[IEMusic]

Hmmmm....has anyone tried taking the mesh off, then covering the nozzle with MP tape? I found that I like an MP tape-like mod more on the FDX1 than the supplied damped nozzles. Might have to try it soon with the BLO3.

 

[tgx78]

Modding is so much fun

Holy mother of god, @Slater this is it!

Blon sounds epic after this latest mod.

my cotton balled bl-03 sounds similar but slightly veiled compared to the rolled damping version.

 

[Slater]

Hmmmm....has anyone tried taking the mesh off, then covering the nozzle with MP tape? I found that I like an MP tape-like mod more on the FDX1 than the supplied damped nozzles. Might have to try it soon with the BLO3.

I will give it a try tomorrow.

Although I suspect that it may sound similar to the stock Blon nozzle mesh.

The stock Blon nozzle mesh is a hybrid of 2 types of mesh sandwiched together. A normal stainless steel nozzle mesh is on top (the part that you can see when you remove the ear tip). And directly underneath that, there’s a very fine mesh nylon screen.

Either way, I’ll be very curious to try it out and see the results! Thanks for the idea

 

[Slater]

Modding is so much fun

Holy mother of god, @Slater this is it!

Blon sounds epic after this latest mod.

my cotton balled bl-03 sounds similar but slightly veiled compared to the rolled damping version.

Nice job!! That looks perfect

What kind of filter material did you end up using?

 

[tgx78]

Nice job!! That looks perfect

What kind of filter material did you end up using?

Thanks!
I tried both 2 ply alcohol swabs and lysol wipes (rinsed and dried). Settled on the lysol wipes.

 

[brianforever]

I got an even easier mod for you guys. It’s more precise, more consistent, and cleaner than just stuffing the nozzle with cotton.

The downsides to cotton are 1. it’s inconsistent to get a proper density and fill. And 2. small cotton dust and fibers become detached and fall onto the driver diaphragm. These downsides are not desirable at all.

This mod is made especially for the Blon owners that tried the nozzle mesh mod and feel the treble is a little too much. Or those that were afraid to try the nozzle mesh mod for fear that the treble might be too much.

There’s a guy on another popular audio board (which I cannot link to or specifically mention on HeadFi because that site is banned from discussion here). Anyways, this guy modded his JVC HA-FD01 (a carbon nanotube dynamic earphone) by rolling up an alcohol pad and inserting it into the JVC nozzle. This allowed the treble peaks to be tamed while not causing loss of detail. It’s like the best of both worlds; like having your cake and eating it too.

The resulting mod was extremely effective. So effective that a modded pair was sent to engineers at JVC in Japan for evaluation. JVC was so impressed with the mod that they actually created a whole new version of the HA-FD01 based around the modded filter. It was sold through Massdrop as the HA-FDX1.

I tried the same mod to the Blon, and all I can say is it’s basically Blon perfection.

To do the mod, you still need to remove the stock hybrid ‘sandwich’ nozzle screens, and obtain the $0.10 replacement plain stainless nozzle screens.

That is outlined here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/blo...ressions-thread.916702/page-182#post-15531900

And yes, the proper size of nozzle mesh is listed at that link, as well as where/how to buy them.

Next you need to obtain a 2-ply alcohol wipe. The kind that you rub on your skin before an injection is given. You cannot use the 1-ply type, as they are way too thick. The 2-ply pads are basically a 3”X1.5” rectangle that is folded in half to make a 1.5”X1.5” square from the factory.



You can buy them anywhere and everywhere. Even get one for free from a Dr office, hospital, or health clinic. Or ask any diabetic, nurse, doctor, pharmacist, or paramedic. They will give you one for free, trust me. But you must open the wipe up and inspect it to make sure it’s the 2-ply type that can be unfolded.

Let me repeat that: Get. The. 2-ply. Type. Only.

If you can only one the thick fuzzy 1-ply type, then keep looking until you the 2-ply type.

Once you have your 2-ply alcohol pad, all you do is remove it from the package, unfold the wipe, and let it air dry on a table for a few hours. Then it’s all ready to use.

Next you take sharp scissors and cut the dried alcohol pad into a 4mmx12mm rectangle. Like this:



The size must be precise. You can play with the length some. Just don’t go longer than 18mm or you will dampen too much treble. And don’t go shorter than 12mm or it won’t really do anything noticeable.

Next, carefully roll up the filter, like this:



Then insert it down into the nozzle with sharp tweezers. It will ‘spring’ open and fill up the nozzle. Once inserted, it should look like this:



Here’s a closer shot.



Also, you don’t want to jam the alcohol filter down as far as it will go inside the nozzle. You want to insert it so it’s juuuust barely under the stainless nozzle mesh (once the stainless mesh is reinstalled). Look for a little shelf flange section that’s machined into the inside of nozzle; that’s what the stainless screen will sit on. You want the alcohol filter to be just barely below that little shelf flange part.



Also note that the center of the nozzle is not blocked in any way by the alcohol pad roll. All the rolled up alcohol pad filter did was make a more narrow opening, where the inside circumference of the nozzle is lined with the alcohol pad filter. The bulk of the sound from the driver is still free to come up through the hole in the center of the alcohol pad filter.

Finally, you install the new stainless nozzle mesh you obtained earlier.



And that’s all there is to it!

Enjoy.

Woah @Slater Im flabbergasted !! @Slater for Presidente !

 

[Remior]

Unfortunately I don’t have a functional FR measurement rig.

Maybe @Remior could do it, since he did the replacement nozzle mesh one at the top of this page

I will compare it to the Cardinal and let you know.

Hi there.
Unfortunately I won't because I don't have that mod materials (the metallic mesh by the moment is imposible to adquire to me due to de Coronavirus world situation).
I have to say that I really like the Blon sound signature, I like sub-bass and bass with good mids and warm sound signature. I solved the rumble and sub bass roll off problem putting Vsonic olive tips and for me it sound very very good like that because it became more tighter and clean without lossing any pros.

I tried the first mod because the only thing it can make the Blons really a giant killer and mind blowing is to make the highs above 15khz more present with less decay on the frequency response, the harmonics above 15khz will help to make a really mindblowing iem. I thought the mod could do that but wans't like that, soo the only way to do that is to mod the transducer itself o maybe the capsule.
Anyways I see the second mod more adecuate to tune the highs than the bass like on the JVC and make highs less present... soo that's not a mod I was looking for because I look for the opposite.

For me the Blons are a very very good iem that not need to be moded, except to change the sotck cable for a better one and to find a better tips like the Vsonic Olive ones for me. If you like warm sound signature you can spend 200$ more on any other set but will not sound better than Blons...
I had bought the Urbanfun Yss a mounth ago cause I saw it have highs above 15Khz more present but with the Coronavirus world situation still haven't any notice from Linsoul about them...

Blons are super good for some music genres but I like a lot metal songs and is not the ideal iem for that... but instead of mod them for that I just change to the IMR R1 or the Artiste DC1 set and voilá...

Bye and Stay safe!

 

[Slater]

Great mod Slater!

Do u by any chance have measurements/graphs of the stock BLON vs nozzle removed vs this alcohol swab mod?

And do you think the alcohol swab mod makes it sound similar to the BLON Cardinal?

Thanks in advance!

I’ve had a chance to compare the alcohol wipe modded BL03 to the Cardinal. I can say that they are very close.

For the comparison, I used the same tips, same balanced source, same songs, but I had to use different cables obviously.

If I had to nitpick the difference, I feel like the Cardinal sounds slightly more compressed/congested in the low end. Also, the BL03 has a bit more air and sparkle to the treble.

But both are really nice sounding. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the alcohol pad modded BL03, unless I had fitment issues with the BL03 (which luckily I don’t since using SednaEarfit tips).

Be aware that the sound difference could be due to my particular pair of Cardinals, or just the Cardinal shell in general.

 

[baskingshark]

I’ve had a chance to compare the alcohol wipe modded BL03 to the Cardinal. I can say that they are very close.

For the comparison, I used the same tips, same balanced source, same songs, but I had to use different cables obviously.

If I had to nitpick the difference, I feel like the Cardinal sounds slightly more compressed/congested in the low end. Also, the BL03 has a bit more air and sparkle to the treble.

But both are really nice sounding. If I had to pick one, I’d go with the alcohol pad modded BL03, unless I had fitment issues with the BL03 (which luckily I don’t since using SednaEarfit tips).

Be aware that the sound difference could be due to my particular pair of Cardinals, or just the Cardinal shell in general.

Thanks for the comparisons! I think u did the community a great service in finding this mod, to make the BLON BL-03 sound like something 2 - 3x its price in the Cardinal!

I'm still having ocassional fit issues with the BLON BL-03, so I would take the Cardinal any day purely from a fit perspective. Though that's a moot point as the Cardinal is no longer in production and hard to find one in the wild now.

 

[DynamicEars]

So.. finally I just mod my blon after this long. I don't know why I didn't mod them in first place, maybe because they didn't sounded like having cloth dampers. Credit to @Slater of course to find out that BL-03 have cloth dampers like usually we found on BQEYZ IEMs. Seriously they need to stop using this cloth mesh, they made bass a bit bloated because of bad air system, blocking the pressure, and smoothen (too smooth) details and clarity, but still you will need to have replacement damper, using cotton, or sponge, or micropore paper/tape or anything else.

So I tried the alcohol swap dampers but i think there is some harshness, its really subjective you can play with any dampers and a lot FR cant capture these (clarity, bass texture, bass bloat, harshness, smoothness, decay speed, edgy peaks, etc)

I did with alcohol swap but for me i feel need to smoothen edgy 6khz mainly, and followed by 8-10khz peaks,


so I decided to make small tutorial also with my method, same as I did on my BQEYZ Spring 1 last time. And I just did mods on Tri i3 which just made them much better and I cant go back to their original state.

1. Open your original grill. Just use needle or any long small sharp tools to uplift the grill slowly. As they dont have any BA on nozzle neck, so this is pretty safe to open.


2.Cut soft density sponge, make it like rectangle shape. Don't cut too thick or too long, just around 8-10mm in length and make sure thinner than the BL-03 nozzle


3. Put in Slowly the damper. Make sure it go smoothly, dont let it pile up / folded inside the nozzle until tip of the nozzle end.


4. It should looked like this. This is important : there should be a hole / space for air to go through like this, doesn't matter if your space is bigger, don't let the sponge block the entire nozzle (technically should be ok as in Sony's highend IEMs also use sponges for dampening, but more space = more air)


5. That's it buddy, just close with new replacement grill. I use 4.7mm as I'm running out of my 4mm grill replacement, so i bend the sides. I suggest using the correct size as @Slater suggest.


6. Optional : you can also put a piece of micropore tape to tame down the harshness of high mids if you feel need to. Just remember don't cover entire nozzle grill. Just use a tiny cut, cover 50%-75% of the nozzle end.


Just another simple method, thank @Slater for find out the cloth mesh. Have a wonderful day and stay safe!

 

[mochill]

B05 is here

 

[RikudouGoku]

B05 is here

WHEREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

 

[mochill]

WHEREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

Post was from Twitter

 

[CoiL]

Yep I can confirm this.
I just tried with tiny bit of cotton ball behind the mesh (aftermarket one) and it is best sounding yet (balanced frequency + clear).
Timbre is even better now. wow.

With cotton you might get good result but like Slater said, it`s inconsistent and you need measurement rig to match channels.

Unfortunately I don’t have a functional FR measurement rig.

What happened to Your rig? I can do measurements but no time for that atm. I even haven`t had time to finish fine-tuning my VE BIE drivers in IT01 shells... UhOh -.-

Btw, wanted to say that I usually get best results with tea-bag paper (layer count as one wants/likes) + nylon mesh.

 

[DynamicEars]

B05 is here

Dunno why they still keep those eartips and cable.