When it comes to stock headphones, I can't resist tweaking them. With my newly aquired CD3000's, I started by replacing the stock cable with one of my own BlackSilver cables. Since I had done this with my other cans, I knew it would be a sweet upgrade. Sure enough, they have improved in various ways, all good to my ears. Surely Senn owners know what a difference an upgrade cable can make.

Next I thought some tweaking of the cups and damping material were in order. I started by taking out the stock damping and going with none. This wasn't good but leaving the cups off altogether made them sound Grado like. Not what I was after either.

My idea all along was to hand make some wood cups and see what they had to offer. I used an unkwown exotic hardwood that had both blonde and red together in one piece. After honing the inside out in a similar fashion to the stock cup shape, I also tried to match the outside cup shape. After about a days work, I had them completed. Now in testing without attaching, I tried some different damping. Cotton and some Mackie damping were tried. I found myself liking the way the bare wood resonated without damping.

It seemed to enhance the bass and open up the "curve" soundfield to a more pleasing, to my ears, soundstage. Now the look of wood is something I've always liked, but I can put the stock cups back on if need be. Overall, I feel the cans are now keepers, at least for awhile.



Left and right cups...





Time to go outside and enjoy some sun... Larry

wow...that's totally cool
are they heavier now?

maybe you can even make more earcups out of different types of wood with different finish, think of the possiblities, red oak, or even use charry hard wood like ATs...

Larry, this is just too cool!!! Nice work.

Nice job! I would LOVE to hear them now.

I partially bought my w1000's because of the wood look. That and I am a woodshop teacher.... If only I had a little more time on my hands to try this out on a my Sennheisers for a wooden ring. I am going to follow someone elses lead who replaced the brass trimmings on their RKV with Mahagony, but I am going with cherry instead.. one day...

keep up the good woodwork!
Mahkook

Very nice! You should consider going into production. Kind of like AMG does with Mercedes. . . . . I'm really impressed!

- augustwest

maybe you should start to offer a "wood-modding" service for ppl's headphones.

Hahahahaha, that's pretty funny...at first I thought you'd just veneered them.

WOW!!! Those are absolutely stunning! Very impressive work there, Larry.

*jaw drops to the floor*

Wow! That is very cool. Now atleast when you are wearing these huge cans, they look good.

When most people here try to "mod" their headphones, they tend to turn them into these nasty looking getto headphones

Clearly, this is NOT the case here!

Those are just awesome looking! Killer mod!

Oh my god that's positively gorgeous.

Man that looks so much better than that cheesy plastic grey thing it comes with.

That's one of the coolest things I have ever seen!