[Dreew]

Heello!

now i use d7200 with opus#3 and balance cable

 

[Camper1995]

Heello!

now i use d7200 with opus#3 and balance cable

Nice, you're using Ori pads? Do you have any additional tuning/modding in them? I felt they recess the midrange quite a bit and reduce the bass punch, but at least they're very comfortable, I'm having issue with getting a proper seal with the stock pads.

 

[Dreew]

you're using Ori pads?

Yes

Do you have any additional tuning/modding in them?

nope

 

[maxsol]

D7200 – I love the sound signature and quality. I’m a fan – not a professional – just curious. They do have some level of “honky-ness” or “ringing” or “shouting” or “uncomfortable feeling in the head/ears” in the mids with some tracks. I’ve had 3 different D7200 to play around with (A-B listening etc.), and tried several of the mods described on the board, attempting to eliminate it. Burn-in 50 hours+. Here are my experiences:

Tried different damping materials in the cups – the original felt, foam of different types and carded wool – all in different sizes and thickness, and mixtures of one or more. Camper1995’s acoustic foam in the size of the original tape, does eliminate the “shouting”, as does many of the other alternatives, but every time the detail level and the preciseness of the music drops – and becomes slightly more muddled. So far, my best version is the original felt combined with a very, very thin layer of carded wool placed right next to it, in one side in the cups, right under the 2 inner, open ports in the drivers plastic ring. I do think exchanging the original felt with just the right type and size of some other material will do the trick, but haven’t found it yet.

The damping felt in one of the models (with a much lower product serial number – earlier version maybe?) was slightly thinner, coarser and more compressed and this version was more shouty. Interchanging with one of the other D7200’s more fluffy felt, made it better.

On one of the headphones (with low D7200 serial number) the driver numbers left & right were the same (no. 78) but on the other headphone (higher D7200 serial number) one side was 71 the other 7x!? (yes x). No idea if it means anything. The one with same numbers (78) was more open and had better sound stage, while the other was slightly more precise and detailed, but it could be related to the pads.

The big difference for the sound signature was changing the (seemingly completely identical) pads around between models! It changed the sound stage, detail level, 3D effect quite a lot, where one (with the higher D7200 serial number) of the 3 D7200’s had much better pads without you being able to visually tell… That’s not really acceptable, I think. Didn’t eliminate the shouting/honkyness though..

Applied a thin layer of almond oil on the inside of the cups, to make the wood denser, but they have a slight varnish on the inside, so the oil is not really entering the walnut wood, it seems. An interesting observation – the roughness of the surface inside the cups on the 3 models are quite different and I imagine this would affect the sound quite a lot. It seemed that more rough surface= less honky. From a quality consistency point-of-view, again not quite acceptable.

Now after experimenting with Jriver and the equalizers Fabfilter pro q2 and Marvel GEQ, I realized that the shoutiness came from just around 700 hz in the mids! and decreasing this by 8-10 db removed the shouting completely, but this of course also removes some of the sound signature, that is exciting about the D7200. If anyone comes up with a damping method exclusively to this frequency, please let me know

 

[zolkis]

I have also experimented a lot with the D7200. I left the cups damping with the original settings. Eventually when the headphones are about 2 years old, I need to measure whether the polyfill in the cups is still needed (it was not needed any more with the TH900, making the sound more defined in the whole spectrum).

The biggest impact is made by the pads indeed. The best pad I have sound so far (there've been many "best" so far), is a modified version of these:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172857611490
Note that they are perforated in the inner circumference.
The mod consists of opening the back sewing and trimming the memory foam filling until it sounded similarly open as with the stock pads, but without any trace of shouting or honking.
This is quite linear, except for an elevated low bass, which I find a nice compromise.

When I will be able to get replacement pads, I will modify them by opening up and trimming from the foam in the back side. That should fix the honkiness.

See the measurements below.

The effect of pads on the D7200 FR. The red line is the best sounding one. The green line is the stock one (with a visible midrange bump).

Then, my modded TH900 vs my modded D7200. The TH900 sounds more lively and slightly more emotional, the D7200 sounds more neutral, but still rich in tone. Depending on music genre I prefer one or the other. Both modded headphones impulse response is way better than the stock version. Also, the spectrogram is smoother and distortion is lower in the bass region.

NB. Please don't send PMs about mod requests, I have no time for that unfortunately. Take courage and do it yourself, if you want it at all .

 

[Camper1995]

Hi guys, hope you're all doing well! This is going to be kind of a modding post, so for those not interested, please skip ahead

I have to say that I'm glad to see people still interested in modding of this headphone. Today I spent almost my whole Sunday opening up the D7200 once again and trying to play around with different dampening materials, pads and overall tuning, trying to observe any difference between individual materials and configurations. It's been a while since I've done it and I've been using the D7200 in stock configuration since then, playing around with pads here and there.
I think I've found something interesting regarding the acoustic foam piece that lies inside the wooden cups.

And just to be clear, I don't have any measurement rig for now, all testing and tuning was done by ear. I've occasionally used my CA Andromeda, HD600 and Nightowl as a comparison for tonality of some sounds in the mix.

So, I think we can agree that D7200 has slightly "grainy" midrange, as well as a bit shouty female vocals, and sometimes trumpets depending on the mix.. Also darker highs, which some love and some might not like. By dark I mean that the D7200 has gorgeous well extended treble, it's just not as present as some might expect it to be. Anyway my main issue was the midrange and even though I really do enjoy it as it is, I'm always aware of its slightly shouty nature. And I'm definitely not a fan of EQ, I like my phones to sound the same whatever I plug them into and not having mess with EQ every time.

Okay, in short, the white acoustic foam inside the cups serves as a bass dampener, removing it will cause an increase in bass boominess which can overshadow lower mids / mids and make the overall sense of detail worse, which is I think what @maxsol observed as well. If we try using the headphone without the walnut cups, completely open, we will hear the immediate increase in mid & sub bass by quite a few dB (more sub-bass actually) and midrange becoming quite muddy, however I did notice that the slightly unnaturally shouty tonality of the vocals was pretty much gone when the headphone was open.

That got me to trying different materials and combinations inside the cups, and I've ended up with one setup in particular: 1 layer of tinfoil and a square plastic-coated paper from some magazine I had laying around: https://i.imgur.com/p7HY1IY.jpg

I will post more detailed explanation tomorrow if anyone is interested, but the overall effect of this cup dampening is the following:
the upper highs definitely become a bit brighter making them more in line with the midrange and because we removed the stock white foam, the midrange becomes a bit less forward and therefore less shouty.

An unwanted effect was a little bit too much presence in sub-bass and mid-bass, therefore I had to figure out how to tame that and it turns out that placing a small piece of foam (that I cut out from old Fostex X00 pads https://i.imgur.com/SNGDwRl.jpg) over one of the driver venting holes does just that. It lowers the sub-bass to a default level but keeps mid-bass slightly more elevated from how it was by default.
Such as this: https://i.imgur.com/J1L37Dh.jpg
The foam is not very dense at all so it affects the bass frequencies just enough. I've tried denser foam and it reduces the bass too much.

And on the side, the soundstage does get a touch deeper to the sides due to there being physically less stuff in the cups, definitely a positive change.

So overall, this mod clears the vocals nicely and makes them much less shoutier, as if we were able to hear more resolution in the vocals due to the more controlled bass which I think is the main change that this mod brings, it definitely has a very tight but present mid-bass thump to it. The highs (from 12k to 20k roughly) got a bit elevated but nothing drastic, just the "air" region I would say. I'll try using this for a few weeks and see how I like it. The difference between stock and this isn't drastic of course, it still sounds like the good old D7200 but the subtle change in tonality is definitely important to me and I think I'll enjoy it even more now: https://i.imgur.com/z0SFdPA.jpg

 

[zolkis]

I wonder should we make a mods thread for the D7200 and move there these posts... but there is not much traffic on this forum otherwise.

Pads affect the graininess of the sound quite much, and the original pads are not the worst in this respect.

I don't fully get the effect of the tinfoil on the sound, but it might change the reflection pattern from the inside of the cups. One of the reasons I ended up using measurements was to help my non-golden ears decide whether my preference correlates with improvements or just lucky combinations. Why the latter might be pleasing, the thought this might be still sub-optimal was always itching too much.

For me it turned out the cups tuning and driver loading were nice jobs on the D7200 design. Wasn't it for the slight midrange shoutiness, I wouldn't have touched it. Since only a few people complained about this effect, it may be due to variations in the pads manufacturing (you can see from the picture above how much difference pads can make alone).

When cups damping was needed, the best material I got was the Twaron Angelhair, used at very light fill rate. However, in the case of the D7200 the original cups were not much different, so I ended up changing only the pads. But yes, in theory, there should be more optimal settings for the cups damping, carton paper cover being one option - but optimally all this needs measurements for guiding the work. A basic rig is quite cheap, check out topics at sb friends.

Don't change the driver loading, though (the open holes and the diaphragm on the covered holes).

 

[sebna]

D7200 are very sensitive to IC if your system calls for one. There is brilliant synergy with Nordost Valhalla (XLR in my case). Valhalla tend to extremely well control the bass which is often perceived as lowering it's output and also extends the highs and all of the spectrum is striped from some of the body in exchange for increased detail and imaging. All of those are the weak points of d7200 so together they eliminate all poor sides of d7200 making it quite special HPs. Still they lack some resolution as nothing can fix that but with this combo those are darn good.

Of course it does not make sense for most to pair d7200 with Valhalla but it's just happens I have a set lying around so why not

 

[Camper1995]

I wonder should we make a mods thread for the D7200 and move there these posts... but there is not much traffic on this forum otherwise.

Pads affect the graininess of the sound quite much, and the original pads are not the worst in this respect.

I don't fully get the effect of the tinfoil on the sound, but it might change the reflection pattern from the inside of the cups. One of the reasons I ended up using measurements was to help my non-golden ears decide whether my preference correlates with improvements or just lucky combinations. Why the latter might be pleasing, the thought this might be still sub-optimal was always itching too much.

For me it turned out the cups tuning and driver loading were nice jobs on the D7200 design. Wasn't it for the slight midrange shoutiness, I wouldn't have touched it. Since only a few people complained about this effect, it may be due to variations in the pads manufacturing (you can see from the picture above how much difference pads can make alone).

When cups damping was needed, the best material I got was the Twaron Angelhair, used at very light fill rate. However, in the case of the D7200 the original cups were not much different, so I ended up changing only the pads. But yes, in theory, there should be more optimal settings for the cups damping, carton paper cover being one option - but optimally all this needs measurements for guiding the work. A basic rig is quite cheap, check out topics at sb friends.

Don't change the driver loading, though (the open holes and the diaphragm on the covered holes).

Yeah I was just playing around honestly, I might revert it to stock after some time, I don't claim to have golden ears, far from it. It just doesn't sound worse from stock to me that's at least a plus.
The tinfoil was just to adjust the reflections and make them equal in both cups as they can also vary on the wood roughness from the inside, we can clearly see that Denon didn't spend much time refining the cups from the inside to be identical.

Anyway as much as I agree with you on the pads (and shame on Denon for not spending more time researching the pads before releasing this headphone!), I haven't found anything that would be a direct improvement which kept the tonality of stock pads but improved other aspects, including comfort. It always fails somewhere, mostly either bass regions or midrange. My favorite so far were ZMF Ori perforated, they make the headphones feel very open and create a nice 3D image of the music around your head but unfortunately make the whole midrange sound a little thin and distant due to the thickness of the pads.

Perforated ZMF Auteur pads interest me as they are thinner than Ori but I think they have a much larger diameter so would not fit the Denon well.

And damn that Angelhair is pretty expensive, and from what I can see from its measurements on some pages that sell it, it mostly affects sub 1000Hz frequencies but you already said it was very close to stock.

Also another thing, have you played around with the gray foam disc that surrounds the driver? This thing can change the tonality significantly and basically the denser material, the darker the sound will be.

 

[zolkis]

The grey foam dampers are the biggest sound changers . I have made 50+ pairs from wool felt for the TH900, and all sound (and measure) different. Actually, out of 3 pairs of factory original dampers, all of them sounded different... so much about consistency of manufacturing (and listening impressions).

The midrange shoutiness definitely can be fixed by changing the damper. However, I would say the stock damper is quite OK for the D7200. I wish it was just a bit thicker at the same density, but yeah.

Pads tend to be too thick nowadays, since the angled pads fashion kicked in, causing all sorts of FR imbalance.

 

[max2]

Where can I get Ori pads please?

 

[Camper1995]

Where can I get Ori pads please?

I got mine from Massdrop but you can order directly from ZMF:
http://www.zmfheadphones.com/pads-and-cables/

Perforated Lambskin Auteur might be where it's at, Ori is a bit too thick imo but very comfortable.

Quality pads for sure, trying all of these on D7200 would be a treat but unfortunately for me, they are quite pricey

 

[My Little Phony]

Hi,

im interested in the Denon Ah-7200. I did not read all 117 pages yet. Im searching for a "fun-headphone" that will be an improvement over my Fidelio X2-fun-headphone i use for my Pc. I like forward mids, sparkling and detailed highs and layered, detailed, punchy and deep bass.

Is there anyone who was happy with a Fidelio X2 and upgraded to the Denon AH-7200 and was even happier with his new purchase?

I took a look at the german amazon pages. There are many warehouse deals of the 7200. More than of any other headphone sold there. Are there any known problems with the phones?

Another thing i recognized are expressions like the following regarding balanced cables in this thread:

"I've made balanced cable based on 4 core version for my HD650 (6XX to be precise) and it was ridiculusly better than stock (sennheiser veil? what veil?)"
"I do find that running them balanced (via the Beyerdynamic 3m balanced cable I bought for my Amirons) improves the sound across the board."

Does a balance cable change the overall performance of a headphone in such a big way? (did not try to go balanced yet. so im curious if its a day and night difference)

 

[Light - Man]

^ First of all, I reckon that few if any closed backs can compete with a good open back. You will likely only seek a closed back when you want isolation for yourself or others around you.

I still have the X2 and think that it is very good (after ditching the stock cable). I had the Denon and was overall disappointed by it and IMO - it can't compete with the X2.

If interested, do a search on this thread for more details on my views.

I still reckon that my modded Yamaha MT220 is noticeably better and has better isolation.

IMO!!!...............................

 

[Maxx134]

sparkling and detailed highs

No sparkle here.

Are there any known problems with the phones?

Only if broken out of warranty.

balanced cables

System dependant.

Im searching for a "fun-headphone"

If you mean "not neutral" look for a can that gives what you like.
This can has a thick nice low end with forward detailed mids and less treble for a smooth colored sound.
You would only notice the difference with a higher level can like a Utopia or hd800,
As stock it falls in same level as a zmf Headphone.