A900 mod?
Jul 11, 2005 at 4:30 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 5

rob1031

100+ Head-Fier
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Posts
267
Likes
0
hey guys...havent been here for a long time!

i got a very good CMOy, seems like one of the top ones..cant gett better CMOY than this (as the guy and a few other guys said..), A900, and emu 0404 soundcard- havent instealled yet..haha

well i remember there was a thread about modding the A900s a while ago by opening them u, putting bluetac on the sides and cotton wool...

have many people done this? is it really much bettter? im quite messy usually on building things in DT class at school.. but i can handle soldering irons. haha. i wanna do it but i duno if it will be that great!

should i do it, have u guys done it?
 
Jul 11, 2005 at 5:14 PM Post #2 of 5
I don't have the thread you are talking about but I have copy/pasted one that seems very similar to what you are talking about. I kept it for myself because I just bought the K271 but haven't done it yet. Here is a the text, unfortunately I did not keep the link:

*************************************
OK, as many may know I've had a pair of AKG K271's for about a month now, after burn in I've been very happy with their overall sound, the frequencey response is very even for a closed headphone, and the dynamics are quite good, and thank god they are not so ridiculously bright like so many other closed headphones. But I've had a number of "small" complaints about their sound, nothing huge, just minor annoyances that would be nice to get rid of, namely the upper/mid bass is a little undefined and the really deep bass tends to come off sounding like midbass (ie the deep bass is not distinct from the midbass). 2nd, the midrange, while forward is a little occluded, not as transparent as I am used to from my Ety's and my HD600's. 3rd, there is a narrow band of brightness at about the 8-10khz range that (besides being slightly irritating) covered up the very high frequencies, causing a loss of ambiance and "space". Lucky for me these all can be fixed with a relatively simple and very cheap tweak.

THE TWEAK:

You will need 3 things to do this tweek - 1. a screwdriver, 2. a packet of BlueTak (the tacky putty used to hang up posters, available at all office supply stores), and 3. three cotton balls.

Step 1:
Remove the pleather earpads from the headphones, you will see 3 screws revealed on the exposed face of each cup.

Step 2:
Remote the screws and pull the cups off - do this VERY gently, the cups are soldered to some very short wires, they will not come off very far. Once you have the cups off and dangling from the wires, you can reach in and pull on the wires, there is a little bit of play in them, and once you pull them out a bit you will have a bit more room to work.

Step 3:
Take the package of BlueTak, and divide it in half. One half is enough to treat one earcup. Take the half and apply it to the interior of the earcup, making sure to keep it at about a 1 millimeter thickness. I found it easiest to pull the bluetak apart in to smaller pieces and apply those pieces one at a time to each part of the earcup in a clockwise pattern.

Step 4:
Take the 3 cotton balls and divide them each in half, giving you 6 pieces total when done pulling them apart. 3 will go in to one earcup, 3 in the other. They are too dense "as-is", so pull them a bit so that they "stretch" a bit, so they are not as dense and they can now cover a wider area. Place the cotton on top of the bluetak (but make sure it doesn't cover any of the screw holes, so you can get the screws in when you go re-attach the drivers).

Step 5:
Re-attach the drivers to the earcups and put the earpads back on. Repeat these steps for the other earcup.

That's it, simple, cheap and pretty easy.

HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Well, the bluetak and cotton soaks up that 8-10khz brighness so you get less brightness, plus the really high frequencies are now very clearly audible, the sense of space and soundstage are greatly enhanced. The midrange is cleaned up very nicely due to the more solid and less resonance earcups. The upper and midbass are still very good, but the deep bass is signifigantly better because the cotton "fools" the drivers in to thinking they are in a much bigger chamber than the earcups actually are, which gives a lower resonant frequency which really gives the low bass some power now.

Overall, this takes the K271's from the realm of "very good" to the realm of "greatness". Not too bad for a $2 tweak
*************************************
 
Sep 25, 2005 at 11:33 AM Post #4 of 5
okay i seen this post and didnt reply cause i chicken out like a year ago? whatevr.

well just dont wnana open another thread, but i wasnt asking for how to doit.

i wanna ask if anyone else has done it and HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?

i might do it this coming weekend... a lil scared...but wnana see how u guys found it.
 
Sep 26, 2005 at 3:59 AM Post #5 of 5
Quote:

Originally Posted by rob1031
okay i seen this post and didnt reply cause i chicken out like a year ago? whatevr.

well just dont wnana open another thread, but i wasnt asking for how to doit.

i wanna ask if anyone else has done it and HOW WAS IT FOR YOU?

i might do it this coming weekend... a lil scared...but wnana see how u guys found it.



THIS POST in Tysons thread (The one i linked you to above) gives his impressions on the mod - it sounds completely reversable so what have you got to loose?
biggrin.gif
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top