Interesting. BA are sometime put in parallel to increase the SPL, though I don't know putting the same driver in series will affect the FR curve or not.
ClieOS's Random DIY Build Thread - [Updated: Oct.1st, 23] - Sony E282 Reproduction Shell Kit Build
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Interesting. BA are sometime put in parallel to increase the SPL, though I don't know putting the same driver in series will affect the FR curve or not.
dhruvmeena96
Headphoneus Supremus
Series a pair of ED and stick it roof to roof(BA roof)
Then take these two set of series'd driver and parallel them
It makes the BA behave the same load as amp, but becomes phase Flat and all driver works only 25% only. This makes distortion values drop by a magnitude of 4(distortion/4).
And since BA is less powered compared to single BA setup, it is able to extend more in bass and treble extension .
And this is without changing SQ.
canalworks cw-l05qd2 did same thing with sonion and named it driver voltage divider. It was reviewed as etymotic on steroids in neutrality
ED just reacts better and is near to etymotic response
Another quick project: I have been using FiiO 2.5mm balanced female to 3.5mm single-ended male adapter for awhile now and the wires are slowly turning green. I know it won't affect the SQ but I am a little OCD that way so i thought it is the perfect excuse to make my own adapter - especially since I have a few inches of wires left from previous balanced cable project that is simply too short for anything else.
FiiO adapter cable on the top. Mine on the bottom.
FiiO adapter cable on the top. Mine on the bottom.
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castleofargh
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dumb question of the day, why use straight plugs on LODs?Another quick project: I have been using FiiO 2.5mm balanced female to 3.5mm single-ended male adapter for awhile now and the wires are slowly turning green. I know it won't affect the SQ but I am a little OCD that way so i thought it is the perfect excuse to make my own adapter - especially since I have a few inches of wires left from previous balanced cable project that is simply too short for anything else.
FiiO adapter cable on the top. Mine on the bottom.
Err... it is not a L(ine) O(ut) D(ock)s? This adapter converts my balanced headphone with 2.5mm TRRS plug back to normal 3.5mm TRS single-ended configuration - I don't really have a strong preference for straight or right-angled plug, as long as it is small - and DIY / solder-able right-angled plug usually are not small.
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That's super cool stuff you're doing here, Amos!
Just built another adapter cable (the one below) - this time a 2.5mm balanced to a 3.5mm balanced so I can take advantage of the S-Balanced output on iFi xDSD.
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Very nice
Just built another adapter cable - this time a 2.5mm balanced to a 3.5mm balanced so I can take advantage of the S-Balanced output on iFi xDSD.
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@Currawong So... when exactly are you starting your own cable manufacture 
?
?
@Currawong So... when exactly are you starting your own cable manufacture
I think you have confused me (Amos) with ClieOS.
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Yes! That's what happes when one writes instead of going to bed! Sorry!
Long story short - I got this pair of 14.2mm dynamic transducer a few months ago as gift from a small DIY earbuds maker. According to him, these belong to a small sampling batch of prototype some AKG engineers ordered from a Chinese OEM. As far as earbuds' driver go, these are actually on the smaller side of things. The only housing that will fit them will be Apple's, either older iBuds or the newer earpods. Between them, my preference goes to the iBuds' style housing as they tends to sound better than earpod style housing to me (*the off-axial nature of earpod is a treble killer IMO). Anyway, I didn't able to find the suitable iBuds' housing at the time so I just forgot about these drivers till recently as I come across some old 2nd hand iBuds' housing that already has their old driver removed. The build itself is simple, just pop in the new driver, solder the wires and glue the front grill back to the housing. Upon listening, I realize these supposedly AKG prototype driver really love an open design and the iBud's housing just doesn't do them justice. Putting them in any housing really kills of the fantastic air they have. So I mod'ed the iBud housing a little by widening the air vents (*2 out the 5) a little to increase air flow. The result is good but I can tell there are still room for improvement. With the right, purposely built housing, I reckon there might be another 20% of SQ improvement, In any case, even as it is, this earbub is probably very close to what I'll consider as 2nd tier level of SQ. I wonder if AKG actually going to make an earbud out of these?
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Thes earbuds could seriously blow away some Apple fans.
As far as I know there has not been any attempt to build an earbud such as this - one with planar magnetic transducer. I know we have seen some IEM with planar drivers (among others types) but earbud is simply too out of fashion for anything but a normal dynamic driver, This particular pair of planar come from the same OEM factory that recently makes the **** MT100 and Toneking BL1. Some of these bare drivers was sold on Taobao as well as Aliexpress, which is where I got mine. You don't really find planar driver of this size (or most of any size really) and thus the rarity costs money, almost $120 for a pair to be exact. The diameter of the driver is 14.2mm, which seems to be fairly normal when compared to dynamic driver. But given it is a planar driver, it is actually far larger than similar dynamic transducer of the same diameter. To find a suitable housing has became the first major obstacle. I have managed to source a rather large wooden housing that is meant for 15mm driver.
Parts Requirement:
1) 14.2mm planar magnetic driver x2
2) Large wooden housing x2
3) Small rotary tool, i,e,. Dremel and small wood working bits
4) Normal soldering supply
5) Glue. In this case, the E8000, UV cured glue as well as thin 3M double sided tape.
You can tell from the picture above that the planar driver has a pancake / sandwich structure (silver for the front and blue for the back. front grill is covered by mesh while back vent is covered by paper, there are also 4 small holes on the size that allows air to move around - more on these small holes later). The wooden housing already has mmmcx socket permanently attched and a small vent hole can is just next to the mmcx socket.
Because of the rather flat structure of the planar driver, it won't fit into the wooden housing . You can see the unmoded housing on the right and the moded housing on the left - some wood has to be removed to make room for the driver as well as the screws that stick out of the driver. This is where the oversized housing comes in handy as it still has plenty of 'meat' that you can trim away without causing any problem.
A great deal of experiement had went into the tuning to get the 'right sound' - remember that these driver are tuned for IEM housing, so putting them into earbud housing unavoidably created a long list of problems - mainly the earbuds just do not sound anywhere decent. After numerous trial and error, I figure out the driver needs two things: First, a completely sealed back chamber and 2nd, tons of acoustic impedance on the front.
Without the sealed back chamber, bass is almost completely gone (even with just a tiny hole). So the small vent next to the mmcx socket is sealed off by UV glued, a small piece of foam was placed n the back chamber in hope to reduce resonance. Then the 4 small hole that connect the front to the back is sealed off as well (you can see the 4 tiny heavy Y4 filters next to the white paper filter on the driver's back vent)
To increase acoustic impedance, a large piece of foam (*same kind on foam pad) is used to cover the whole front grill of the driver. The UV glue is used to sealed off all the vent holes on the front face plate of the wooden housing except for the center hole. A heavy filter (the type normally used on IEM's nozzle) was glued over the center hole to further increase the acoustic impedance.
Lastly, two layers of thin 3M double sided tape is cut and glue to the side of the planar driver, then affixed into the wooden face plate. I am avoiding liquid glue here because there might be a risk of them running in between the sandwich of the driver. The driver is also slightly smaller than the housing's inner diameter, so a little bit of tape helps to fill in the gap. Once affixed, a little bit of E8000 is used to fill in to the gap to make sure there won't be any air leak on the tape (*which I won't need to be worry of them running into the driver since the tape already has the edge mostly sealed up. Once the driver is sealed up, the wooden housing is glued together with the E8000.
Here is the finished earbuds, the first of its kind and I named it 'PE1', as in Planar Earbud One.
Here is a size comparison with MX500 style housing - Yes, it is not small by any measure.
The completed view
Afterthought: I'll call this project 75% successful. First of, the drives are tuned with IEM housing in mind and regardless of how much I try to compensate, it is simply not in its element. I know this because whenever I pressed the finished earbuds to my ears very tightly, the SQ immediately improves, and not by small margin. For now, even after all the things I have done to increase the acoustic impedance, the earbud still sound on the thin and bright side. I need to use double foam with a very controlled fit to order to achieve a seal good enough for a decent sound. Once the seal is loosen even sightly, SQ suffers. Beyond the fact that SQ is not optimized, the rest of the build is actually all good. I know early on that this will not be an easy build but the actual process is simpler than I have imagined. Most of the time really was spent on tuning for a decent sound. I felt I have done all I can with these planar drivers - as a proof of concept, putting planar into earbuds is definitely more than possible. In fact, it can be extremely good sounding if tuned right - by judging from all the tuning work I have done. We just need the right planar driver for the job.
Mod, measure, repeat - all to find the right sound.
This is what the final earbud sounds like. Almost a 2nd tier when the fit is right.
Parts Requirement:
1) 14.2mm planar magnetic driver x2
2) Large wooden housing x2
3) Small rotary tool, i,e,. Dremel and small wood working bits
4) Normal soldering supply
5) Glue. In this case, the E8000, UV cured glue as well as thin 3M double sided tape.
You can tell from the picture above that the planar driver has a pancake / sandwich structure (silver for the front and blue for the back. front grill is covered by mesh while back vent is covered by paper, there are also 4 small holes on the size that allows air to move around - more on these small holes later). The wooden housing already has mmmcx socket permanently attched and a small vent hole can is just next to the mmcx socket.
Because of the rather flat structure of the planar driver, it won't fit into the wooden housing . You can see the unmoded housing on the right and the moded housing on the left - some wood has to be removed to make room for the driver as well as the screws that stick out of the driver. This is where the oversized housing comes in handy as it still has plenty of 'meat' that you can trim away without causing any problem.
A great deal of experiement had went into the tuning to get the 'right sound' - remember that these driver are tuned for IEM housing, so putting them into earbud housing unavoidably created a long list of problems - mainly the earbuds just do not sound anywhere decent. After numerous trial and error, I figure out the driver needs two things: First, a completely sealed back chamber and 2nd, tons of acoustic impedance on the front.
Without the sealed back chamber, bass is almost completely gone (even with just a tiny hole). So the small vent next to the mmcx socket is sealed off by UV glued, a small piece of foam was placed n the back chamber in hope to reduce resonance. Then the 4 small hole that connect the front to the back is sealed off as well (you can see the 4 tiny heavy Y4 filters next to the white paper filter on the driver's back vent)
To increase acoustic impedance, a large piece of foam (*same kind on foam pad) is used to cover the whole front grill of the driver. The UV glue is used to sealed off all the vent holes on the front face plate of the wooden housing except for the center hole. A heavy filter (the type normally used on IEM's nozzle) was glued over the center hole to further increase the acoustic impedance.
Lastly, two layers of thin 3M double sided tape is cut and glue to the side of the planar driver, then affixed into the wooden face plate. I am avoiding liquid glue here because there might be a risk of them running in between the sandwich of the driver. The driver is also slightly smaller than the housing's inner diameter, so a little bit of tape helps to fill in the gap. Once affixed, a little bit of E8000 is used to fill in to the gap to make sure there won't be any air leak on the tape (*which I won't need to be worry of them running into the driver since the tape already has the edge mostly sealed up. Once the driver is sealed up, the wooden housing is glued together with the E8000.
Here is the finished earbuds, the first of its kind and I named it 'PE1', as in Planar Earbud One.
Here is a size comparison with MX500 style housing - Yes, it is not small by any measure.
The completed view
Afterthought: I'll call this project 75% successful. First of, the drives are tuned with IEM housing in mind and regardless of how much I try to compensate, it is simply not in its element. I know this because whenever I pressed the finished earbuds to my ears very tightly, the SQ immediately improves, and not by small margin. For now, even after all the things I have done to increase the acoustic impedance, the earbud still sound on the thin and bright side. I need to use double foam with a very controlled fit to order to achieve a seal good enough for a decent sound. Once the seal is loosen even sightly, SQ suffers. Beyond the fact that SQ is not optimized, the rest of the build is actually all good. I know early on that this will not be an easy build but the actual process is simpler than I have imagined. Most of the time really was spent on tuning for a decent sound. I felt I have done all I can with these planar drivers - as a proof of concept, putting planar into earbuds is definitely more than possible. In fact, it can be extremely good sounding if tuned right - by judging from all the tuning work I have done. We just need the right planar driver for the job.
Mod, measure, repeat - all to find the right sound.
This is what the final earbud sounds like. Almost a 2nd tier when the fit is right.
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