[Bill-P]

For your wood fix, try Martin's Custom Audio.
 
Anyway, I'd guess that sandwiching square pieces of tissue that are folded to be just big enough to cover the back of the driver enclosure... and making it so they are super compressed against the cup when you close everything up will give bass more weight, and may in fact mitigate the weird bass distortion without destroying the clarity.

 

[Oregonian]

As amazing as Martin is (he did my D2000 in Cocobolo), there is NO chance I'd contact him right now.  He just moved and is not even caught up on reading emails, let along taking on something like this.  A year from now we shall see. 
 
I'm happy with them as they are, but I have a mantra about everything - "stock sucks" even when it doesn't.  Might try the Dynamat soon. 

 

[ButtUglyJeff]

  Soooooooooooo tempting to open them up and use that Dynamat I'm looking at on my workbench. 
 
That cup out of Cocobolo would be interesting.  Maybe Lawton will bite.................

 
Maybe he will bite.  Mark wouldn't admit to these specific headphones, but he did say he was looking at headphones other then the Fostex TH900/600 he currently offers services for.
 

 
Right now I'm thinking of 8 pieces for dampening; the 4 quarters for the inside circle, and 4 arcs for the outside the circle, then maybe cover it all with a thin disc....

 

[Bill-P]

Aw, that's too bad. I quite enjoy his works on my ES10. It's still one of my favorite headphones.
 
On the other hand, the ear cups of the Z7 look quite complex due to the vents, so I'm not sure if wood ear cups would look as pleasing as the stock plastic cups.

 

[DoctaCosmos]

I'm thinking the vents are more for the driver to breath. Closed and dampened might end up giving more body to everything

 

[Bill-P]

Actually, the vents are there to equalize immediate atmospheric pressure and ear pressure so that no funky acoustical stuff is going on.
 
If you completely close the vents, the difference in pressure can cause the drivers to be unable to push enough air to your ears to reproduce bass, which... drops bass level.
 
In an extreme case, it can cause other problems as well.
 
You may not notice it, but most closed headphones with good bass actually has a bass port somewhere for this very reason.
 
In essence, the only difference between a "closed" headphone and an "open" one is actually just the back of the driver. If the back of the driver is obstructed, then it's a "closed design", and if it's not so obstructed, then the headphone is "open", but there is no rule about having vents or not on the sides. Having vents = bassy or warm, and no vents = weak-sauce bass that may be described as "tight" and "snappy", but that isn't realistic at all.
 
Edit: man, I sound like a headphone acoustic geek... guess modding the ATH-ES10 and many other headphones over the year has gotten to me after all.
 

 

[DoctaCosmos]

That's what I meant by breathe

 

[Bill-P]

Yeah, but what I'm trying to say is... closed would actually decrease body.
 
Sorry, too roundabout, I guess. 

 
Adding body to a closed headphone is actually harder than it is for an open headphone with lots of air to move.
 
But then, a big part of that depends also on the tuning, the amp, and the DAC...

 

[DoctaCosmos]

So if that resulted in less body does that mean there would be less resonance too which would result in better imaging?

 

[Bill-P]

Well, there would be more resonance, actually. Depending on the level you're listening to.
 
It may give a sharper image, but I wouldn't call that "better imaging", as it's unnatural.
 
Think turning "sharpening" on the TV up too high.

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Either way I'm guessing the z7 was ported to a specific qtc rating which you can still achieve in a closed headphone if dampened right. It's actually easier to get a driver to achieve its proper tuning when portless as it isn't relying on the port to catch up. Generally resulting in a less steep roll off too. One thing I'm curious about is how much of that paper is stopping the drivers rear reflections. Or if it's of no importance.

 

[Bill-P]

The tissue piece I suggested is not to stop reflections, but it's there to create a more solid connection from the driver enclosure to the ear cups, so that energy transfer is more effective.
 
That way, the whole cup acts like a dampening rig for the diaphragm, and better bass (as well as more force) is achieved.
 
In a sense, that would also take care of the reflections because the reflections won't matter much at that point when the whole ear cup acts like the diaphragm.

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Not talking about your mod I mean the paper that's on the back of the driver that is shown on the one picture

 

[Bill-P]

Oh, you mean that thing?
 
It's there to diffuse the sound wave. Possibly so that the reflections will be more diffused and less "sharp". That's probably why some people hear the Z7 as being gentle and soft.
 
But I'd guess that since it's relatively low in density, it doesn't have that significant an impact. Maybe just ever so slightly so?

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Anyone tried a diffuser like that on the hd800?