I picked up an AD900x last year or the year before, I've forgotten now, and I sort of put it aside for a time. Now that I pick it back up, I remember that I was disappointed with the lack of openness and sonic finesse of this open-back can versus my other headphones. I decided to try cutting small holes in the earpads in a particular pattern, remembering how this was a big help to DT1350 and my HD25 currently using chinese earpads.
The original AD900 and AD700 had perforated inner sides on their earpads, thus venting, while the newer versions do not.
I eventually ended up with five holes in this pattern:
Notice I didn't touch the bottom of the earpads. Do this, and you may improve bass quality in some ways, but you are guaranteed to lose bass as well, and this can could use some boost rather than attenuation. In fact, on headphones with perforated stock earpads like DT770 and T90, others and I have recommended covering up the holes on the bottom half with electrical tape to increase bass.
Anyway, the result of the modification is less colored and more tranparent and refined trebles and midrange. AD900x sounds more open, too. I will probably try adding more holes later to try and see if I can get it sounding even more open.
This is definitely a major error on AT's part with the earpad design, they probably should have kept the original designs rather than redesign the earpads for the newer generation.
This is worth trying out on the closed Art Monitor series as well, though preferably on spare earpads just in case that the results end up bad or if you screw up in the process.
update: I've upgraded to wang_yifei pads plus I duplicated the perforation mod I described here, the overall sound only got better with the thicker wang_yifei pads (this seller's products are nicer quality than is usual for chinese aftermarket stuff). Even if you do not mod the pads, the sound is still an improvement over stock, and a good bit of the closed quality of the sound goes away. There did happen to be a downside with the pad change, you do lose a bit of subbass, which is already weak in the stock headphone, but I use AD900x with my mobile gear most of the time, so I just add bass boost and I get very clear, tight, and punchy subbass and midbass as a result.
The original AD900 and AD700 had perforated inner sides on their earpads, thus venting, while the newer versions do not.
I eventually ended up with five holes in this pattern:
Notice I didn't touch the bottom of the earpads. Do this, and you may improve bass quality in some ways, but you are guaranteed to lose bass as well, and this can could use some boost rather than attenuation. In fact, on headphones with perforated stock earpads like DT770 and T90, others and I have recommended covering up the holes on the bottom half with electrical tape to increase bass.
Anyway, the result of the modification is less colored and more tranparent and refined trebles and midrange. AD900x sounds more open, too. I will probably try adding more holes later to try and see if I can get it sounding even more open.
This is definitely a major error on AT's part with the earpad design, they probably should have kept the original designs rather than redesign the earpads for the newer generation.
This is worth trying out on the closed Art Monitor series as well, though preferably on spare earpads just in case that the results end up bad or if you screw up in the process.
update: I've upgraded to wang_yifei pads plus I duplicated the perforation mod I described here, the overall sound only got better with the thicker wang_yifei pads (this seller's products are nicer quality than is usual for chinese aftermarket stuff). Even if you do not mod the pads, the sound is still an improvement over stock, and a good bit of the closed quality of the sound goes away. There did happen to be a downside with the pad change, you do lose a bit of subbass, which is already weak in the stock headphone, but I use AD900x with my mobile gear most of the time, so I just add bass boost and I get very clear, tight, and punchy subbass and midbass as a result.
Last edited:
