Love the LCD-2 but everyone around me is getting mad at the sound that comes from them - Page 2

Well, after listening for a couple weeks now and not having any strange looks or complaints from my fellow workers I decided to make them look a bit better.

I looked into getting some wood veneer and removing the paper and replace with wood veneer but today I thought let me try something else (Suggested by DefectiveAudioComponent above).

I removed the drivers earpieces from their hangers, removed the dynamat and then took off the grills.

I checked under the felt pads and saw their was 1/4 inch bettween the grills and the felt the covers the drivers.

So using the grills as a template I cut the dynamat to 1/16 of th diameter of the outside diameter of the grill.

Then I cut indents where the screw holes were using wire snips.

Then I removed the paper covering the sticky dynamat surface, married the grills to the dynamat and press it tight.

I put it all back together adn I am listening to them now. I am pleased with the sound, happy with the isolation and not upset over the way they looked before (the cardboard look).

Here are some pictures I took along the way, the last pic is the finished product.

Finished!    How does it look? 

It does not sound anything like putting your hands over the cups. I am listening now and the sound is clear, distinct, sharp, and has increased bass slam.

I only detect two downsides to the sound so far:

1.) I have to increase the volume as the dynamics and efficiency of the drivers seem to have been impacted. It is taking more volume to get a satisfying sound, but that sound is very good.

2.) When I keep increasing the volume up to max enjoyable listening levels the treble gets a bit sharp edged, no sibilant, but harsher than unmodded version. The upside is that below that max comfort level there is a sweet spot where the mids and highs become bright and forward which the open ear (stock) version did not have and this was what I liked in the HE6 when I compared them to the LCD. So the sound actually is a nice cross breading of what I liked in the HE6 sound (mid articulated highs) while maintaining the dynamic, tight slamming bass.

And now I am not always loking around worried that I might be invading others earspace with my Beastie boys, or Supermassive Blackhole broadcasting to others...For me, it works.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcg27 

Wow that really does make them sound bad

I cut slits in the dynamat (about 3, 1 inch long slits) to do exactly what you say. I definitely decompressed some of the boominess I was getting in the bass. I use museum putty (which is tacky, not sticky) to plug the holes sometimes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhythmdevils 

Don't worry about touching the drivers, even if it did, it would just touch the magnets, which are thick, and whatever it was would have to get in between magnets to touch the diaphragm.  Not possible with a sheet of dynamat like that. 

 

You could experiment with poking a small vent hole into the dynamat on the edge.  This won't change the sound leakage significantly, but it will let the backwave vent, which will change the sound and could be a very good thing.