[synaesthetic]

I'm wanting to get a few of these and play with them, but I am curious as to how they should be used.

Should the drivers be used in a closed-back, semi-open or open-back housing? I see some people have made headphones using them with wood that doesn't appear to be open, and Fitz was going to pop some in old K240 frames.

So what's the best result? Would an open headphone frame using the SFI drivers not work?

 

[dBel84]

Partially open , small volume with pads that collapse and seal well ..dB

EDIT: all my closed attempts were nasty - no bass and very peaky , the "closed" wood cups are actually ported which is more than enough

 

[JadeEast]

Openback works, if you check out the stuff people have done with the SFI driver they are all over the place. Earpads seem to be one of the bigger determinations of the sound. Overall it's all about the tweaking and the journey not about hitting one "out of the park" so to speak.

I've used a closed cheap Sony as a host as well as a grado they both "worked".

ETA. The sony cans were vented through the edge so not 100% closed

 

[synaesthetic]

Yeah I just really want to play with some orthos mostly. Not looking to break records here, just to have fun tinkering and making my own Frankenphones.

 

[mypasswordis]

I just bought a donor 'phone for some SFI drivers, that I hope is basically already been tried and true. I believe it's the same frame as an old Audio Technica electret, but has dynamic transducers and a crappy coiled cable terminated with a 1/4" plug. Shouldn't be here for another 2 weeks, and I have a habit of being lazy and not actually carrying out plans, but if I do manage to transplant drivers, I'll post results in the giant Ortho thread. Good luck with finding good housing and putting some nice sounding SFI drivers to use.

 

[Duggeh]

I have been very very happy with how my SFI drivers in Goldring housing has turned out. But I did have to butcher up 3 DR-series models to get there and there will be a 4th sacrificed before I get everything perfected. Found best to use the DR-50, it has the best pads for a planar headphone. AFAIK almost every SFI effort has been an on the ear design. For me its circumnaural or nothing and that has made things harder. Getting low bass out of them while avoiding unpleasant spikes in the high mids is the tricky part, theres a lot of small factors you have to balance out and changing one will causes changes elsewhere.


Its very fun though.