cup tuning basics. - Page 16

I can't see how to accomplish fully closed but who knows. Might be a way. I'll let others tackle that one. you'll be eating alot of popcorn waiting for me to figure that one out

busy with lifes many demands. now back to what matters. sound vibration !.........spent some time with tung oiled final form cups.

set A total raw limba wood

set B raw wood outer, tung oil inner walls (first time for me w/ this particular oil)

Here's the problem variable, they had diff V4's..... all sound different to me.

So I have no real idea what differences I hear can be attributed to the finish and/or the driver. So can't really learn anything definite from this.......but at least I totally enjoyed each set and could likely live indefinitely into the future with either. more natural and truer than my old grado and senns' in any case....

Comparing them in a casual manner during week revealed interesting tidbits, but basically what we already have learned in our little journey. That they are totally different sounds and vibes. I like aspects of each and struggle with what to do here. So, for myself, I will be leaving my outers raw until I find a real reason to put a finish on them....cracking being my only real concern, and based on experience, I'm not giving alot of concern to it. It's not a guitar neck. and those don't disintigrate into dust if not finished, they only bend back and forth a touch and that only matters because the strings are super alligned for action......... So comparing the type of dimensions and scale we are comparing, I don't think this cup will move too much or cause problems that affect anything. Especially since the drivers are semi loose/tight fit...which also seem to work nicer for sound reasons. The finish on the outside is stricly a holdover from a superficial mindset the cult-ure fosters. Totally understandable one at least. Things do pop out when finished. color, grain etc which can be cool. But raw has it's own mad max vibe to it....I did 'burnish' the wood with steel wool on the lathe though, so if one is sensitive enough, he would find the 'finish' like a super light hand rubbed finish. Special attention here to inner wall burnishing. Mix that with some hand oil over use and you have a natural finish like the eddie Vhalen he puts on all his necks since '78. his hand oil. Turns our we are oil factories.

here's my final sets.....sucks being a perfectionist. check out that fit and finish !

no grill mesh. don't need it.don't want it.  looking inside takes the mystery out of it. which most do not want. they want mystery and confusion and war.  I'd rather see how things really work and live in reality. Once headphone cups are demystified. which is what true knowledge does, one can create a nicer sound that really relaxes. and what is music if not total relaxation.

http://www.ehow.com/list_7634861_wood-burnishing-tools.html

http://www.scrollsawer.com/forum/wood-finishing-and-painting/13688.htm

extract from one of thsoe burnishing links:

Burnishing wood will slightly alter the wood surface. The surface of wood is made up of dried and collapsed cell walls from the living tree. (a normal living tree cell is mostly water, which is removed in drying of lumber.) As you burnish, the softer material of the cell walls will rub off, leaving the harder cellulose fibre structure. This cellulose structure is further compressed and joined to other cell wall similarly compressed and altered.

The overall effect is to create a hard cellulose barrier against any dye, or finish absorption by the surface of the wood. That is why experts claim when you sand raw wood beyond 320 grit sandpaper, you are not sanding and are burnishing the wood. Some people like that finish effect and use it to their advantage.
 

and from same wiki link, looks like what I've been doing to the finish, is 'burnishing' it. Only now I am doing it to the wood as well. Burnishing the wood and leaving it raw is a different sound than just sanded raw wood. And burnishing the raw wood before applying finish is a way to minimize the amount that penetrates into the wood. So with just this info and 4 different oils, I can custom taylor a sound towards certain ends and ears. And this is with just one wood. The custom sounds that could be created if using multiple woods would be enourmous. And since no one has time to even begin this process, I stuck with one wood and learned it's ways.

"Others claim you apply a couple of light coats of finish, then sand with 400 grit and progressively up to 1000 grit to the thin layers of finish, which flattens and burnishes the finish (not the wood) and this has a different look to the finish.........the claim is that burnished finish gives the wood a depth of shine; like a mirror. Burnished raw wood with a clear acrylic finish, (glaze, polycrylic, many water-borne finishes) just sits on top of the wood and acts like a clear protective coating like an automotive clear coat; a different finishing effect. Again, burnished wood is used by some for effect.

French polish with shellac is a form of burnishing the finish on very expensive furniture

........historical evidence suggests that the act of burnishing creates mini-areas of local heat as you burnish. That is how the cellulose fibres get joined..... the word 'burn' has been there for a long, long time in recorded wood finishing circles."
 

there's a picture emerging of the 'sounds' and affects of the particular finishes......still early in their dis-cover-ing. i.e. the act of taking the cover off. demystifying, finding reality. there is a truth out there waiting to be discovered. It's never every man to his own opinion. Sure sounds sound different to different people, but there has to be something common to all. And to that end and with that premise established, i can tentatively suggest that a very light apply of tung oil is a pretty good all'rounder. Really nice bass, doesn't murder either the mids or uppers........tru-oil surely seems to have the magic mids with slight ortho compression. trebles and upper mids soft but clear and natural. the bass tends to be a bit murky though. This leads to linseed oil which has the nicest bass of all the oils, but I seem to feel it thins out the rest of the tone. Left is the danish oil which I haven't heard in awhile, as it was my first. Should build a new set with current geometry to relisten to danish. but memory is of a strident uppe mid, but that could easily have been the poor cup geometry back when I was using danish. hence the need for re-assessment. I'd be happy with tung or tru oils at this point though. Two flavors of the same treat.

spent the afternoon swapping out the above drivers in those 2 sets of limba cups. And it is primarily the driver variation that is responsible for the differences, which are significant........so this leads to a new ranking in variables for cup tuning.  from most variable and influential to least

driver variation of the v4 driver or whatever other driver is used

cup geometry - getting the right length and getting it to sympathetically vibrate to sound which I feel means light and thin walls with little end mass

wood species

finish type - oil, varnish, laquer etc

finish application - thickness, burnished or not etc

silver vs copper cable (silver being 'cleaner' with more definition at the expense of some midrange and warmth)

driver tightness - looser being more advantageous it seems

3-way with same drivers: shelac limba, raw limba, raw zebrawood.

all the same cup geometry as well

first up, finished shelaced limba -these drivers are tight fit- pretty nice. decent bass, mids a little recessed, treble pretty nice. overall a little lifeless

next, raw limba - loose fit drivers - richer sound, warmer, more realistic treble. vocals still a bit in back. overall nicer sound. a little shy in upper mids though

next, raw zebrawood - loose fit drivers - best bass of the three for sure, but this wood is alot of upper mids and treble, and a bit strident in mid at times. A touch dry maybe but compared to alot of woods I've heard, this is a good sounding wood, nice and even sounding with less low mids than limba and not as rich or warm, but maybe the nicest treble I've ever heard from a raw wood. very accurate and natural. The more I listen to this wood, the more I like it.

back to raw limba - limba's lows and highs can't compete with zebrawood but limba has the mids. rich and warm and deep with no stridence anywhere. Wish I could mix and match some of zebras qualities into this wood, but just doesn't work that waw unfortunately.

raw limba vs raw outer limba with inner tung oil

same drivers

raw limba has that lower mid fullness and non-pronounced but sufficient treble

finished limba is more even sounding with much more upper end energy but overall less warmth and richness. It's a tradeoff since raw limba does need to thin out in the lower mids. this is the balanceing act with this wood with regards to how to finish it...zebrawood would have different requirements for example and i'd search for a finish that warmed and deepened it a bit if such a finish exists.

I had a set of v4's that were particularly rich and warm. Too much for limba since that is also that's wood's signature. But I popped thos driver in the zebrawood, which before had too much upper mids that were strident at times and now alot has changed. These cups with this driver set has no strident upper mids, less nice bass (this is the driver) and less treble(driver as well). All in all a good match since these drivers do not bring out the strident mids compared to other drivers.

More and more I feel the only way to really get reference sound with wood cups is to have several sets of cups at the ready with correct cup geometry and match a particular driver set to them. Otherwise it's a crapshoot to a certain degree.

between batches

limba vs cocobolo both 1 1/8"

the cocobolo orignally had what looks like a silver cable.

It was very piercing, hard and un natural upper mids. The sound quickly improved with the swap of a grado copper cable. But was further improved with matching a warm soft sounding set of drivers to the cocobolo. now sounds much nicer. The cup length was correct which helps alot imo. But this is more evidence that it is a matching issue even more than a wood issue. As long as the cup is the correct geometry, I feel almost any wood could be matched with a set of v4's if a few are tried. I tried 3 sets with these....... The drivers vary so much I may swap back in the silver cable to see if it now works with these diff v4 drivers

raw zebra vs burnished limba outer/burnished oil inner

different v4 drivers from same batch (they are different but i've gotten to know them somewhat so while it's still a variable, I feel I can separate it out from the zebra/limba compare, but maybe not entirely. The differences may be driver and/or wood. But only other way to compare two woods would be to listen, then physically take them out and swap cups. This takes 10 minutes or so and by then my state of mind may be altered differently and so I introduce myself as a bigger variable than the drivers. So it's an art not a science for sure.