warrior05
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2006
- Posts
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It all started with swt61’s project. He gutted a pair of DT880s for his Chocolate Donuts and I adopted the original housings and drivers for an unplanned future project. Then a thread popped up about the old HD590s of which I have a pair. They still remain to be the most comfortable cans I’ve ever tried but are far out-classed by my current collection. Then the idea popped into my head about installing the 880 drivers into the 590’s housings. I then started to take everything apart.
The 880 drivers wouldn’t fit into the holding ring of the 590’s drivers but they (the 880's) were only about 3 mm larger in diameter. So I cut off the holding tabs, smoothed out the top of the ring then siliconed the 880 driver on top of the ring. I was also able to slice open the rubber housing of the tiny sub-mini jack enough to get at the solder pins. My plan was to use the sub-mini since the opening for the plug went through a nicely molded hole in the plastic grill. If I converted it into a dual entry, I would never be able to match the look. Plus, I already had a nice Equinox cable for it. So I replaced all of the internal wiring.
As you can see in the pics below, I also painted the metal grill red. I love black and red together. Another detail, I replaced the 590’s stock foam with speaker grill cloth. The indentation in the metal grill is where the original “HD 590” plastic badge was mounted. I plan to replace it with something which swt61 has an idea for that I’m considering.
So after putting everything back together it was time to listen to what I had created. Keep in mind I have had very little exposure to stock DT880s so I will not be able to offer a comparison in that regards. I will, however, offer comparison to my DT990 / 250 ohm…
This has been a very interesting comparison. I’ve listened to a variety of music: Cowboy Junkies, Jack Johnson, Helios, Mozart, Bach, SRV, Dave Matthews, Etta James, Annie Lennox, Tony Bennett, Massive Attack – how’s that for eclectic? First off, hands down, my HD880s has more bass presence than the 990s believe it or not. And it is wonderfully controlled bass to boot. A few of the songs I listened to dive really deep and my HD880s handled them just fine. There is an overall warmth the HD880s offer. Jumping between the two the 990s sound more glassy and harsher. The 990s have always been on the cusp of being too trebly for me since I’m pretty sensitive to highs but my ears have accustomed to their sound. The elevated presence of the highs with the 990s in comparison to the HD880s at first seemed to translate into the 990s offering more detail but I don’t think this is necessarily so. I can hear loads of detail in my Frankenphones. The HD880s are wonderful with vocals – very natural sounding. And the soundstage is killer. Just about on par with my old K701s. The best way I can describe it is that with the 990s I felt I was in a large studio listening to an orchestra during a recording session. With the HD880s I was in the music hall.
So these Frankenphones turned out to be a winner and a terrific edition to my little stable. The fact that I built them just adds to the level of satisfaction I enjoy whilst listening to them.
On to the pics…
Here you can see the 880 driver mounted in the 590’s left housing with new internal wiring already soldered to the sub-mini.
This is a completed housing. You can see the 880 driver through the grill and in the background is the original 590 driver on the table.
Some shots of the finished product with the Equinox cable but sans badge.
My black/red collection. Uh, no - I won't be painting my RS-1s!
The 880 drivers wouldn’t fit into the holding ring of the 590’s drivers but they (the 880's) were only about 3 mm larger in diameter. So I cut off the holding tabs, smoothed out the top of the ring then siliconed the 880 driver on top of the ring. I was also able to slice open the rubber housing of the tiny sub-mini jack enough to get at the solder pins. My plan was to use the sub-mini since the opening for the plug went through a nicely molded hole in the plastic grill. If I converted it into a dual entry, I would never be able to match the look. Plus, I already had a nice Equinox cable for it. So I replaced all of the internal wiring.
As you can see in the pics below, I also painted the metal grill red. I love black and red together. Another detail, I replaced the 590’s stock foam with speaker grill cloth. The indentation in the metal grill is where the original “HD 590” plastic badge was mounted. I plan to replace it with something which swt61 has an idea for that I’m considering.
So after putting everything back together it was time to listen to what I had created. Keep in mind I have had very little exposure to stock DT880s so I will not be able to offer a comparison in that regards. I will, however, offer comparison to my DT990 / 250 ohm…
This has been a very interesting comparison. I’ve listened to a variety of music: Cowboy Junkies, Jack Johnson, Helios, Mozart, Bach, SRV, Dave Matthews, Etta James, Annie Lennox, Tony Bennett, Massive Attack – how’s that for eclectic? First off, hands down, my HD880s has more bass presence than the 990s believe it or not. And it is wonderfully controlled bass to boot. A few of the songs I listened to dive really deep and my HD880s handled them just fine. There is an overall warmth the HD880s offer. Jumping between the two the 990s sound more glassy and harsher. The 990s have always been on the cusp of being too trebly for me since I’m pretty sensitive to highs but my ears have accustomed to their sound. The elevated presence of the highs with the 990s in comparison to the HD880s at first seemed to translate into the 990s offering more detail but I don’t think this is necessarily so. I can hear loads of detail in my Frankenphones. The HD880s are wonderful with vocals – very natural sounding. And the soundstage is killer. Just about on par with my old K701s. The best way I can describe it is that with the 990s I felt I was in a large studio listening to an orchestra during a recording session. With the HD880s I was in the music hall.
So these Frankenphones turned out to be a winner and a terrific edition to my little stable. The fact that I built them just adds to the level of satisfaction I enjoy whilst listening to them.
On to the pics…
Here you can see the 880 driver mounted in the 590’s left housing with new internal wiring already soldered to the sub-mini.
This is a completed housing. You can see the 880 driver through the grill and in the background is the original 590 driver on the table.
Some shots of the finished product with the Equinox cable but sans badge.
My black/red collection. Uh, no - I won't be painting my RS-1s!
