**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 268

Hey Matt, about the re-grilling mod. All you have to do is cut a piece of steel mesh and tulle net fabric and stick the two of them together?

And you only need one grill, right?

By the way, does it really change the sound significantly?

edit. forget my second question. It was really stupid.

I don't mean 'question-steal' but I have a simpler solution:

Just rip off the mesh stuff on the stock grills, it sounds the same as having no grills on to me, plus it's really easy.

But you probably won't be able to return them after...

Now this, is a simple solution I like :D

Might just do this.

I have a question about the re-grilling mod.

Is it fine to just... leave the grills off for home use? and then when I take it outside put them back on?

Or should I be using grills at home as well?

I've been thinking of creating a thread or maybe just a post here with samples of flac music from my collection which I feel demonstrate the HE400s abilities. Would anyone want to see a thread/post like that? Maybe we could start something where we exchange short clips.

It would just include short passages of some of songs, not whole files of course since that would probably be illegal to share. Posting small clips can't be against the rules right? A lot of people post Youtube links to share or demonstrate music but that's far from ideal for an audiophile.

I don't mean 'question-steal' but I have a simpler solution:

Just rip off the mesh stuff on the stock grills, it sounds the same as having no grills on to me, plus it's really easy.

But you probably won't be able to return them after...

Well, i don't have them in my hands yet so i don't know exactly how to do it, but with "rip off the mesh stuff", you mean the steel grill?

There is a fabric backing glued to the stock steel grills, basically you can just rip the fabric off so it's just the bear grylls without any fabric on it. I actually did that on my HE500 since they don't benefit as much as the HE400s.

You'd want at least some sort of mechanical protection (e.g. against something that pokes the driver by accident) such as the steel grills. Dust protection is optional at home since you won't be having gusts blowing sand or sharp particles against the diaphragm membrane.

Hmm... i think i'll just do that.

But can dust damage the drivers in any way? Is there any way to clean it? With a brush or something maybe?

If it's just house dust then no, the driver membrane is a fairly resilient mylar material with aluminum tracing etched onto it. Just blow some air at the driver from time to time and it is no problem. Don't use anything that touches the driver membrane (e.g. a brush) though, that might scratch the mylar or worse yet the aluminum tracings.

If you plan to use these outdoors then I strongly suggest against removing dust protection. A gust of wind + an sharp piece of sand = potentially a hole in the driver.