B&W P3 - can the sound be "fixed"? - Page 2

Thank you for posting the extra photos. I can see what you have done now.
Your 1st photo confused me because it shows a dark black area below the light brown board and I wondered whether that was part of the mod or perhaps some kind of fixing tape.

By the way my P3s don't have nearly as much foam bulging in to the cavity as yours so that might explain why I am not unhappy with the sound. I will try to find some suitable board though. Perhaps this year someone will send me a Christmas card

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Edited by xeroian - 12/11/12 at 9:19am

Update: my curiosity would not let me wait for the postman so I cut two 24mm by 5mm rectangles from the back board of a shorthand notebook pad.

Much to my surprise the mod seems to have given a greater sense of immediacy and space. I don't intend removing the board to check whether the difference is real or imagined but as I sit here listening to Lana del Ray it seems real enough

I am glad it's useful

I THINK I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION! take off the pads and look inside. see all the foam bulging into the rectangular cavity where the sound travels? ok take your finger and tuck all that in out of the way of the sound. its amazing what this will do for your sound. i think this is the way it was designed to be but maybe it unfurls after leaving the factory or its not checked at the end of the line or maybe the hole is cut too small. may as well give it a try. i think it also helps the cans feel a little more comfortable on my ears and the pads look nicer from the inside. when i put the phones back a little more on my ear in addition to the extra tucking these things now sound great or errrr better.....  

I tried the paper insert suggested by devoker (post #15) but found the headphones to be still too bassy and muddy for my taste.  After playing around with a few different ideas I found that the culprit for me was the foam pads themselves: they were simply designed to add too much bass (imo) - try listening without them and you'll see what I mean.  In one of my experiments I inserted a credit card between the pads and the headphones (at the bottom) and noticed a dramatic improvement in clarity. I decided what was needed was some overall separation between the pads and the headphones.  Using some thin clear plastic (about half the thickness of a credit card), I traced the shaped needed using a marker then drilled holes for the posts and cut along the trace line.  The result: a dramatic improvement in brightness that comes fairly close in tone to what I get out of my B&W 684 loudspeakers.