any kind of rip-off, just for the 41-6050 earpads, if I knew before hand how much the sound would improve after doublepadding the GMP450 Pro...
I would prefer to pay 33,8eur for 1 additional set of earpads to improve the sound of my current headphone than to pay several hundreds more for another headphone that would possibly not satisfy me.
 
But that's me...
 
Otherwise there's the Shure SRH 940 which seems to have a very interesting sound... not sure about the comfort though...

kkl10 said:

You used the link I gave you right?
 
1 pair 41-6050 oval earpads - 19,20Eur (I recommend these)
1 pair 41-6049 round earpads - 25,60Eur
 
Not sure how you came up with those numbers... I don't believe that the dust protectors would lift the shipping costs that much knowing that it's the weight of the package what sets the value.
 
I just simulated an order, here's the result: (Using DHL World delivery method)
 
If you take 1 pair of any earpads the shipping costs are 10,90Eur and remain the same if you add 1 pair of dust protectors 18-6052 - 3,70Eur.
So 1 pair of 41-6050 earpads + 1 pair of 18-6052 dust protectors = Totals 33,8Eur shipping costs included.
 
Now, if you add 1 more pair of earpads the shipping costs jump to 38Eur, a rip-off indeed.
Or even more ridiculous is that, instead of 1 pair of earpads, you only add 1 more pair of dust protectors, which are nearly weightless, the shipping costs jump to 35Eur...
 
I don't think that 2 pairs of earpads with 20 pairs of dust protectors would weight nowhere near 0,7kg, even if they were packaged in a small card box like the one on which my spares came in.
Hell, the headphone itself doesn't weigh more than 240g!
 
If you want more than 1 pair of earpads you could try to contact GM by mail and clarify on the shipping costs.
Still, I think that just 1 pair of 41-6050 earpads with 1 pair of dust protectors would be enough for you, so there's no need to deal with those shipping overpricings.
 
 
Personaly, I would pay any kind of rip-off, just for the 41-6050 earpads, if I knew before hand how much the sound would improve after doublepadding the GMP450 Pro...
I would prefer to pay 33,8eur for 1 additional set of earpads to improve the sound of my current headphone than to pay several hundreds more for another headphone that would possibly not satisfy me.
 
But that's me...
 
Otherwise there's the Shure SRH 940 which seems to have a very interesting sound... not sure about the comfort though...

Click to expand...

yes GM's site. M, I ordered the 50 pads and dust protectors

>Now, if you add 1 more pair of earpads the shipping costs jump to 38Eur, a rip-off indeed.

that's what I meant. 2 earpads and dust protector.

They clearly (conveniently) screwed up the weights for the spares. It can all be shipped in a padded envelope for $10 I was also going to try the ones with foam backing (41-6086) but seeing the 25 EUR + price for some reason made me cringe (although the extra $28 eur shipping maybe played a larger role)....

anyway, I added a note in my order saying their shipping is a rip-off lol...and sent them an angry email ...

Wise order - "yes GM's site. M, I ordered the 50 pads and dust protectors"
 
"I was also going to try the ones with foam backing (41-6086) but seeing the 25 EUR + price for some reason made me cringe (although the extra $28 eur shipping maybe played a larger role)...."
But why would you want to add another pair of 41-6086 earpads to your order, anyway?
Those are the stock ones on the GMP 450 Pro, lol!...
 

kkl10 said:

Wise order - "yes GM's site. M, I ordered the 50 pads and dust protectors"
 
"I was also going to try the ones with foam backing (41-6086) but seeing the 25 EUR + price for some reason made me cringe (although the extra $28 eur shipping maybe played a larger role)...."
But why would you want to add another pair of 41-6086 earpads to your order, anyway?
Those are the stock ones on the GMP 450 Pro, lol!...
 

Click to expand...

oh, in that case I'm lucky I decided not to buy any of the 86 pads cheers.

Not sure if Shure's 940 are of any use to me, as at nearly 350g (incl some cord weight), they're almost certain to be a bit too heavy for me.

My current EQ curve for the doublepadded GMP 450 Pro, by the way:
 

 
Edit: With the 41-6050 earpads of course.
Right now, the difference between  EQed doublepadded and non EQed doublepadded isnt't as drastic as the difference between  doublepadded and non doublepadded.

ps I don't think I'll like 940. http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/533716/shure-srh-940/435#post_7532569 I've already had K271 for relatively 'easy listening' flavour headphones and I recently sold them.

Yeah, R-Audiohead impressions are very interesting but I'm not sure that the SRH940 sounds similar to the K271... unless I haven't read something right on that thread.
At least I don't feel comfident to make that assesment on this early stage of the 940 life.
I feel there's just a lot of hype and few concrete sonic descriptions on that thread...
 
But you know what you want!
Looking forward to your doublepadded GMP 450 Pro impressions!

Oh, by the way, do you find the GMP 450 Pro to have a similar sound signature to the K271 or are they very different?
From what I've read I kept thinking that both would have the same kind of sound but I'm not completely sure...

kkl10 said:

Oh, by the way, do you find the GMP 450 Pro to have a similar sound signature to the K271 or are they very different?
From what I've read I kept thinking that both would have the same kind of sound but I'm not completely sure...

Click to expand...

No, I find the two very different. K271 had a wider perceived mids peak, and a lot less/less deep lower end. 450Pro has a sharp mids peak, and good lower end, and generally sounds a lot more resolving, while K271 just sounds warm and fuzzy/good on the gear I tried it with (this is confirmed by the FR chart and THD+N figures for K271)

For eq-ed down bump GMP450 PRO, I don't feel that much at a loss when I use them instead of my stax system, but for K271, while the mids were great, the overall detail level and colored presentation left me pretty unamused.


>Looking forward to your doublepadded GMP 450 Pro impressions!

lol, this is the second time I'm following your recommendation Let's hope this time it works out

Quote:

svyr said:

>Looking forward to your doublepadded GMP 450 Pro impressions!

lol, this is the second time I'm following your recommendation

Let's hope this time it works out

Click to expand...

Indeed!
But this time I'm really confident that it won't be money well wasted!
 

Quote:

kkl10 said:

Yeah, R-Audiohead impressions are very interesting but I'm not sure that the SRH940 sounds similar to the K271... unless I haven't read something right on that thread.
At least I don't feel comfident to make that assesment on this early stage of the 940 life.
I feel there's just a lot of hype and few concrete sonic descriptions on that thread...
 
But you know what you want!
Looking forward to your doublepadded GMP 450 Pro impressions!

Click to expand...

 
 
Agreed. The 940 thread has a lot of drooling and not a whole lot of actual criticism of the actual sound. I would have had a review up by now but the drastic opinion change I had regarding their low end a little over a week ago scared me into spending more time with them before drawing conclusions.
 
I still need to post something for the SP-1.... unfortunately life likes to keep me busy!