tdockweiler
Headphoneus Supremus
My three favorite headphones of the last three years have been the HD-598, Koss Pro DJ 100 ($80!) and K601. As most of you know, I'm a huge fan of the Koss Pro DJ 100. I love it's fun signature with it's forward mids and good bass. For over a year I was so impressed with this headphone that I always wanted to hear what it sounds like when open. Would it ruin the sound or make it better? The HD-598 did the job for when I wanted a similar signature and it had to be open.
I've found that when fully open this driver really shines and it's totally transformed into something much better. Who would have thought this? It took a lot of experimenting to get the perfect results. I've waited quite awhile before posting this. This thread will probably not be of interest to many people, but the results are so impressive I just had to post even if it gets one reply. This headphone when fully open has now even surpassed the HD-598 in most areas except for soundstage size. When closed, I could probably never say that.
When open the DJ100 has more detail, more forward mids, more clarity, better imaging, a more engaging sound and a more accurate soundstage than the HD-598. When open with a few tweaks you also don't lose out on the forward nature of the DJ100 or lose any of that bass.
So how do you make it open? You remove it's driver and install it into the Sennheiser HD-497 shell. It fits! This shell is fully open and still portable! The DJ100 has a good soundstage for being closed, but when it's open it's massive. Not as large as the HD-598, AD700 or K702. You know what's funny? I now prefer the Open DJ100 to the HD-598 for gaming. That's impressive to me. During games they're so similar in signature. The DJ100 is a detail monster in comparison to the HD-598 (with these mods!).
To start, here's a picture. Sorry I'm not much of a photographer and my camera isn't good.
It's not the best looking headphone on earth, but wait until you hear the thing. After that you won't care!
You see those pads? They normally don't fit, but I MADE them fit. They're my fake "memory foam" pads.
The Shure SRH-240 pads are hard as a rock when stock. I threw them into the washing machine with two towels on HOT. I then put them in the dryer with two bounce fabric softener sheets. You may need to wash them a second time to get rid of the scent if it bothers you. The resulting pad is now super soft and as soft as the Maxell DHP-II and Bose Triport pads!
Why do you even need those pads? You don't, but they give you some extra room. Otherwise your ears feel cramped. You can use the Maxell DHP-II pads without any modifications.
If you want them to fit, here is what you do. It gets a bit weird from here. You get out your Gorilla Tape. No, I'm not joking! You need this thick tape or the results won't be as good. You pretty much stick it in each corner of the plastic "frame" behind the pads and fold each piece together. When it looks completely ridiculous you cut around it to make an oval so it looks like this:
See...that's not so bad after all. Believe it or not it does not effect the sound quality. That frame is what locks the pads in place. You slip the frame inside the pads like so:
Here's a tip I forgot to mention. If you take the drivers out of the DJ100, use a tiny flat screwdriver heated up with a candle. It takes about 10 minutes of "work" for each driver. You will also need to recable it, which is the hard part. You need the heat to melt away the glue around the driver. Don't force it out and kill the driver.
Once you get everything together you will need to recable the DJ100. I won't explain this, but positive is the right solder point right below the dot. Even if you don't believe in cables changing the sound, you should trust me on this. Just use Mogami Starquad if you want to retain the DJ100's signature while still improving it. Canare and Belden change it slightly. The Belden offers pretty impressive amounts of extra detail, a larger and more accurate soundstage and more sound clarity. Due to what it does with the soundstage, it gives me the impression of slightly less forward mids at times. So, this means it changes it's sound a little. I may go back to the Mogami for the mids I always loved. Mogami is dirt cheap.
When you get everything together you'll find the resulting headphone a very unforgiving monster. You have very brightly recorded and harsh music and it sounds very bad on the DJ100. For the first day I thought I had made a mistake somewhere with doing this mod. Later I've discovered it was 100% worth it. "Out of the Box" the Open DJ100 is kind of harsh with some (badly recorded) music. It seems like there is excessive treble and the bass is reduced a little. It reminds of the treble out of the box of my K702 with garbage tracks and bright pop music. It just doesn't sound natural.
To fix this, we take pieces of tape and cover up holes surrounding the driver. NOT on the driver itself. Whatever you do DON'T ever put any "dampening" on the driver. It severely messes with the sound clarity! I first started with 3 holes covered on each side, for a total of 6 per driver. The result gave the best bass, but while sacrificing sound clarity a bit too much. I then tried 1 on each side and it was better, but not enough. Here is the result I liked the most:
You may be asking..."How is that going to change a thing?!". Try it and you'll hear the difference.
The resulting headphone is really impressive to say the least. My current favorite for gaming and all of my music. It's very similar to the HD-598, but a little more aggressive and less forgiving of source files than the HD-598. It's not really "laid back", but yet at the same time it's fairly balanced sounding despite the bass and forward mids. For those that want a ton of treble, this is probably not the headphone for you, but it's certainly not a dark headphone at all though. Very few headphones sound like it. It has some similarities to the HD-598, ATH-AD2000, SR-80 (just it's mids) and even a little of my Sextett LP (which I hate).
The biggest difference when made open is the improvement of it's soundstage and sound clarity. Sound clarity being the biggest difference. They make the HD-598 (even recabled) sound a bit muffled in comparison, but they really aren't.
I never would have imagined this driver would actually sound better being open!
I've found that when fully open this driver really shines and it's totally transformed into something much better. Who would have thought this? It took a lot of experimenting to get the perfect results. I've waited quite awhile before posting this. This thread will probably not be of interest to many people, but the results are so impressive I just had to post even if it gets one reply. This headphone when fully open has now even surpassed the HD-598 in most areas except for soundstage size. When closed, I could probably never say that.
When open the DJ100 has more detail, more forward mids, more clarity, better imaging, a more engaging sound and a more accurate soundstage than the HD-598. When open with a few tweaks you also don't lose out on the forward nature of the DJ100 or lose any of that bass.
So how do you make it open? You remove it's driver and install it into the Sennheiser HD-497 shell. It fits! This shell is fully open and still portable! The DJ100 has a good soundstage for being closed, but when it's open it's massive. Not as large as the HD-598, AD700 or K702. You know what's funny? I now prefer the Open DJ100 to the HD-598 for gaming. That's impressive to me. During games they're so similar in signature. The DJ100 is a detail monster in comparison to the HD-598 (with these mods!).
To start, here's a picture. Sorry I'm not much of a photographer and my camera isn't good.
It's not the best looking headphone on earth, but wait until you hear the thing. After that you won't care!
You see those pads? They normally don't fit, but I MADE them fit. They're my fake "memory foam" pads.
The Shure SRH-240 pads are hard as a rock when stock. I threw them into the washing machine with two towels on HOT. I then put them in the dryer with two bounce fabric softener sheets. You may need to wash them a second time to get rid of the scent if it bothers you. The resulting pad is now super soft and as soft as the Maxell DHP-II and Bose Triport pads!
Why do you even need those pads? You don't, but they give you some extra room. Otherwise your ears feel cramped. You can use the Maxell DHP-II pads without any modifications.
If you want them to fit, here is what you do. It gets a bit weird from here. You get out your Gorilla Tape. No, I'm not joking! You need this thick tape or the results won't be as good. You pretty much stick it in each corner of the plastic "frame" behind the pads and fold each piece together. When it looks completely ridiculous you cut around it to make an oval so it looks like this:
See...that's not so bad after all. Believe it or not it does not effect the sound quality. That frame is what locks the pads in place. You slip the frame inside the pads like so:
Here's a tip I forgot to mention. If you take the drivers out of the DJ100, use a tiny flat screwdriver heated up with a candle. It takes about 10 minutes of "work" for each driver. You will also need to recable it, which is the hard part. You need the heat to melt away the glue around the driver. Don't force it out and kill the driver.
Once you get everything together you will need to recable the DJ100. I won't explain this, but positive is the right solder point right below the dot. Even if you don't believe in cables changing the sound, you should trust me on this. Just use Mogami Starquad if you want to retain the DJ100's signature while still improving it. Canare and Belden change it slightly. The Belden offers pretty impressive amounts of extra detail, a larger and more accurate soundstage and more sound clarity. Due to what it does with the soundstage, it gives me the impression of slightly less forward mids at times. So, this means it changes it's sound a little. I may go back to the Mogami for the mids I always loved. Mogami is dirt cheap.
When you get everything together you'll find the resulting headphone a very unforgiving monster. You have very brightly recorded and harsh music and it sounds very bad on the DJ100. For the first day I thought I had made a mistake somewhere with doing this mod. Later I've discovered it was 100% worth it. "Out of the Box" the Open DJ100 is kind of harsh with some (badly recorded) music. It seems like there is excessive treble and the bass is reduced a little. It reminds of the treble out of the box of my K702 with garbage tracks and bright pop music. It just doesn't sound natural.
To fix this, we take pieces of tape and cover up holes surrounding the driver. NOT on the driver itself. Whatever you do DON'T ever put any "dampening" on the driver. It severely messes with the sound clarity! I first started with 3 holes covered on each side, for a total of 6 per driver. The result gave the best bass, but while sacrificing sound clarity a bit too much. I then tried 1 on each side and it was better, but not enough. Here is the result I liked the most:
You may be asking..."How is that going to change a thing?!". Try it and you'll hear the difference.
The resulting headphone is really impressive to say the least. My current favorite for gaming and all of my music. It's very similar to the HD-598, but a little more aggressive and less forgiving of source files than the HD-598. It's not really "laid back", but yet at the same time it's fairly balanced sounding despite the bass and forward mids. For those that want a ton of treble, this is probably not the headphone for you, but it's certainly not a dark headphone at all though. Very few headphones sound like it. It has some similarities to the HD-598, ATH-AD2000, SR-80 (just it's mids) and even a little of my Sextett LP (which I hate).
The biggest difference when made open is the improvement of it's soundstage and sound clarity. Sound clarity being the biggest difference. They make the HD-598 (even recabled) sound a bit muffled in comparison, but they really aren't.
I never would have imagined this driver would actually sound better being open!
