[joelpearce]

I'm going to keep those pictures and show them to my wife the next time she complains that my two small tower speakers take up too much space in the rec room.  She's actually pretty reasonable about my audio obsession, but I can't imagine that the people who built those setups are married.

 

[wualta]

The pursuit of bass has some similarities to the pursuit of shelter. Sometimes.
 
Gurubhai: I was thinking of the Yamaha line, but yes, the same thing applies to the equally rare high-tuned [German?] NAD and T50v1. Think of them as exceptions that prove the rule.
.

 

[joelpearce]

I'm definitely not enough of a DIYer to fix these up, but I thought I should link them for you strange headphone tech-lovin', vintage 'phone fixin' folk
 
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-PIONEER-STEREO-HEADPHONES-SE-700-/370403534074?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563dc564fa#ht_500wt_928
 

 

[Ishcabible]

^^^
 
I was watching that auction...

 

[Sambones]

$20 today, $90 in five more.

 

[kwkarth]

Quote:

What are these - Live in speakers ?

The classic and definitive acoustic impedance matching. 

 

[kwkarth]

When I was a kid, I believed in infinite baffles, so the back radiation from my speakers went to the outside world and the inside of the house was the pressurized cavity.  I was a favorite among the neighbors. 

Bozak Concert Grand?  Those puny things? 

 

[sanakaku]

Quote:

I'm definitely not enough of a DIYer to fix these up, but I thought I should link them for you strange headphone tech-lovin', vintage 'phone fixin' folk
 
http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-PIONEER-STEREO-HEADPHONES-SE-700-/370403534074?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item563dc564fa#ht_500wt_928
 

looks lovely. too bad other earpiece has problem

 

[wualta]

Quote:

When I was a kid, I believed in infinite baffles, so the back radiation from my speakers went to the outside world and the inside of the house was the pressurized cavity.  I was a favorite among the neighbors.
 

When I was a kid, I believed in throwing away the backwave, so my speaker (from a 1954 Philco TV) sat face down (prophetic of Ohms to come) atop a well-stuffed wastebasket.
.

 

[Sambones]

It's a crapshoot, really. If the problem is in the cable, and simple recabling fixes the problem, and you've just gotten yourself a good deal on a niche headphone set. Otherwise, you're stuck with only one pizoelectric transducer (would you call it that?), and a nice-looking foster phone.

 
Quote:

looks lovely. too bad other earpiece has problem

 
Oh, btw, before, when I prophesied about there never being a midrange Ortho, I was being stupid. There already is a whole series of them: the Fostex Tx0RP line!

 

[wualta]

Quote:

It's a crapshoot, really. If... you're stuck with only one piezoelectric transducer (would you call it that?)...

I think you can safely call it that. You can use it as a microphone, a temperature sensor, an accelerometer...
 
And no, I think you were right the first time about the Midrange Ortho. Is the typical Mk II Fostex really a midrange ortho for Greater Headphonia?  Isn't it likely to be judged too sucky in stock form to be mainstream-popular? Too big, clunky, retro looking, with not enough isolation to make up for it? Wouldn't people prefer something with a smaller footprint? Dunno. I was thinking that if Fostex wanted to, they could shoehorn the Mk II driver into something the size of the A-T FC700. I.e., they'd have to completely redesign it for the consumer market. Maybe OEM it for Denon or something.
EDIT: But I dunno-- I just spotted Friday's review of the stock T50RP by joelpearce. We know what they're capable of (and if we weren't sure, Smeggy nailed it down), but are they really suitable for the great mass of ibud wearers just emerging from their icocoons? Heck, maybe they are, in a clunky, anti-style kind of way.
.
 

 

[Nevod]

All my thoughts on cost of headphone production have already been stated there, so I have another question.
 
How does that felt phase correction circle in Fostex T50v1 work? I assume it blocks high frequencies coming from sides of driver, so that they do not arrive out of phase with highs radiated by driver's center. If so, it bears resemblance to Omega2's driver, where the perforated area on stators is noticeably smaller than the whole driver. That would correct the phase domain, but the problem, albeit attenuated, would still be seen in time domain, because low frequencies would still arrive delayed. Though, lows are lows, and they don't change quickly(hope you got me), and human hearing is really sensitive to time information in the 2-4kHz range.
 
Besides, that felt circle should provide some damping as well, I suppose..

 

[joelpearce]

Quote:

EDIT: But I dunno-- I just spotted Friday's review of the stock T50RP by joelpearce. We know what they're capable of (and if we weren't sure, Smeggy nailed it down), but are they really suitable for the great mass of ibud wearers just emerging from their icocoons? Heck, maybe they are, in a clunky, anti-style kind of way.
.
 

I will freely admit that I am a midrange headphone kinda guy.  I'm looking forward to someday having my own pair of Thunderpants to dip my toes into the higher end headphones, but on the most part I'm pretty content with midrange cans.
 
I'm not a huge expert at all this yet, but I have owned quite a few pairs of studio-oriented headphones in the past year: Beyerdynamic DT150, DT990 Pro, DT990/600, DT480, AKG K240M, Pioneer Monitor 10, Fostex T50RP, DBI Pro 700, Shure SRH840... I think I've heard enough from the competition to know that the newest iteration of the T50RP belongs near the top of that list.  
 
I guess I don't quite see myself as an ibud wearer just coming out of cocoon, if that was a reference to me
 

 

[wualta]

Quote:

 
How does that felt phase correction circle in Fostex T50v1 work? I assume it blocks high frequencies coming from sides of driver, so that they do not arrive out of phase with highs radiated by driver's center. If so, it bears resemblance to Omega2's driver, where the perforated area on stators is noticeably smaller than the whole driver. That would correct the phase domain, but the problem, albeit attenuated, would still be seen in time domain, because low frequencies would still arrive delayed. Though, lows are lows, and they don't change quickly(hope you got me), and human hearing is really sensitive to time information in the 2-4kHz range.
 
Besides, that felt circle should provide some damping as well, I suppose..

Your intuition is correct: the low frequencies would suffer so little cancellation at the distances inside a headphone (see above speaker photos to get a feel for the size of the wavelengths involved) that it's not worth worrying about. Time = phase, it's just that when we're talking about small-scale time differences (less than a 360-degree shift), we say phase; when the differences are gross, we revert to talking time. Same thing, different scale.
 
Damping? Probly not. As in electrical theory, put a resistance in the way of a current and the current will try to find a way around it rather than try to go through it. The air will simply bypass the donut and go through the hole. But now you can see how the idea of a bass lens (still don't like the term but can't come up with a less silly one) works: The same air pressure generated by a bass note is now concentrated in an area one-fourth as large, ergo, more kPa, moar base. Which explains why folks opening up the hole in the earpad report that the highs are now getting through. It's just reduced bass.

 
Quote:

I will freely admit that I am a midrange headphone kinda guy.  
 
I guess I don't quite see myself as an ibud wearer just coming out of cocoon, if that was a reference to me
 

I too can enjoy midrange (we're talking price now, not audio frequencies, though the two do tend to go together) headphones. I go for high performance/price ratios and judge headphones (and other products) accordingly, which is why I like my KSC-75 and my ECR-500 and my Lambda Nova and my Pro 30. I know it's hard to deliver good sound for little money, so I appreciate a good $30 headphone more than a merely-twice-as-good $500 headphone. You know, we're the "85% of the performance for 10% of the price" people.
 
And I don't see you as an ibud wearer either, if that helps. I was talking about the great wide world of headphone listeners and wondering how many could be induced, as you were, to try/buy something like the T50RPs as their first orthos, especially those who, unlike you, are headphonatics only in utero, still waiting for someone to plunk that first really good pair of headphones on their head.
 
For what it's worth, I thought your review was insightful and rational. You didn't use the word sucks even once.

 

[joelpearce]

I teach movie review writing in my media classes in high school, and spent about 7 years as a published film critic.  I always teach against what I call the Rocks/sucks dichotomy.  There's a tendency for people to either say "These headphones rock!" or "These headphones suck!", but that doesn't actually help anyone with anything, except to give yourself a fuzzy feeling of having expressed an opinion.  That's why places like IMDB and Amazon ratings are such a massive waste of time.
 
Getting off topic, though.
 
The T50RP are definitely not the best headphones I own.  They sit well behind both the DT150 and DT990 in terms of overall sonic experience.  Only by a BIT, though, which is the amazing thing.  If they cost $200-250, I'd say they were a decent investment that could be bettered by heading to other brands.  There really isn't anything in the $100 range that competes as a neutral studio headphone, though--not even close.
 
This is the huge challenge with headphones, though, as I see it.  There are a set of established brands, that all make excellent headphones through a range of quality levels:
 

1. Sennheiser
2. AKG
3. Audio-Technica
4. Ultrasone
5. Grado
6. Beyerdynamic
7. and increasingly... Shure

 
Those companies are relatively safe bets.  Lots of people have tried them, models from those companies crop up every time a thread is started on anything, and when you buy one you have a pretty good sense of what you're getting.
 
There are a number of fringe companies that seem to make equally great headphones, but that haven't developed that kind of reputation and recognition.  I have tried a few of these because that's the kind of person I am (and others who post in this thread probably are as well:
 

1. German Maestro/MB Quart
2. DBI Pro
3. Fostex
4. Audeze
5. Phiaton
6. Fischer Audio (at least they will once the initial hype wears off)

and there are others, I know.
 
Some great deals to be had in this category, but when we recommend them, they don't carry as much weight because they are not familiar.  If a thread starts, and the recommendations are the Audio-Technica M50, the Shure SRH-440 and the Fostex T50RP, One of the first two will almost always win out, even though I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say the T50RP is a significantly better investment.
 
It's the same reason that so many people are proud to own a Bose home theatre surround sound system, even though you could have a vastly superior setup for cheaper (Paradigm, Axiom Audio, Mission, etc.).  Nobody has heard of the other brands, and people aren't willing to take the risk or escape the comfort of the big box stores.
 
And so, after that roundabout journey, I do think that the T50RP has the potential to be that ortho that gets people started down that road, but I'm pretty skeptical about that happening.  It simply takes too long for something different that got initial bad press to get any kind of community traction.