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A simple way of adding airiness to HIFIMAN HE-5LE: Remove Grill Cloth

post #1 of 11
5/13/10 at 9:02am
Thread Starter 

HE-5LE sound neutral and balanced when comparing to some bright headphones. Some customers complained that HE-5LE is not as bright as HE-5 or HD800. We can easily make it brighter in two different ways:

1. Buy a brighter cable

2. Remove Grill Cloth

 

Now our engineer are showing you the procedure of  2.

 

HE-5LE grills were fixed on the headphone by a bayonet elastic ring (There are four sockets in the inner side of the headphone body). You will have to remove the ring first, then you can easily remove the grill and the grill cloth. The last step is to lock the grill without grill cloth by pushing the ring back.

 

The ring is very solid so that you can easily remove cloth after following the procedure. In case you did break the ring, we will provide ring+grill+cloth+earpad avialable in a package on sale at head-direct.com. But you must be careful about your headphone body: if you break the socket in headphone body (which is very difficult), you might lost your warranty.

 

Step 1:

t1.jpg

Step 2

t2.jpg

Step 3

t3.jpg

Step 4:

Put the grill and plastic ring back without the grill cloth. 

head-direct: The Web Store of HiFiMAN
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post #2 of 11
5/13/10 at 9:53am

Nankai...

 

I am sure that this very clear tutorial will be of much help to those who would like to experiment with a different SQ without the need for an expensive new cable.

 

It is good that this option can be provided for users to accomplish without the need for technical skills or warranty-voiding modifications. 

 

Thank to you and your engineers for making this information available to the 5LE community!

 

Ron

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post #3 of 11
5/13/10 at 12:41pm

Thanks for this tip.  While I really do like the stock HE-5 LE a lot with the grill cloth in place, at some point I will remove mine and report on the changes in comparison to the HE-5 and HD800.

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post #4 of 11
5/13/10 at 2:26pm

Does this works also for HE-5 or is HE-5's grill glued and can not be easily removed?

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post #5 of 11
5/13/10 at 2:42pm
Thread Starter 

HE-5's grill is glued. In addition, HE-5 do not have such cloth.

head-direct: The Web Store of HiFiMAN
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post #6 of 11
5/13/10 at 3:30pm

Thanks.

 

But mine must have some kind of black cloth or foam (behind the grill) which completely cover the drivers.

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post #7 of 11
5/13/10 at 5:05pm
Thread Starter 

Those are damping.

head-direct: The Web Store of HiFiMAN
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post #8 of 11
5/14/10 at 8:28am

Thanks for the tip. This really helped and now the headphone has the sound signature I was looking for.

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post #9 of 11
5/23/10 at 12:13pm

For cosmetics purposes, does any alternate grill cloth material exist that can replace the original grill cloth material and still produce the desired brighter/airiness?

Or does the replacement of any grill cloth material defeat the brightness/airiness goal?

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post #10 of 11
12/1/11 at 10:34pm

I know this is an old thread, but I'm hoping someone may be able to answer my question...

 

I picked up a pair of HE-5LEs on the used market, and I'm guessing that a prior owner removed the rings to take out the grill cloth demonstrated in this thread. As a result, it looks like two of the four 'tabs' on the ring were broken off. The ring looks to have been glued back in place, but now the ring has become unglued, and the ring is only half in-place. I looked on the head-direct website and it doesn't look like the 'ring kit' is for sale any longer. Are there any other vendors that still sell this kit? Is it a bad idea to just use the headphones without the exterior grills? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Thanks!


Edited by winegeek - 12/5/11 at 10:07pm
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post #11 of 11
2/29/12 at 9:53pm

I've been delinquent in following-up in this thread, but I wanted to say thanks to Ms. T and Fang for sorting me out with a replacement ring. Great customer service!

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