[Bill-P]

Fun fact that I just noticed:
 
Frequency response of ATH-ES10 as measured by doctorhead.ru:
 

 
Frequency response of my ATH-ES10 as measured by Tyll at Innerfidelity (shows possibly more bass than mid compared to stock):
 

 
 
Frequency response of Audeze LCD-XC as measured by Tyll at Innerfidelity:
 

Hm... 

 

[PETEREK]

That's pretty interesting. Looks like the Audeze has a but more bass than these but everything else is pretty damn close. The only differences being around 5 or 6000 hz.

 

[Bill-P]

Yeah. Interesting, right?

And I was able to get my modded ES10 closer to the XC after seeing those measurements. Will see if they sound anything like the XC now whenever I have a chance to compare the 2.

 

[PETEREK]

I plan on getting some cups made for the pair of ES10's I just got. Would you say the inner cup volume of the cups on yours is larger than the stock cups? They look it, but I know the wood is thicker than the materials used to make the stock cups too. If they are, maybe I'll shoot for a slightly larger inner volume on the cups I have made. I won't be paying Martin's outrageous prices for cups though, or waiting that long. I'll probably send the headphones over to Fleasbaby to have him whip up some cups for me.

 

[Bill-P]

Well, the new ear cups were made to be deeper, but not necessarily more roomy since... like you said, the sides are thicker.
 
The cups have to be thicker, otherwise they would not be very durable.
 
If you're getting new cups made, I think you will have to make sure the cups have openings for the bass ports. The stock cups are thin enough that they don't block the bass ports, but thicker wood cups would end up doing so, and most of the bass, as well as the smoothness, will be sucked out. Balancing that will be quite a battle...
 
But the end result is very worth it IMO. I'm still having second thoughts about selling my pair... but I also want to fund my research into creating a planar magnetic... from scratch.

 

[PETEREK]

If anyone needs a stock ES10 cable let me know, I just recabled my pair and no longer need the stock one. And by need, I mean if yours is broken.

 

[Prophet293]

what's everyone's experience with ES10 on a portable amp/dac? any suggestions?

 

[PETEREK]

I personally won't be using an amp with these. I feel like portables should be used with as little gear as possible. A DAC would probably be fine I suppose, but these are low enough impedance that an amp should not be necessary. 

 

[lcats]

Very interesting to see these curves.  It is somewhat difficult for me to compare the stock ES10's curves to the modded ones, as the methodology or the curve-plotting may have slightly differed - not apples to apples.  But the comparison to the XC is most exciting.  Of course I'd be curious about what further mods Bill-P did.
 
Ed

 

[Bill-P]

Well, I modded mine a lot further than that.

Here's frequency response as measured by my iPhone (ignore the <100Hz measurement, it's a limitation of the microphone, and that's why I wanted Tyll's measurements):



And here is frequency response now:



I also made the ear pads slightly angled to improve imaging in the middle. The end result is now I have a headphone that is fairly neutral, with just a hint of midrange emphasis, whereas before it was mostly midrange centric with a huge spike at 4KHz. Also more treble up top to improve clarity and air.

Normalizing for Tyll's graphs would show these to be more in line with the frequency response of... the Stax SR-009.

 

[lcats]

I had estimated that the mid-range peak on my modded ES10's was around 3KHz, but no matter.  Is there a fairly simple way to lower that peak?

 

[Bill-P]

Well... actually, if you're referring to the extra "harsh" or "hardness" that you hear, it's actually a resonance at around 1.5KHz or so, where the midrange peaks the most. The peak at 4KHz will only cause very slight sibilance, but it helps with clarity for string instruments. If you want it gone, you can just stuff shelf-liner in front of the fiberglass material in the back of the driver... and it should help.
 
Without that resonance at 1.5KHz, the ES10 would sound a lot better at higher volume.
 
I have been able to mitigate it slightly by reducing the decay, but not fix it entirely, since messing with midrange is a lot harder without losing clarity and other things. The things that I have had to do in order to mitigate it aren't fun either... 
 
So unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix it from the hardware side. Not even swapping ear pads will help because it's inherent to the driver. If you have access to EQ, dropping 2KHz by 3-6dB will help a bit, and I think that's the only "easy" way to fix it.

 

[JHern]

  I personally won't be using an amp with these. I feel like portables should be used with as little gear as possible. A DAC would probably be fine I suppose, but these are low enough impedance that an amp should not be necessary. 

Amp-wise...this is mostly true in my experience with the ES10 (~1 year, these are glued to my head where ever I go and I also have a new back-up pair ready to go). There are only a few tracks I might regularly listen to in which the bass digs very very deep and my iPhone5 built-in amp struggles to power through at high volumes, in this case an external amp might come in handy (especially if you listen to deep bassy tracks often). But it isn't really that big a deal, the improvement is probably not worth the extra fuss of carrying an amp.
 
DAC-wise...I also use my ES10 at the office with a MacBook Pro. In this case the audio filter/player matters much more than the DAC. For example, Audirvana vs iTunes makes a very big difference. But adding an external DAC in the ~$300 price point only yields a modest improvement above what Audirvana offers. If only Audirvana or someone else could make a player for iDevices that works similar magic!
 
I did have an opportunity to try my ES10 with the much-desired and heavily back-ordered Centrance mini-m8. It has a weaker amp that is billed as being powerful enough only for in-ears. But in fact the amp is more than enough for the ES10. More important is that the DAC and sound signature of the mini-m8 seems to do for the iPhone source something similar to what Audirvana does for the MacBook Pro source (relative to iTunes alone). Only problem is that the mini-m8 costs about 10X more than a license for Audirvana.

 

[vincik]

  what's everyone's experience with ES10 on a portable amp/dac? any suggestions?

Hisound 3rd anv > Fiio x3 or Walkman nwz A10 (depends if you like warm and bassy or neutral sound) > my desktop (Creative X-fi Titanium sound card) > ipods, cowons, old sony digital walkmans > nokia mobile phone
 
...that would be currently my subjective list. Be aware, that i own 3rd anv player for like 10 hours Differences are !relatively! small.

 

[KT66]

I think the brightness of the Studio matches well with the (to me bass heavy) ES10. I prefer DX90 to 901 with ES10 too.

With warmer player like 801 sounds bloomy and veiled.
The best I have hear my ES10, with ESW11 pads, is with my Audiolab MDac, but that's not very portable!

@jhern I had an Iphone 5, it had the weediest amp I have ever heard, it cant drive any on ear I had. If you must use it then check out the Astell Kern AK10 or Beyer AP200.