Beyerdynamic DT series Comfort strap mod and DT770 sound mod
May 8, 2018 at 11:39 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 3

dev0lver

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ok, so, someone will call me crazy for doing this to beyers, but i wanted to try it for quite some time now

i bought my DT770 80ohm last year in January for my birthday, and they are my first serious headphones
love them, from the sound to the comfort, but soon after buying them, i got eager to mod them, since i saw that it was quite easy to do so on them
and voiding my 3 year warranty, recently i started a mod project on them
most of the mods are completely reversible, unless from the one that is glued inside, but it should also be able to be removed without hurting the headphones

main purpose of this thread is to give insight to comfort strap mod i made today for my headphones, sound mods i will describe briefly at the end of the thread, since they already have their threads

so
i found my beyers very comfortable, but after some time, they started to dig into top of my head, specially if i wear them for longer periods of time, making me always to move them and ruining the comfort
i started to look how to improve that part, and found some wool covers on ebay (which didn't attract me at all), and one time i found real leather memory foam headband, which was hand made by guy from poland (although i live in europe, i found it a bit to expensive for what it was providing), was on the edge to buy it, even if the price was like 55 $ for that headband, which is almost 1/3 of the price of the headphones here in my country
so i started to look for some other solutions
i saw quite a few times, numerous comfort straps for fostex headphones, and saw that almost all better (more expensive) headphones have some sort of a comfort strap, i started to see if i will be able to implement it to my headphones somehow

by taking some look, i found out that it would be possible to do something similar on beyers, since the sliders are held together by 2 screws, maybe i can place the strap on them, by using a bit longer screws to compensate for the leather thickness

1st try was with a piece 1mm thick blue leather, just to see what it could do with the comfort, although it was flimsy as f, always falling, it made huge improvement in comfort on top of the head, and from that moment, i set myself a goal to mount a leather comfort strap on them

today i got my black leather strap, and i set myself to mod them
i only needed to source leather strap and screws, since you can use stock sliders with no problems at all
IMG_20180508_105916.jpg
strap is 4cm wide, 23cm long, and 2mm thick (cca 1.5 inch wide, cca 9 inches long, for people across the pond in the US, but check to be sure on exact measurements)
4cm wide is just like plastic sliders , so it fits nicely on them, 23cm is perfect length to make it sit nicely in the headband and on the head (you can also make it 24cm long, experiment)

after cutting it to appropriate length i rounded the corners and made the holes for the screws (made markings for the screws, with the pen through wholes in slider part)
screws i used are wood screws with same thread type and thickness as the stock ones, i just made them shorter to not punch through the plastic, and to leave them long enough to make them screw in nicely and to make it enough tight
sry, i forgot to measure screw length, but i think it's around 1cm (or cca little bit less then half inch)
holes for the screws could be nicer if i had hole puncher for leather, since i don't have it, i made them with larger screws threading them through leather
but since i used washers, you don't see some imperfections at all
IMG_20180508_110000.jpg IMG_20180508_110011.jpg

after that was done on both sides, it was time to test fit sliders on leather, and to check screw length
screwed in, all fits like i planed, with nice tight fit for the screws
IMG_20180508_111034.jpg IMG_20180508_111105.jpg

great, so, next step was to mount it to the headphones
it's a little bit flimsy to fit it because of the 2 screws, but after fitting it, it looks like it was meant to mod it like that, and it looks like it came from factory like that
i just need to source some way to cover up the headband, to hide exposed metal (maybe some cloth with velcro, like stock headband, but without foam of course)
if i could find dt880 premium or dt990 premium sliders with metal fins to buy, i will get them, paint them black, to make them look a bit prettier
i think that combination of premium sliders, and some headband cover will make them shine
IMG_20180508_122427-01.jpeg IMG_20180508_130658-01.jpeg IMG_20180508_130722-01.jpeg

as a complete strap mod, comfort is vastly improved for me, because we all know what benefits are from a mod like this

if anyone want's to try something like that, please, feel free to do so, and share your mod here for others to see it

as for the sound mods:
made a mass loading and damping with kit from here - https://customcans.co.uk/s/s/index.php/acessories/beyerdynamic/dt770-mass-loading-mod.html
that mass loading and damping was initiated from this thread - https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bil...diary-including-sibilance-elimination.707992/
added foam pad and 2 dried wet wipes under stock foam to tame the treble
removed plastic ring with cotton like suggested here - https://www.head-fi.org/threads/beyer-dt770-mod-for-more-detail-try-it.246011/
after removing it, sound became more open, more detailed, but bass became boomy and muddy, so to fight that i added cotton inside the cup to reduce amount of air available to driver for bass
that tamed the bass nicely, it's not boomy or muddy anymore, it, still has it's punch when the songs have it, and still has nice sub bass rumble
damping material from custom cans is below cotton glued to the cup
IMG_20180402_133606.jpg


that's all
enjoy
 
May 10, 2018 at 11:46 PM Post #2 of 3
The plastic ring divides the cups into two chambers. I'm not sure what it does exactly, but many of the good closed-back headphones have their cups divided into two chambers somehow or another. DT770 suffers poorer soundstaging without the ring, in my experience.
The right amount of acoustic dampening will determine how good the bass comes out indeed. It looks like you overdid it, though, but to each his own.
 
May 12, 2018 at 11:06 AM Post #3 of 3
The plastic ring divides the cups into two chambers. I'm not sure what it does exactly, but many of the good closed-back headphones have their cups divided into two chambers somehow or another. DT770 suffers poorer soundstaging without the ring, in my experience.
The right amount of acoustic dampening will determine how good the bass comes out indeed. It looks like you overdid it, though, but to each his own.
hmm, never thought about that ring inside that way
and yea, you could be right about the cotton inside

since this is my first proper headphone, i am not sure what to look for in sound, since i am quite new in this...
and since i have damping mod from custom cans inside, i will probably put back inside the stock plastic ring with cotton, because that damping kit tightens the bass and brings the mids out a little bit
and front damping which is done also, makes the highs a bit less shrill, and makes headphones smoother sounding
maybe i can try to cover half of the hole of bass port, to see if that will reduce the bass a little bit, but i am not sure if that half covering will help anything
 

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