[furyossa]

I am not sure what you mean by a problem? The ear canal is the same length no matter if it is an in ear or an earbud? Maybe I need to read back more closely I just shot off my stuff and gave some examples. To me and my purposes it's more than adequate.

My bad.
I thought generally, when the pipe was too long. As you can see my coupler consists of two parts, the lower transparent tube (for IEM) and the upper black extended part (for Earbads).
Sometimes distortion occurs during the measurement and I think the problem may be the greater distance between the driver and the microphone tip.
Anyway ... have you tried measuring on a PC instead of iPhone?

 

[headenvelopedinsound]

My bad.
I thought generally, when the pipe was too long. As you can see my coupler consists of two parts, the lower transparent tube (for IEM) and the upper black extended part (for Earbads).
Sometimes distortion occurs during the measurement and I think the problem may be the greater distance between the driver and the microphone tip.
Anyway ... have you tried measuring on a PC instead of iPhone?

I see well I am no pro by any means with measurements and only do my own with my equipment to get general ideas.

Yeah I’ve done PC measurements but it’s more work than I want to do. I’ve got the iPhone dialed in enough to have a base knowledge of what I am looking at. I can’t recall the FFT I was using. If you know of a simple one let me know.

 

[furyossa]

This weekend I took some time to put together these two pairs.

The first one is MX500 "heavy" modding (a shortened shell, back vent, and mmcx sockets).
For DIY balanced cable, I use a pair of these 4 core wire and 15.4mm 64ohm Titanium driver.
As we know this driver already has good sub-bass and with this mod, I can feel how shells start shaking in my ears.
Of course, this setup requires a little more tuning but I will probably try with other drivers until I find the right one.

For 2nd pair, I use 14.8mm PK2 driver with DOCOMO shell and Furukawa "red" cable.
This driver, in terms of sound, is so similar to PK1 "red film" 150ohm. For this price it is amazing.
The cable is a bit stiff, too twisted compared to my balance cables, but the wire is really good quality.
And for DOCOMO, what to say other than pure comfort.

 

[HungryPanda]

This weekend I took some time to put together these two pairs.

The first one is MX500 "heavy" modding (a shortened shell, back vent, and mmcx sockets).
For DIY balanced cable, I use a pair of these 4 core wire and 15.4mm 64ohm Titanium driver.
As we know this driver already has good sub-bass and with this mod, I can feel how shells start shaking in my ears.
Of course, this setup requires a little more tuning but I will probably try with other drivers until I find the right one.

For 2nd pair, I use 14.8mm PK2 driver with DOCOMO shell and Furukawa "red" cable.
This driver, in terms of sound, is so similar to PK1 "red film" 150ohm. For this price it is amazing.
The cable is a bit stiff, too twisted compared to my balance cables, but the wire is really good quality.
And for DOCOMO, what to say other than pure comfort.

Very nice builds

 

[subwoof3r]

So first impressions of these two drivers are very good overall, had not enough time to experiment yesterday night but I already made some « OK sounding » (at least for the work where I’m currently listening to them).
They are pretty good DIY drivers for various experimentations, they are easily tunable and responds well to shell modding.

The 32ohm has a warmer sounding, V shaped with a bit recessed mids (like a slight veil), but bass are very good (a bit of distortion) with nice sub-bass touch, everything is very balanced to me (its a polite « V » not really marked/exagerated). Highs keeps a nice touch of details and enjoyment (a bit softened thought).
Depending to the dampening foams used, holes into shells etc (classic modding), we can achieve a very good entry level pair, for sure).

The 64 ohm titanium drivers follows a bit the 32 ohm story but with an much exagerated dark sounding. There is no veil in the mids, vocals are more forwarded than the 32. The soundstage is incredibly huge (both deep and large) due to its overall dark sound, which can can even be too much for some and results to be a bit « unreal ». Highs remains the same smoothness on both drivers, they keep great amount of clarity and details without excelling.
The imaging looks better in the 64 ohm.

(Of course all this is just subjective and reflects my own ears, this is what I feel into my modded MX500 shells)
I highly recommend to makes some very light holes (not too much) into MX500 shells for both drivers as it will make bass a bit more present without destroying other freqs.
This experimention shows me that I now tends to generally prefer neutral sound with good bass extension (so the Smabat ST-10 is still my favorite type of sound for exemple).
I will update this once I will fine tune them, there is a lot to play with and good potential, those drivers are highly recommended from me (especially for the price)

Cheers'

Some update about this post
I finally fine tuned the two drivers with my general tastes.
I have to say I stil loves both drivers, they are complementing each other very well. The 64 ohm titanium is probably my new favorite drivers from all time. There is an exceptionnal soundstage, sub-bass is present, good mid-bass impact (which was missing to me into my previous 130ohm beryllium builds), but only cons is the treble part beeing a bit smoothened (so details could be better and treble presence if soft but still very acceptable, unfortunately, even with my pure silver cable it still remains a bit soft). Also, the resolution in these 64 ohm is extremely good (not far from the 130 ohm).
The 32 ohm drivers are my new favorite in the 32 ohm category. Vocals is a bit less full than the 64 ohm, but with more bass and better treble details. Soundstage is thinner than 64 ohm, and imaging is still in favor of the 64 ohm.
I would say the 32 ohm are excellent for electronic music, while 64 of the best for all other, great allrounder.
I'm thinking of ordering another 64ohm titanium pair
Cheers'

 

[furyossa]

Some update about this post
I finally fine tuned the two drivers with my general tastes.
I have to say I stil loves both drivers, they are complementing each other very well. The 64 ohm titanium is probably my new favorite drivers from all time. There is an exceptionnal soundstage, sub-bass is present, good mid-bass impact (which was missing to me into my previous 130ohm beryllium builds), but only cons is the treble part beeing a bit smoothened (so details could be better and treble presence if soft but still very acceptable, unfortunately, even with my pure silver cable it still remains a bit soft). Also, the resolution in these 64 ohm is extremely good (not far from the 130 ohm).
The 32 ohm drivers are my new favorite in the 32 ohm category. Vocals is a bit less full than the 64 ohm, but with more bass and better treble details. Soundstage is thinner than 64 ohm, and imaging is still in favor of the 64 ohm.
I would say the 32 ohm are excellent for electronic music, while 64 of the best for all other, great allrounder.
I'm thinking of ordering another 64ohm titanium pair
Cheers'

I totally agree with you. I have been skeptical of the titanium driver for a long time and always chose between graphene and beryllium, but now I can say that it is really exceptional.
Beryllium (130onm and 600ohm) have a better balance and control between sub-bass and bass and the rest is neutral, of course, 600ohm have better resolution for sure.
Graphene (400ohm) for me has great balance between bass,mids and treble and quality/money value.
I just received 2 more pairs of 130ohm and now I feel sorry because I didn't take at least another pair of titanium 64ohm.
I don't have 32ohm version to compere with it, my favorite in this (32ohm) area is PK2 (14.8mm), Tingo TG-38 and RY4S Plus.
It's a pity that there is not much choice for 14.8mm drivers compared to 15.4mm which suits me more because of their smaller size and fit.

Last night I was listening to my new pair from the previous post.
To build this pair I was inspired by the Bass Reflex Speaker and some Pioneer and JVS earbuds which already use the "back vent" system.

Until now only HE150 and HE150Pro were the references for good sub-bass.
Smabat ST-10 use "transmission line - like" system and I guess their sub-bass is just as good. DUNU DK 4001 also have
a similar concept on the back cover.

The transmission line is a little tricky to calculate for earbuds and I think the length of the T-Line itself should be quite long.
This is the scheme of "simple vent mod" that I used for this project.

With this mod, the Titanium 64ohm sub-bass is 20-30% stronger. I'm not "bass-head" so after a while, this is a bit too much. EDM sounds amazing on this.
Full-size tuning foam covers 3/4 of driver vents and I have noticed that when the volume is low bass is dominant and on high volume, mids take over bass.
For the next step, I plan to remove 1/4 of tuning foam, add side walls dampening and place a cap over the vent to block direct sound wave.

Also trying to find a way to reduce the resonance that is somewhat present. I know the problem is the plastic housing but metal MX500 is not yet available

 

[robar]

I totally agree with you. I have been skeptical of the titanium driver for a long time and always chose between graphene and beryllium, but now I can say that it is really exceptional.
Beryllium (130onm and 600ohm) have a better balance and control between sub-bass and bass and the rest is neutral, of course, 600ohm have better resolution for sure.
Graphene (400ohm) for me has great balance between bass,mids and treble and quality/money value.
I just received 2 more pairs of 130ohm and now I feel sorry because I didn't take at least another pair of titanium 64ohm.
I don't have 32ohm version to compere with it, my favorite in this (32ohm) area is PK2 (14.8mm), Tingo TG-38 and RY4S Plus.
It's a pity that there is not much choice for 14.8mm drivers compared to 15.4mm which suits me more because of their smaller size and fit.

Last night I was listening to my new pair from the previous post.
To build this pair I was inspired by the Bass Reflex Speaker and some Pioneer and JVS earbuds which already use the "back vent" system.

Until now only HE150 and HE150Pro were the references for good sub-bass.
Smabat ST-10 use "transmission line - like" system and I guess their sub-bass is just as good. DUNU DK 4001 also have
a similar concept on the back cover.

The transmission line is a little tricky to calculate for earbuds and I think the length of the T-Line itself should be quite long.
This is the scheme of "simple vent mod" that I used for this project.

With this mod, the Titanium 64ohm sub-bass is 20-30% stronger. I'm not "bass-head" so after a while, this is a bit too much. EDM sounds amazing on this.
Full-size tuning foam covers 3/4 of driver vents and I have noticed that when the volume is low bass is dominant and on high volume, mids take over bass.
For the next step, I plan to remove 1/4 of tuning foam, add side walls dampening and place a cap over the vent to block direct sound wave.

Also trying to find a way to reduce the resonance that is somewhat present. I know the problem is the plastic housing but metal MX500 is not yet available

Amazing stuff, thanks for sharing! I saw some mods on Earbud Anonymous that has an additional vent on top similar to yours, I always wondered how it looks inside and what is the reasoning behind it. What kind of part do you use for the vent, is it some sort of drilled-through plastic pin or it's something specific that we can buy?
It great to hear that the PK2 speakers sound nice in your opinion, I'm planning to buy a set of 5 because I have several empty 14.8mm shells (all sorts of designs salvaged from random buds) This is the type you like? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32969609452.html

By the way the Qian69 shell has an inner bass port in addition to the hole for the cable, similar to some PK buds. With the 32ohm 19-21 bass speakers it has amazing bass response. The only problem with the shell is a modest peak around 5khz which makes the mids a bit grainy and bright, I don't know how it could be tamed but it's the only thing bothering me at the moment. But overall it's a very fun U shaped sound signature with really wide airy presentation.

For the time being I use my titanium 64ohm in the simplest build possible, in the basic black mx500 shell with the regular horseshoe foam. This yields a nice smooth neutral/darkish sound with excellent bass extension, but I would like to bring it closer to the 50-100hz impact of my qian69 shell build. This kind of bass vent would increase this region without messing up the mids and highs?This might be useful for balancing out more mid centric speakers as well.

 

[robar]

Some update about this post
I finally fine tuned the two drivers with my general tastes.
I have to say I stil loves both drivers, they are complementing each other very well. The 64 ohm titanium is probably my new favorite drivers from all time. There is an exceptionnal soundstage, sub-bass is present, good mid-bass impact (which was missing to me into my previous 130ohm beryllium builds), but only cons is the treble part beeing a bit smoothened (so details could be better and treble presence if soft but still very acceptable, unfortunately, even with my pure silver cable it still remains a bit soft). Also, the resolution in these 64 ohm is extremely good (not far from the 130 ohm).
The 32 ohm drivers are my new favorite in the 32 ohm category. Vocals is a bit less full than the 64 ohm, but with more bass and better treble details. Soundstage is thinner than 64 ohm, and imaging is still in favor of the 64 ohm.
I would say the 32 ohm are excellent for electronic music, while 64 of the best for all other, great allrounder.
I'm thinking of ordering another 64ohm titanium pair
Cheers'

It's awesome to hear, so where have you drilled that hole? On the "forehead" of the shell? How would you compare the 150ohm speaker from cklewis and the steel mesh 32ohm to these speakers? Is it still worth trying out those or it's just as good to stick to these two (which are cheaper as well)?

 

[furyossa]

Amazing stuff, thanks for sharing! I saw some mods on Earbud Anonymous that has an additional vent on top similar to yours, I always wondered how it looks inside and what is the reasoning behind it. What kind of part do you use for the vent, is it some sort of drilled-through plastic pin or it's something specific that we can buy?
It great to hear that the PK2 speakers sound nice in your opinion, I'm planning to buy a set of 5 because I have several empty 14.8mm shells (all sorts of designs salvaged from random buds) This is the type you like? https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32969609452.html

By the way the Qian69 shell has an inner bass port in addition to the hole for the cable, similar to some PK buds. With the 32ohm 19-21 bass speakers it has amazing bass response. The only problem with the shell is a modest peak around 5khz which makes the mids a bit grainy and bright, I don't know how it could be tamed but it's the only thing bothering me at the moment. But overall it's a very fun U shaped sound signature with really wide airy presentation.

For the time being I use my titanium 64ohm in the simplest build possible, in the basic black mx500 shell with the regular horseshoe foam. This yields a nice smooth neutral/darkish sound with excellent bass extension, but I would like to bring it closer to the 50-100hz impact of my qian69 shell build. This kind of bass vent would increase this region without messing up the mids and highs? This might be useful for balancing out more mid centric speakers as well.

Yup. It's is similar but again different. You can see in this video. For vent, I use a pair of smallest rivets (3/32" ie 2.4mm), you can find it in any hardware store (aluminum or copper).
This guy use probably bigger size that's why he placed rivet on top, perpendicular to sound wave. I use parallel placement and block vent from the direct sound wave similar to "bass reflex" speakers.
Different radius and length of the vent can also affect the sound.
The goal is to establish the right balance between the pressure in front and behind the driver. As an example the shape of this shell (original design by Final Audio PianoForteXT) is unusual but its ease to achieve this goal then with MX500.
And if you ask which one method is better? Maybe someone knows better to explain.
He removes a black tuning filter from the shell and adds a tick white filter on the back of the driver. K's earbuds 300ohm use this filter and without shell black filter. It sounds hollow to me, but I don't know about the Vido.
Personally I like to combine these foam filters for the shell and these cotton filter for the driver.
Try on Qian69 to add a filter on the driver if not already have one. Or add one more and punch one or two holes through the filter if mids are to reduced. Maybe combo full foam and donut foam can help.
About the vent. Yes, this mod affects sub-bass and bass. A small tip: inside the shell just above cable hole you can see small round mark probably from the mold. That is the place for the vent hole
It's important to seal cable hole, if you not use MMCX, after you place cable with blu tack or glue.
About PK2: Yes. Is a good driver. I have 2 more spare pairs, and I try theses on different shells.

 

[HungryPanda]

My recent build, using standard EMX500 drivers, foam tuning horse shoe on the shell behind driver. Vents increase bass to a fuller sound whilst highs are very clear. Mids and highs seem unaffected.

 

[furyossa]

My recent build, using standard EMX500 drivers, foam tuning horse shoe on the shell behind driver. Vents increase bass to a fuller sound whilst highs are very clear. Mids and highs seem unaffected.

It looks very powerful. You also confirmed that this type of mod only affects the low end. Your vets have probably a double size radius. Are you using dampening or some mesh inside to prevent sound leakage?
Similar cable except your is 3 core ie 2 wire and shield. The shield is to tick and have trouble to wire balanced cable, especially mmcx connector.

 

[Themilkman46290]

I totally agree with you. I have been skeptical of the titanium driver for a long time and always chose between graphene and beryllium, but now I can say that it is really exceptional.
Beryllium (130onm and 600ohm) have a better balance and control between sub-bass and bass and the rest is neutral, of course, 600ohm have better resolution for sure.
Graphene (400ohm) for me has great balance between bass,mids and treble and quality/money value.
I just received 2 more pairs of 130ohm and now I feel sorry because I didn't take at least another pair of titanium 64ohm.
I don't have 32ohm version to compere with it, my favorite in this (32ohm) area is PK2 (14.8mm), Tingo TG-38 and RY4S Plus.
It's a pity that there is not much choice for 14.8mm drivers compared to 15.4mm which suits me more because of their smaller size and fit.

Last night I was listening to my new pair from the previous post.
To build this pair I was inspired by the Bass Reflex Speaker and some Pioneer and JVS earbuds which already use the "back vent" system.

Until now only HE150 and HE150Pro were the references for good sub-bass.
Smabat ST-10 use "transmission line - like" system and I guess their sub-bass is just as good. DUNU DK 4001 also have
a similar concept on the back cover.

The transmission line is a little tricky to calculate for earbuds and I think the length of the T-Line itself should be quite long.
This is the scheme of "simple vent mod" that I used for this project.

With this mod, the Titanium 64ohm sub-bass is 20-30% stronger. I'm not "bass-head" so after a while, this is a bit too much. EDM sounds amazing on this.
Full-size tuning foam covers 3/4 of driver vents and I have noticed that when the volume is low bass is dominant and on high volume, mids take over bass.
For the next step, I plan to remove 1/4 of tuning foam, add side walls dampening and place a cap over the vent to block direct sound wave.

Also trying to find a way to reduce the resonance that is somewhat present. I know the problem is the plastic housing but metal MX500 is not yet available

There are guys out there, that are making metal mx500 shells, i contacted some of them, they will ship, price is a bit steep but it is custom work, here is there face book, I will order them at some point after I pick my favorite pair of drivers

 

[assassin10000]

Smabat ST-10 use "transmission line - like" system and I guess their sub-bass is just as good. DUNU DK 4001 also have
a similar concept on the back cover.

The transmission line is a little tricky to calculate for earbuds and I think the length of the T-Line itself should be quite long.

Yeah, proper transmission line enclosures need a way longer 'length' to tune into the bass frequencies. The Smabat earbuds are inspired by it but not a true transmission line. They are a tuned port setup, like when you build a ported subwoofer box.

I've been considering adding a vent to my MMCX modded K's LBB as after the mod I closed the opening where the cable came in. It became much less dark/warm and more balanced.

 

[HungryPanda]

It looks very powerful. You also confirmed that this type of mod only affects the low end. Your vets have probably a double size radius. Are you using dampening or some mesh inside to prevent sound leakage?
Similar cable except your is 3 core ie 2 wire and shield. The shield is to tick and have trouble to wire balanced cable, especially mmcx connector.

I have compared them to my original EMX500 earbuds and the main difference is that the bass is not as boomy but much more controlled, I was quite surprised to find this. I'm using no extra damping inside.

 

[furyossa]

There are guys out there, that are making metal mx500 shells, i contacted some of them, they will ship, price is a bit steep but it is custom work, here is there face book, I will order them at some point after I pick my favorite pair of drivers

Now it's just a matter of how much weight they have. I don't have a good sealing with 15.4mm driver and most of the metal shells I wear over-ear..