[lcats]

I have been very satisfied with my es10 for 5 or 6 years now, especially once I did Bill-P's mod, and use it frequently.  My sources are a modded iRiver iHP-120 and an iBasso D12 (perhaps close to a Kern unit all together), or for CDs an iRiver iMP-550 and a Ray Samuels Emmeline "The Tomahawk".  I have auditioned other portable headphones and find no problems at all with what I have.  {Perhaps I am a generation or two less modern in my equipment than some, but, as I said, very satisfied.
 
Ed

 

[nangryo]

My ES10 Over Ear Mod. With extra damping to compensate
 
It's very comfortable now, and the sound does improve too
 

 

 

 

 

[nangryo]

I was using esw9 pad before on my es10. The sound does improve. Use it for almost two years. But the comfort thing is killing me. Now after my over the ear mod, it's very comfortable. Hours of listening and no sweat. And great sound improve too

 

[ExpatinJapan]

ESW9 pads are too small. You need to buy ATH-ESW11 pads for the ES10 perfect fit

 

[nangryo]

ESW9 pads are too small. You need to buy ATH-ESW11 pads for the ES10

perfect fit

Yep, I already try it with my friend esw11. But the problem is the same. Comfort problem, hence I do the over ear pad mod, which is a lot more comfortable

 

[Triggerfish]

I'd love it if you could post the process for how you did the over ear mod.  These are by far my favorite sounding portables, but I repeatedly keep thinking about selling them due to the comfort. 

 

[nangryo]

  I'd love it if you could post the process for how you did the over ear mod.  These are by far my favorite sounding portables, but I repeatedly keep thinking about selling them due to the comfort. 

It's not that hard. Just look at my photos.
 
1. Buy Pad with diameter of 90mm outer and 55mm inner. You can buy anything. Remember the outer can be 85 or 90mm. But the inner must be 55mm minimal. It can be up to 58-60mm. For me I used razer kraken pad.
 
Buy a thick double tape, cut it about 4-5mm and stick it like in the picture (3 from above, the red background). You can see the green double tape there. Just don't open the outer layer of the tape. leave it. The idea is to make the pad to attach more firmly.
 
2. Make a damping like I make in the picture. Buy some polyester felt as a base. Use the medium thick. Don't go too thick or too thin. Too thick it will become too warm dull sounding, too thin and it will become too detailed,harsh and fatigue. Make a round cut, make two. Buy some foam with tape on hardware store. Stick 3 bar of it to the the polyester felt, then cut it round.
 
3. It's necessary to use damping, because change from on ear to over ear will change the distance of your ear to the driver, it will become shorter and will bring awful sound if you don't use any damping. Those diy polyester-sponge damping gives more distance from your driver to your ear.
 
The sound? Very good. It actually improves a lot. You won't believe it until you try it. The tricky part is in the damping. You can alter the sound as you like. Just experiment with it a bit. I used a combo of the medium thickness polyester with a little of the thin one, because I don't like it too bright , and yet didn't like it too warm sounding either.

 

[BasilShim]

Hi guys, I'm new to this site, this is my first post and all that stuff, but I' not that new to owning ES10, I owned them for something like 3 years. I was using them with my iPod + Fiio E12 Mont Blanc and sometimes my PC.
I've recently encountered one problem and hope you'll be able to help me. I've ran out of memory on my iPod and started replacing lossless with Mp3s and I've decided to search for not really expensive player with large storage and ran into Fiio X5 II and I liked that it has 2 128gb microsd slots, but I've read different reviews where people say that with some headphones they sound horrible (kinda) and with some really great and I was wondering if anyone here has tried them with ES10 (and maybe Fiio e12). Or maybe someone can reccomend me some other player (not to expensive, something that costs like X5 maybe a bit more expensive) with large storage whish can give a good sound without amp, cause I get kinda of tired of carying E12 in my pocket with iPod.
 
Sorry, if my English is bad, I'm from Russia btw

 

[ExpatinJapan]

Opus#1 is a good player. (Unfortunately i sold my es10 so i cant try the combination
.
Fiio might be a bit dark for the ES10?

 

[BasilShim]

.Fiio might be a bit dark for the ES10?

What do you mean by dark?

 

[ExpatinJapan]

Too much low end perhaps, the ES10 have oodles of bass already.

Have you tried the ESW11 leather pads on them?

 

[BasilShim]

Have you tried the ESW11 leather pads on them?

Yeah, actually I use them now, since the stock ones started falling apart some time ago.

About Opus #1. It looks kinda cool so thank you, but I can't find them in my country so I guess they're not an option because ordering them from abroad will probably be expensive, but I'll keep searching

 

[Roger Gu]

Bear with not reading the whole thread and my question may have been answered before.
 
What amp or dac/amp is recommended to pair with es10? I do not need portability, so desktop setup is fine.

 

[vincik]

hi BasilShim, i own es10 and x5ii and im happy with the combo. I can tell you, that it sounds better, than fiio x3ii, astell kern junior or sony a10. Only astell kern ak 120ii and fiio x7 sounded a little bit better to my ears, than x5ii. jazz and classical music doesn't sound very good with it, but thats problem of es10 and closed portable headphones in general
 
i use es10 with esw11 pads, but i dont find any noticeable sound improvement..it is just more comfortable for long time use

 

[BasilShim]

Thank you for your reply, vincik.
About jazz I don't know. To me it sounds okay, and now I'm using iPod Classic (with Rockbox) + FiiO E12. But I don't really have anything else to compare it to (except PC?)