So I guess we need to wait until someone has tried the Lawton mod consisting of damping with angled pads without new cups.
It depends on what you are trying to achieve. I have used the Lawton DIY damping kit and it works as promised on the Lawton website. My results were similar to ‘scottiebabie’. I sincerely believe that using the Lawton pads will also work as he promised on his website, e.g. increase soundstage, out of your head sound, reduce listener fatigue etc. But that is not what I am after.
I wanted to hear more of the beautiful mids the Fostex TH90 is capable of. Our mods will provide that. More expressiveness, more detail, better timbre, better micro and macro dynamics. I think it is safe to say that by bringing your ears closer to the driver you will get that.
Furthermore, when you increase the inner hole of the earpad to about 75mm you will get a more open and spacious sound. In addition, the activated carbon foam has a very open structure, which will also increase spaciousness. I listen a lot to large scale classical works of Mahler, Puccini etc etc. The sound from the modded TH900 is very spacious but also direct and clear. The famous ‘removing the veil’. I had the AKG K1000 for many many years, and Sennheiser HD800 for about a year. With the AKG K1000 you can manage your soundstage by spreading out the driver away from your ear. At maximum spread you get a huge soundstage but a ‘weak sound’ (for lack of a better word). I always used them spread out for quarter of their maximum. Still a great soundstage but more direct involving sound. The Sennheiser has a large soundstage but I felt a bit detached from the music ( a bit similar to the AKG K1000 at max. spread). The Fostex Th900 is closer to the AKG K1000 at quarter stretch, especially with the mods. Sound is open, and clear but still direct.
I think Mark Lawton tried to capitalize on the strengths of the Fostex TH900, large soundstage for a closed headphone, and incredible bass. In effect they found out that the mids were improved as well.
We were after improving the mids of the Fostex, in effect we found out that the bass and openness of sound are improved as well. I think that captures the basic difference between Lawton and our approach.