[Avincent52]

Quote:

Here is my first mod.
 
I just bought a RS1i and found the bowl pads a little uncomfortable. I decided to go with the reverse comfy pads, but I did not like my ears touching the driver grill. So I made "spacer rings" to just give it that extra distance. I'm very happy with the result. I bought high density foam rubber. I got two thicknesses 2mm & 5mm, but found 2mm best.
 
This is now way more comfotable!
 
The sound is amazing especially the bass. I found with my ears touching the grill that there was a harshness, but that is gone now.
 
Tools used: 41mm & 55mm WAD punches and a hammer.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Nice job, but I can't believe you're still using those metal gimbals.
The plastic gimbals--it's really more of an advanced  composite, actually--sound so much better because they allow more free resonance of the driver and eliminate that nasty 2.31db hump at 185Hz that the metal ones impart.
When you've gotten Grado to send you a set of plastic ones, I'll be happy to take those old nasty metal gimbals off your hands so they don't clutter up the place.
Just to be a nice guy, I'll cover shipping.  

 

[7keys]

Quote:

thanks for your response and interest! at the moment my mobile flat has reached its limit so everything is very slow, will start more detailed posts after 4th of may. nevertheless i want to give you some idea of what i have done in this area.
 
after a while and trying to enhance bass quality and depth not only with custom bowls and venting the driver (usually all holes, it gives you the best speed, detail and soundstage i found the plastic housings to be the problem.
 
so i looked fore something round with different diameters, expandable in length, cheap and fitting the size requirements to load a grado driver. i also did some measurement about sizes of driver, bowls etc. and found a silly easy way to build a custom aluminium housing with variable size and diameter:
 
- simply fotofilter rings and adapters !
 
 

here is a picture of my latest mod, its a grado style headphone where i used the grado headband, parts of the cable and sr80i drivers (just today i replaced them with turbulent labs x drivers).
 
it is funny that a step up adapter 49mm to 52 mm has just the size to apply bowls or g-cushions on the 52mm side while the driver just fits stable on the 49mm side.
 
 

 
if you then add a 49mm filter ring, you have a replaceable driver unit, with the next additional 49mm filter ring also with a hole for the cable. to replace the driver with another one you just have to opeb the step up ring, solder a new driver with the cable and close it again.
 
afterr a step down adapter 52mm to 49mm you can add as much 52 mm filter ring up to the length were you find your best balance between bass, soundstage and imaging. at this point you can close the housing by just using a step up 49 to 52mm adapter
 

modded sr325is
 
or as i have done (see first picture) use step up and step down rings 52mm to 67mm to have the (whats the name for the ¨Gitter¨ ?metal part at the end closing the headphone, starting with sr225i made out of metal ??) Gitter covered with wood. (comment - i have leared now that gitter is metal mesh)
 
i wanted to get samething similar to the wooden sound of the big grados so i tried different kinds of wood finally choosing Balsa-Wood (In Germany called Balsa, its the i think lightest wood on earth and easy to manufacture, sounds great, easy to get it to resonate).
 
after trying to made rings with different technics i bought all the tools and learned to produce rings out a one single massive piece of wood.
 
So after you have built the aluminium housing out of rings, connect the cable, insert the wood rings, close the housing and you are ready to enjoy a great sounding grado style headphone with complete wooden inlay.
 
 

 
Thats all.
 
By the way the result is great sounding, you can´t hear even the smallest resonance or accoustical sign that there is a housing, just music around your head. as a short note, everything i did was crosschecked and listened to by to good friends who with no respect to any friendship gave me all the critics and points of improvement you need not to run into a single corner. 
 
p.s. the typing errors are mainly caused by typing this whole post with my tablet, beg your pardon for that.

Nice work you've done there.

 

[GermanGuy]

Thanks a lot for your comment!

 

[devouringone3]

Quote:

Nice job, but I can't believe you're still using those metal gimbals.
The plastic gimbals--it's really more of an advanced  composite, actually--sound so much better because they allow more free resonance of the driver and eliminate that nasty 2.31db hump at 185Hz that the metal ones impart.
When you've gotten Grado to send you a set of plastic ones, I'll be happy to take those old nasty metal gimbals off your hands so they don't clutter up the place.
Just to be a nice guy, I'll cover shipping.  

 
(he's kidding)
 
[I just want to make absolutely certain that the people know, lol]

 

[Avincent52]

Quote:

 
(he's kidding)
 
[I just want to make absolutely certain that the people know, lol]

I am not kidding. Put some plastic gimbals on your RS1 and hear the magic. 
And send those nasty metal ones to me. 

 

[jinteddy7]

Quote:

I am not kidding. Put some plastic gimbals on your RS1 and hear the magic. 
And send those nasty metal ones to me. 

Yea you really dont want those clunky metal ones. I have a pair of spare plastic ones for trade with your metal ones. PM me if interested

 

[GermanGuy]

I spent the weekend to take a lot of pictures while building a complete headphone to prepare a more detailed post with all the little things not documented up to now. Have to take some pictures about how to make wooden sleeves and some photo editing before posting.

 

[kvtaco17]

OMG, so Martin Custom Audio has had my sr225i's for awhile (getting custom cups/hardware/headband) and I was creeping on his blog/site and saw what I though was my build (he said he was about done)
 
http://www.martincustomaudio.com/2013/06/another-set-of-beautiful-b-ebony.html
 
SO, I emailed the man, and guess what!? I gave him full creative reign and THESE ARE MINE!
 
I'm so excite!
 
Impressed bro is impressed.

 

[AK7579]

Those are beautiful!

 

[kvtaco17]

I'm so excited to get these back! I'll have them by the end of next week sometime... (seems so far away...)
 

 

[GermanGuy]

What an outstanding result and that beautiful. sure the sound is as good as its looks, so this must be the killer grado! Would ideally fit with a new Rolce Royce Phantom with driver (of cource a car-driver )!
 
Have to work on the look  of my foto filter mods but will never come even close to that. Martin custom Audio is really an artist.

 

[kvtaco17]

What an outstanding result and that beautiful. sure the sound is as good as its looks, so this must be the killer grado! Would ideally fit with a new Rolce Royce Phantom with driver (of cource a car-driver )!

Have to work on the look  of my foto filter mods but will never come even close to that. Martin custom Audio is really an artist.

lol thanks, I'm getting s black headband though... The brown was messing with my mojo... So excited!

 

[fleasbaby]

Hello All,
 
Am working on my next build, and thought it might be nice to gather all of the alternatives to the traditional Grado headband....if you know of any, please post them here:
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/667915/grado-headband-alternatives-replacements
 
Thanks!

 

[AHorseNamedJeff]

First free day of summer, don't have work till much later. I might gather the cahones to open up my SR80i's.

 

[kvtaco17]

First free day of summer, don't have work till much later. I might gather the cahones to open up my SR80i's.

do it!