I recently purchased a new pair of Grado SR80i's since I owned some about 15yrs ago and knew I would enjoy them and I was desperate to replace my previous horrible sounding cheap phones. They came with comfies but I thought they sounded a bit veiled and flat with stock comfies and too forward/ borderline sibilant with the quarter hole mod and lacking some body and warmth. So I went all out and took them apart and exposed all the holes in the driver and removed the grill on the headphones as well as the cloth covering the driver front. I also carved some rough G-cush style pads from the packing foam that came with the headphones. I also cut two foam sound absorbers about a quarter inch thick and put them in the empty space between the driver and where the grill was which compensates for a slight boominess with certain music which is present without it.
The sound is now very close to what I want (from a Grado). I'm buying an Aluminum mod kit later (Jaben Audio) that comes with G-cush style pads. Although I expect that to be more of a aesthetic upgrade then anything at this point. I'm sure the sound could be improved by proper amping but I expect I'm not far from reaching the potential of this particular headphone. I love how leading edge transients from percussion instruments like drums and such now have that realistic jump factor and don't sound dulled like with cheap phones. However I now crave a phone that has more air and space but is still very dynamic and clean/detailed.
Candidates for new phones later on include Denon D2000, Beyerdynamics DT880 600ohm, AKG Q701 or even extending my budget to a Beyer T70P. I'm more incline to the Denon or the the Beyer T70P as they are more capable as portable phones and I'm enough of a freak to actually walk around on occasion with full size headphones, lol.
-Joshua
