[Luis Mad]

Well I sold my D7200's on at a substantial loss. I won't be touching used Denon's again thanks to their QC and reliability, such a shame as the sound quality is magnificent.
Are the older Denon's D2000/D5000/ect more reliable because they use different drivers to these later models?

Sorry to hear your story. I hope I will not have to deal with that. Lack of quality control is extremely dissapointing in these expensive products. Anyway I cross my fingers not to find myself in your situation.
Luckily for me, my experiences with Denon have been completely different so far. I have three Denon stereo amps, 22, 20 and 2 years old, all working fine. I also have the Denon AH-D-900 headphones, flagship from 1989, they were a present, and what a present! They still sound wonderful and with new pads, I still use them sometimes at the office. This is an extreme case, amazing that they are still going on strong.
Then 2020, I bought the 7200 in Amazon warehouse, second hand, at an excellent price. 16 months now with the 7200. I must say I love these headphones. The incredible bass that does not muddle or kill the treble is the mark for me. Also separation, clarity and soundstage are amazing for a close back. These are my favorite headphones and I use them a lot. I love their sound without eq, specially the combination with the Astell SR25. I find myself often amazed by the sound quality of this combination. With the normal output they sound amazing but better still with the balanced that is more powerful. Either with my own hires or lossless files or streaming Apple Music. I listen to all types of music but lately mainly classical. I have tried the suggested eq settings in this thread, but I still prefer them without eq. I also use them with the Sony Nwa55L, also with excellent results. The 7200 are really not hard to drive.
Noways I combine the use with the AKG K712 pro, hard to drive, which I also like very much for classical but still prefer the Denons. The AKG need an amp. The Denons sound excellent directly out of the SR25.
Even though the combination of the Denons, AKG and my iems: Etymotic ER4XR and ER2XR with Bluetooth, covers all my needs, I often find myself looking at other Denon headphones and tempted to buy more: … the MM400, the 5200 and of course the 9200.

 

[deafman5000]

Does anyone know where to get a replacement headband assembly for these or/also know if a fostex headband will work with them? I accidently snapped mine trying to stretch it out....

 

[weissglut]

Hey! I just got a Qudelix for my D7200. I noticed the bass seemed to be lacking a bit by using the Qudelix 5k? Is that something you noticed aswell?

No, I did not notice something like that. At least I cannot remember

 

[Grumpy Old Git]

I'm now awaiting for a pair of Lawton modded D2000's to arrive, should be early next week.

 

[crewcut]

I'm now awaiting for a pair of Lawton modded D2000's to arrive, should be early next week.

Be interesting to see your comparison with the 7200.
I passed on some 2000s a while ago,and regret it as they don't come up for sale very often.

 

[zolkis]

Well I sold my D7200's on at a substantial loss. I won't be touching used Denon's again thanks to their QC and reliability, such a shame as the sound quality is magnificent.
Are the older Denon's D2000/D5000/ect more reliable because they use different drivers to these later models?

Sorry for that. At least you could have tried changing the drivers to the "golden" chinese ones from Ali (~72 eur per pair). @Maxx134 posted about them earlier.
They seem like good replacement drivers. You could even fit the D9200 replacement drivers that you can get in the UK (at a much higher cost), as the walnut cups damp the treble more, and the result is pretty good, though IMHO not as good as the full D9200, but between the D7200 and D9200.

 

[Maxx134]

Well I sold my D7200's on at a substantial loss. I won't be touching used Denon's again thanks to their QC and reliability, such a shame as the sound quality is magnificent.
Are the older Denon's D2000/D5000/ect more reliable because they use different drivers to these later models?

Sorry for that. At least you could have tried changing the drivers to the "golden" chinese ones from Ali (~72 eur per pair). @Maxx134 posted about them earlier.
They seem like good replacement drivers. You could even fit the D9200 replacement drivers that you can get in the UK (at a much higher cost), as the walnut cups damp the treble more, and the result is pretty good, though IMHO not as good as the full D9200, but between the D7200 and D9200.

Of all the latest line-up of the denon series 5200,7200,9200...
The 7200 was plagued from early on with driver issues.
Dead, dying, rattling, baseless, or just broken drivers.
It was most probably a quality control issue early on.

I had issues with Denon very early on, in which they absolutely refused to replace or even repair at my own expense, because I didn't have receipt from thier own authorized sellers. Now how does anyone know this,buying from Amazon or ebay?eBay??
Just terrible customer service. I even heard Amazon reselling headphones with broken drivers from scrupulous buyers swapping out their broken ones.

The worst tragedy happened to me, from an AUTHORIZED Denon repair center (in NJ)!
They fixed one side, while swapping out my other good side for a bad one, and then stealing my headband(!) for a used one! Insane!
Arguing with both Denon and the repair center thru "CC" emails got me nowhere.

So I was stuck with one 7200 unit, which I eventually moded and sold with gold drivers. I would say the performance is at the same level with only different tunnig. Really quite nice. Out of all of the other drivers available on AliExpress and Alibaba I preferred the gold biocellulose drivers.

Although the 7200 had some weak drivers, all the other parts are actually quite well done.
So it's a good headphones overall, with gradual tamed trebles.
I haven't heard any issues with the 5200, and I owned the best 9200 which is very solid unit. No issues with 9200.

In retrospect, I would not bother with 5200 or 7200, when there are so many fostex thX00 units out there for similar or less and have similar performance.

Only the 9200 is a worthwhile investment, as it is arguably the best biocelulous closed headphones still to this day. I sold my Utopia as I found myself always reaching for the 9200.

 

[zolkis]

Maybe I am a lucky one with the D7200, but never experienced any driver issues, and a simple pad tuning made it sound better than the stock D9200, which in turn I had to develop custom pads to sound their best. That is very-near TOTL electrostatic level now - you'd be surprised, as I certainly was, and sounds "too good to be true" even from a Sony DAP, and even from a Sony phone... Tuning the D9200 was quite an easy task, but finding the optimum for the D7200 was much harder: the combination of driver and cups left very little room to play with. The D9200 has a far broader range of "sweet spots" for tuning.

 

[Maxx134]

Maybe I am a lucky one with the D7200, but never experienced any driver issues, and a simple pad tuning made it sound better than the stock D9200, which in turn I had to develop custom pads to sound their best. That is very-near TOTL electrostatic level now - you'd be surprised, as I certainly was, and sounds "too good to be true" even from a Sony DAP, and even from a Sony phone... Tuning the D9200 was quite an easy task, but finding the optimum for the D7200 was much harder: the combination of driver and cups left very little room to play with. The D9200 has a far broader range of "sweet spots" for tuning.

Hmm, your right. I was thinking of mainly price, but If the price is less, the Denon is definitely preferable to the fostex.

It is true the denon driver has more performance potential than all the other biocelulous brands.

I found that 5200,7200,9200 cups depth, adds nicely to the sound, without being excessive in delayed reflections, unlike other closed cans.

Deeper cups suffer from excessive hollow cup effect from more delayed internal reflections .
The thx00 is prone to this, and to some degree the ZMF wood models. They use more internal damping and porting to offset.

Too cavernous a rear space, will produce undesirable effects. The thx900 is one of few headphones that were designed to take advantage of this.

So I can believe a well burned in 7200 can have as good and more balanced sound, but in stock form it is too colored and dulled, with hint of speed, superior to the zmf Eikon I had at the time. So yeah, I fully agree it can be superior and change most dramatically when modded.

The 9200 in comparison adds a bit closer & more magnified, yet deeper sound in comparison.
I believe it's wood cup adds the very desirable lively sound.

Once you dialed in your 7200, then it's best to leave as is. Differences going up the ladder are more subjective.
But the gold drivers I personally prefer for this unit.

 

[zolkis]

Deeper cups suffer from excessive hollow cup effect from more delayed internal reflections .
The thx00 is prone to this, and to some degree the ZMF wood models. They use more internal damping and porting to offset.

Too cavernous a rear space, will produce undesirable effects. The thx900 is one of few headphones that were designed to take advantage of this.

That is a good observation. Compared to the TH900, the less cups volume and different internal shape contribute to less V-shaped sound in Denons, but the TH900 in particular is far better than the lesser models and clones.
The TH-X00 series use heavier woods for cups than the Urushi used in the TH900, and while I don't digress with Lawton, for my taste lighter woods (Urushi, Bamboo, perhaps cedar) sound more musical than heavy woods (ebony, walnut, teak, rosewood, etc), which in turn may measure slightly better.
ZMF seems to prefer larger cups (like Lawton), with a lot of (and very complex) internal damping. I have an "internal-damping-phobia" from my speaker building experience (there are very few materials that attenuate evenly enough across the frequency range), so I'd try to make an enclosure sound as good as possible with the least possible internal damping needed. Damping tends to solve solves big errors nowadays, and too selectively IMHO, so you'll have to compromise in too many places.
Denon enclosures indeed seem to have less problems than bigger cups in other designs. But their loading is quite different, too. Clearly this was well investigated, modeled and tested by Denon. With suitable ear pads, the sense of depth and space is not less than with the TH900, nor is the bass extension and impact, though they are different in character. Certainly, Denon has reached a good optimum there. Also the pads are clearly well optimized by Denon, even though I'd put about 30% less foam in them, especially in the back (the D7200 pad mod does exactly that, removing foam from the pads).
The current D9200 pads I am using contain just 5 grams of foam per side... and before you ask, I did experiment with purely air filled ear pads, too: they are surprisingly good, but need to be made practical, for instance to be able to inflate them just to your preference.

 

[Grumpy Old Git]

Sorry for that. At least you could have tried changing the drivers to the "golden" chinese ones from Ali (~72 eur per pair). @Maxx134 posted about them earlier.
They seem like good replacement drivers. You could even fit the D9200 replacement drivers that you can get in the UK (at a much higher cost), as the walnut cups damp the treble more, and the result is pretty good, though IMHO not as good as the full D9200, but between the D7200 and D9200.

I was really disillusioned by my experience with the D7200 that's why I decided to move them on and not source although they sounded excellent.
For those members based in the UK having issues with the D7200 drivers, this company may be of help.....
https://spares2repair.co.uk/denon-marantz-speakers-driver-l-r-assy-ahd7200

Of all the latest line-up of the denon series 5200,7200,9200...
The 7200 was plagued from early on with driver issues.
Dead, dying, rattling, baseless, or just broken drivers.
It was most probably a quality control issue early on.

I had issues with Denon very early on, in which they absolutely refused to replace or even repair at my own expense, because I didn't have receipt from thier own authorized sellers. Now how does anyone know this,buying from Amazon or ebay?eBay??
Just terrible customer service. I even heard Amazon reselling headphones with broken drivers from scrupulous buyers swapping out their broken ones.

The worst tragedy happened to me, from an AUTHORIZED Denon repair center (in NJ)!
They fixed one side, while swapping out my other good side for a bad one, and then stealing my headband(!) for a used one! Insane!
Arguing with both Denon and the repair center thru "CC" emails got me nowhere.

So I was stuck with one 7200 unit, which I eventually moded and sold with gold drivers. I would say the performance is at the same level with only different tunnig. Really quite nice. Out of all of the other drivers available on AliExpress and Alibaba I preferred the gold biocellulose drivers.

Although the 7200 had some weak drivers, all the other parts are actually quite well done.
So it's a good headphones overall, with gradual tamed trebles.
I haven't heard any issues with the 5200, and I owned the best 9200 which is very solid unit. No issues with 9200.

In retrospect, I would not bother with 5200 or 7200, when there are so many fostex thX00 units out there for similar or less and have similar performance.

Only the 9200 is a worthwhile investment, as it is arguably the best biocelulous closed headphones still to this day. I sold my Utopia as I found myself always reaching for the 9200.

It is odd that only the D7200 has driver problems, this is why I've opted to purchase the Lawton modded D2000 with the older tried and tested Foster drivers.

 

[Terriero]

Lo there,
just wanted to quickly share my impressions and experience with the 7200 so far.

as my akg k245 just broke recently and is now hopefully being repaired, i had to find a low-end replacement hp.

while i was browsing head-fi and other sites, i decided to try the new beyer 900 and 700 Pro X at my local hifi store.
although both turned out to be great headphones (especially the 700 to my surprise) i remembered the denon ah 7200 to be superior in the bass department (which i was looking for in particular).
downside for me personally with the 7200 was the price (which was actually not 'yet' in my pricerange) as well as issues with the headband (being to hard + creating a hotspot).

the sound, on the other hand, simply blew my mind again (with a bit of EQ preferably lowering the 150-400 Hz region by a tad). so i ended up purchasing an open-box unit for a decent price. 2 days later im still very happy with my decision (although my wallet.. yea right)

2nd thing is i found a temporary solution for the headband. inspired by the pad architecture of the sennheiser hd 650/6xx/660s, i simply wrapped jute-string around the mid-part of the frame recessing that part, so the pressure on my head is more evenly distributed at the sides. additionally i carefully bent the frame a bit.
Edit: - be careful to not bend the outer part of the headband since this is where the adjustment rods will slide inside, and i am not sure if that inner part is made of plastic - to be safe only bend the inner part (you can actually feel where the tunnels within the headband start (around 4 cm from the center).


^Back

Updated mod: removed the jute and used elastic fabric bands (e.g. those from your ffp2-mask). looks a lot stealthier and the effect to decrease the hotspot works even better.



ive been wearing the 7200's all day long today and feeling no hotspot. awesomeness.
also the padding is said to be memory-foam which hopefully keeps its form after i remove the string at some point.

another glorious addition to my small (but growing) hp collection. very much recommended for peeps looking for a closed-back with satisfying bass.

Here are my early EQ settings so far (actually it changes a lot with varying genres/recordings):

Do your headband issues disappear with the mod? Or are you ajusted to the headband (by removing the elastic fabric band)? I hope you are enjoying a lot the headphones

 

[Corti]

Do your headband issues disappear with the mod? Or are you ajusted to the headband (by removing the elastic fabric band)? I hope you are enjoying a lot the headphones

Well, with the second 'mod' using the elastic bands the issue pretty much disappears.
i dont get the hotspot on top of my head that i got with the unmodded headband. it's really comfortable.
i did remove 2 of the 4 elastic bands though, because the constant strain (compression) may not be very healthy for the genuine leather material (but maybe its only
an aesthetic thing and it doesnt do any harm to the leather at all, i guess time will tell).
however with only 2 elastic bands left the hotspot somewhat returns..
for now i am trying to figure out a way to bend the headband on the sides a little more, so it follows the shape of my head better. another way would be to find some
padding material to add on the sides.
i am still wondering what kind of ape-people the engineers tested the headbands on

how is it for you with the 9200? tried to mod anything with that? but if you still consider selling them, you probably shouldnt mess around too much with the headband..

 

[KarlAgathon]

Happened to me as

Just use a knife to go between the plastic ring and the headphone, 45° from x/y axis.
Press it gently and the ring will come off.

After reattaching the pad, place the ring on the holes and move it with a little pressure slightly, let's say, 8 to 2 o'clock and 4 to 10, the "pins" will snap it their position.

With this way, you avoid to break the "pins", bc they're very weak.

Apologies for the late reply. With the help of another individual, I was finally able to reattach the pad to the ring.

By myself, it was like playing whack-a-mole.

The one thing else I would like to ask you or anyone else here.

An Individual on a YouTube video putting on the pads said they are supposed to align with the headphone entry holes

That the stitching on the pads are supposed to align with that.

True or false?

 

[Chris Kaoss]

No.
Your can turn the pads to your liking and position on your head.