Was about to purchase Audio-Technica M50s and saw the Fostex T50RP thread..? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalVeauX 

Heya,

 

I'm not sure how the T50RP got popular at all. I picked one up, and felt it sounded like an apple. All mids. Damp treble. Weak bass. It was a joke to me. I was like, "Why was this $125?" I don't care that there is a "you can mod it to ...." type thing. That's hokey. This is a poor headphone straight up. It's only reason for popularity is that it's a planar magnetic. And then people modded it because... well, it's terrible as a stock headphone and they wanted to keep a planar magnetic without going over the deep end in cost. That's T50RP in a nut shell. I'd avoid it, unless you are willing to spend enough to get it modded into the "thunderpants" or something. Personally, I don't buy an expensive headphone just to mod it. I like to just buy something complete and done that sounds good right away.

I agree that they sound awful stock, but calling the modding stuff "hokey" is just silly. I dropped about $40 of mods into mine (paid $75 for the T50RPs), and they sound really, really nice. It's hard to get them just right, and there are so many different ways you can tune them. Once you get them how you like them, though, they easily compete with headphones priced around $200-300 in my experience. I have not yet heard LFF's modded T50RP, but everyone seems to think they compare favorably to higher end planar magnetic headphones and even some electrostatics. 

I can understand wanting to just buy "complete" headphones, but I think I'd rather spend $75 on a pair of headphones and $40 on modding materials than $200-300+ to get similar quality sound.

To the OP, if you don't mind spending many hours modding and tweaking the T50RP AND have good DAC with a powerful amp, that's the route I would take. If you would rather just not mess with that or don't have the DAC/amp, I would recommend the M50 or perhaps that Brainwavz HM5. I think the HM5 will be more similar to the FA-003 than not. I'm betting that they're basically identical.

As long as you're not trying to pull a Rastapants mod with O2 pads or a wooden housing Thunderpants, it's a very economical headphone. The planar magnetic inside is very capable of having a strong bass response with good detail and more extension than most dynamic, although, just by nature of the mods, I'd expect a little more channel imbalance than I would expect from a purchased high-end planar magnetic. It's just that not everyone is willing to put all of the time and effort into modding them to have them be able to punch above their weight and/or have an amp capable of handling the T50RP after it has been modded. Don't get me wrong, it's a very good value, but it's just not for everyone. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by RexAeterna 

you guys act like you have to spend a bajilion dollars to mod it. it''ll take less then 15-20 bucks to kill the cup resonance. fiberglass or mineral wool is dirt cheap cause you need very little so you won't pay much at all and simple materials like cotton or polyfill/fiberfill is like less then couple bucks(well for cotton. i forgot how polyfill is measured in priced but defiantly cost less then 10 bucks). pad replacements will end up costing more than the actual mod. you guys are scaring him away lol.
it's also not like your gonna buy some nice speaker drivers and forget the whole ''stuffing/dampening'' and just throw them in a random plastic box. it'll sound awful,even if they're just dynamic drivers. that's what's with the fostex. great driver but thrown in a horrible enclosure and pads. it's like during the 70's and 80's where they took random speaker drivers and put them in random plastic enclosures, and wa-la! you got a consumer headphone lol. frinkin miracles.