Grado SR80i worthwhile mods?

Did you miss this thread? http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/508459/sr60-mod

Dampen inside cups and magnet to refine highs, poke holes in driver felt to increase bass and ultimately replace the plastic cups with wooden ones

This thread is full of interesting mods:

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/119314/post-your-grado-mods

venting the driver, followed by damping the inside of the outer shell with dynamat (or similar), followed by metal grills.

wood provides the biggest improvement to the sound, except for venting the driver.

Also, woodies don't cost that much. they can be had for < $80.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sysfail 

With that price I could just upgrade to the SR225i lol. Well what do you mean by venting the driver? Completely take out the felt inside the Grados?

a woodied sr60i is better than a sr225i.

read Bill's sr60 mod thread that was linked a little further up.

You can try contacting Bilavideo. He makes numerous shells of various different woods.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sysfail 

Yeah I know, just don't know if he sells them. I'll contact him though, thanks!

I got mine from Bill. He's busy with family right now, so it might be a couple days until he responds.

I am very happy with the changes wrought by the mods I have done on my second pair of SR60i thus far, but I really want to caution the OP and others considering the mods:

- if the Grados you are about to mod are your ONLY decent phones, I would strongly consider limiting yourself to experimenting with pads while you save for a pair of RS1/Ms-PRO.

- if you are prepared to run the risk of potentially ending up with a pair of phones in need of new drivers (or worse, new housings), my advice is to try to be prepared to do it in one session. I must have had the cups apart 20 times over the course of the weekend, and each time I came away wondering how much stress I had put those solder joints under. Fortunately, they seem to be designed to take it, at least so far.

- I dont have any wooden cups, but even with the plastic the effect of opening the cans right up is undeniable, and I have a pair of stock SR60s to confirm this. Sticking with the plastic, you will almost certainly end up with something fairly ugly by the time you get around to replacing the outer grill - trust me when I tell you that the sonic improvement is absolutely worth it.

I would dearly love to blindfold some of the skeptics who would describe the impact of these mods as 'placebo' and switch between my stock 60s and the 'BV60i' : even with the button and stock grille still in place, I believe you could seriously confuse folk at a meet with your humble 'SR60' hooked up to something with serious bass punch.

Quote:

Originally Posted by estreeter 

I am very happy with the changes wrought by the mods I have done on my second pair of SR60i thus far, but I really want to caution the OP and others considering the mods:

 

- if the Grados you are about to mod are your ONLY decent phones, I would strongly consider limiting yourself to experimenting with pads while you save for a pair of RS1/Ms-PRO.

 

- if you are prepared to run the risk of potentially ending up with a pair of phones in need of new drivers (or worse, new housings), my advice is to try to be prepared to do it in one session. I must have had the cups apart 20 times over the course of the weekend, and each time I came away wondering how much stress I had put those solder joints under. Fortunately, they seem to be designed to take it, at least so far.

 

- I dont have any wooden cups, but even with the plastic the effect of opening the cans right up is undeniable, and I have a pair of stock SR60s to confirm this. Sticking with the plastic, you will almost certainly end up with something fairly ugly by the time you get around to replacing the outer grill - trust me when I tell you that the sonic improvement is absolutely worth it.

 

I would dearly love to blindfold some of the skeptics who would describe the impact of these mods as 'placebo' and switch between my stock 60s and the 'BV60i' : even with the button and stock grille still in place, I believe you could seriously confuse folk at a meet with your humble 'SR60' hooked up to something with serious bass punch.

Sorry about your driver, I have had a similar fate. Most mods are simple and are 100% worth doing. I would stop at driver liberation if you don't want to take a huge risk.

it happens

Bob, my drivers are fine - now - but I had to make a conscious effort to stop before I did some damage - the act of modifying/checking the sound is addictive, and I think people need to know that going in. If you have access to a hardware store that is open all day Sunday, I suspect that most are doomed - it would be ridiculously easy to find yourself surrounded by tools, glue and various materials .......