[Xlaw]

I had the same issue with the stock D7200 when I first got it. Sounded too congested and had shouty upper-mids/lower-treble. Following zolkis’ suggestion, I opened up the cups and took out the stock dampening material and replaced it with dense Creatology felt + foam material against the flat part of the cups, exactly as the ones used in the HD800 Anax mod. That tamed the “shout” and opened up the sound a bit, and now it sounds great!

I am still considering the SR900 pads though, but they are extremely expensive. Please let us know how they sound with the SR900 pads!

Of course. I plan to test them without the white ring too, and I'll report back.

 

[Xlaw]

I had the same issue with the stock D7200 when I first got it. Sounded too congested and had shouty upper-mids/lower-treble. Following zolkis’ suggestion, I opened up the cups and took out the stock dampening material and replaced it with dense Creatology felt + foam material against the flat part of the cups, exactly as the ones used in the HD800 Anax mod. That tamed the “shout” and opened up the sound a bit, and now it sounds great!

I am still considering the SR900 pads though, but they are extremely expensive. Please let us know how they sound with the SR900 pads!

Of course. I plan to test it without the white ring too but we'll see. It took a while for me just to remove the stock pads and put on the 009 pads. So I can't imagine how much harder it is to remove the white ring.

Sorry for double posting, first post didn't register for me for some reason.

 

[zolkis]

While the Stax SR-009 pads are my favorite (best dimensions, design, durability, sound), the Stax SR-007 pads are not far behind. They are thicker, with less outer diameter, with smaller opening, so might actually suit the D7200 even better (at least by fit). However, I would definitely remove the white ring from inside the 007 pads for better sound. The brown versions are from different leather than the black versions, both sound good, but slightly different.

The cheapest "very good" pads I recommend are the AHG inner perforated oval pads (will fit with the black mounting ring). Price is unbeatable (15 GBP) and quality is like Dekoni.
The Dekoni thinner pads are also pretty OK, but not better than the AHG.

The Vesper Audio pads are also nice, but keep in mind they are not originals. The pads made for the TH900, Stax SR-Omega, Stax 007 will all fit the D7200. I have no idea how do they sound, probably not worse than the others. The ones made for the Ether look much like the Stax 009 pads, but will likely have different sound.
They make inner perforated lambskin pads for the TH900, that seems to be the best fit for the D7200 (guessing). I might actually try them.

In the case some of these pads bring out midrange honkiness on some of the D7200, you know the solution for that now: see the post above. I use a single sheet of 1-2 mm thick Creatology foam pad that covers the flat portion of the inner side of the cups, so it's about 60 mm in diameter with the lower part cut off in order to fit the cups. If that is not enough in your case, then use one more pad or a 2-3 mm thick natural wool felt pad of the same dimension. Pictures included in an earlier post.

 

[SpudHarris]

I have the lambskin Dekoni TH900 pads and they are a perfect fit with no degradation of sound but will order a set of AHG pads for the hell of it. They aren't real leather though, phones this high quality really do deserve that luxury and in my opinion they should come with real leather pads as standard...

 

[zolkis]

I have the lambskin Dekoni TH900 pads and they are a perfect fit with no degradation of sound but will order a set of AHG pads for the hell of it.

Thanks, that would be nice. I have had both pads but not in the same time and I have modded them anyway to make the inner foam thinner. I am curious of your impressions. It's hard to compile reliable information about pads and relative sounds, so all community contributions are welcome. I might try the Vesper perforated lambskin pads.

You're right about the lambskin part - though I've personally found the AHG pads high quality. Dekoni has lambskin, but for instance the Stax pads feel much higher quality lambskin - so I don't know what quality levels are out there.

IMHO the best pads would be a [reinforced] leather shell with a resilient internal structure to keep its shape. The point is there is no foam inside the pad shell, just air. I made 2 prototypes of such air-pads from Stax 009 pads leather shell and they make the sound amazingly clear & clean & spacious. The timbral purity is unbelievable and so is the clarity of spatial cues and the increased resolution over the whole spectrum. The sound stage is much larger, too. All foam filled pads sound muffled in comparison. They make the same or similar positive difference on all my headphones but they also bring out the drivers deficiencies more as well. However, it's not clear yet what is the best kind of supporting structure or reinforcement, so it would be difficult to make this production quality. Anyway, I wonder why no one that I am aware has used this simple idea in production: since decades, ear pads are made with foam filling.

 

[Assimilator702]

I have the lambskin Dekoni TH900 pads and they are a perfect fit with no degradation of sound but will order a set of AHG pads for the hell of it. They aren't real leather though, phones this high quality really do deserve that luxury and in my opinion they should come with real leather pads as standard...

Having genuine leather pads doesn’t always sound the best. Even headphones that’s perform fairly well with pleather pads with a few issues can end up sounding like garbage with genuine leather.

 

[Assimilator702]

Thanks, that would be nice. I have had both pads but not in the same time and I have modded them anyway to make the inner foam thinner. I am curious of your impressions. It's hard to compile reliable information about pads and relative sounds, so all community contributions are welcome. I might try the Vesper perforated lambskin pads.

You're right about the lambskin part - though I've personally found the AHG pads high quality. Dekoni has lambskin, but for instance the Stax pads feel much higher quality lambskin - so I don't know what quality levels are out there.

IMHO the best pads would be a [reinforced] leather shell with a resilient internal structure to keep its shape. The point is there is no foam inside the pad shell, just air. I made 2 prototypes of such air-pads from Stax 009 pads leather shell and they make the sound amazingly clear & clean & spacious. The timbral purity is unbelievable and so is the clarity of spatial cues and the increased resolution over the whole spectrum. The sound stage is much larger, too. All foam filled pads sound muffled in comparison. They make the same or similar positive difference on all my headphones but they also bring out the drivers deficiencies more as well. However, it's not clear yet what is the best kind of supporting structure or reinforcement, so it would be difficult to make this production quality. Anyway, I wonder why no one that I am aware has used this simple idea in production: since decades, ear pads are made with foam filling.

Take your plastic shell and apply a material like a spray foam that can Applied in a thin layer. Hopefully this would reduce some reflections. From there you could experiment with different materials that can be applied in either spray form or even brushed on. The problem is you would ideally need several sets to test each materials effect in the sound.

 

[cobrabucket]

Would a THX 789 be a good pairing for this headphone?

 

[zolkis]

Would a THX 789 be a good pairing for this headphone?

Certainly looks like a good buy, but whether it sounds good I don't know.
The D7200 generally benefits from smooth, warm, dynamic, relaxed, good resolution amps.
People reported this amp works well with HD6xx, HD580, LCD-2X, even the HD800 and also the HE1000 and has lots of resolution, basically no discernible difference from the HDV820.
Based on that it should be a very good match.
You can add a good external power supply to scale it up, that's a big-big plus.

 

[cobrabucket]

I already have the 789 and like it a lot. It's very natural, clear and uncolored.

 

[zolkis]

Take your plastic shell and apply a material like a spray foam that can Applied in a thin layer. Hopefully this would reduce some reflections. From there you could experiment with different materials that can be applied in either spray form or even brushed on. The problem is you would ideally need several sets to test each materials effect in the sound.

Reinforcement layer underneath the leather was my idea, but here is what you probably meant:
https://phys.org/news/2019-03-acoustic-metamaterial-cancels.html

 

[Assimilator702]

No I meant a material that when your support structure in it, would reduce the hard reflections a smooth plastic reinforces. The sound reducing baffle you linked to would actually kill any back wave which would not be good in an open headphone. These things would not be good near any speakers or headphone driver's except for on the walls of a room to prevent sound from getting out. They could probably also be used to.make an anechoic chamber.

 

[zolkis]

(We got a bit OT). That material would be good inside pads. It's another topic that it would also be good inside cups (if we don't want back-waves since the drives are acoustically transparent), but this is hot air anyway at the moment, unfortunately.
I don't really want support structures inside the pads for the same reason I didn't want foam (which is an open- or closed-cell support structure itself). If I had, I'd agree about the necessity to avoid reflections and if plastic was the best (which I doubt) it would be easy to get ragged surface or woven mesh structure. With foams, reduced mass and improved resilience makes good effect. Inflated pads are not really good either (I tried). I'd want self-supporting elastic/resilient pads.
IMHO there are two good (but opposite) approaches: one would be perfect damping and only direct sound i.e. studio sound, the other would be good seal but acoustically transparent (i.e. fine-tuned listening room, or "air-pads"). I'd prefer the liveliness of the latter, which is not to say intermediate compromises are all bad. The D7200 already sounds very nice with the small mods (thinned stock pads + eventual cups damping improvements). The air-pads improve on this, but not as much as the TH900 for instance.

 

[SpudHarris]

While the Stax SR-009 pads are my favorite (best dimensions, design, durability, sound), the Stax SR-007 pads are not far behind. They are thicker, with less outer diameter, with smaller opening, so might actually suit the D7200 even better (at least by fit). However, I would definitely remove the white ring from inside the 007 pads for better sound. The brown versions are from different leather than the black versions, both sound good, but slightly different.

The cheapest "very good" pads I recommend are the AHG inner perforated oval pads (will fit with the black mounting ring). Price is unbeatable (15 GBP) and quality is like Dekoni.
The Dekoni thinner pads are also pretty OK, but not better than the AHG.

The Vesper Audio pads are also nice, but keep in mind they are not originals. The pads made for the TH900, Stax SR-Omega, Stax 007 will all fit the D7200. I have no idea how do they sound, probably not worse than the others. The ones made for the Ether look much like the Stax 009 pads, but will likely have different sound.
They make inner perforated lambskin pads for the TH900, that seems to be the best fit for the D7200 (guessing). I might actually try them.

In the case some of these pads bring out midrange honkiness on some of the D7200, you know the solution for that now: see the post above. I use a single sheet of 1-2 mm thick Creatology foam pad that covers the flat portion of the inner side of the cups, so it's about 60 mm in diameter with the lower part cut off in order to fit the cups. If that is not enough in your case, then use one more pad or a 2-3 mm thick natural wool felt pad of the same dimension. Pictures included in an earlier post.

The AHG pads in the link are oval shaped does anyone know if this is a problem? Ordered them anyway, just wondered...

 

[sysfail]

The AHG pads in the link are oval shaped does anyone know if this is a problem? Ordered them anyway, just wondered...

It's not a problem, it'll still stretch to fit to the circle shape. I still preferred the stock pads over them though, but they are nice pads for the money.