[AudioJunki3]

Hi all, I am a design student from the UK, I have just finished my second year. Woo, summer!.
 
A few weeks ago I started a project to design and build my own headphones, I currently own Sony's MDR-1R and I love them, but to build my own high quality headphones, is something I have wanted to do for a long time. I am using the HD800 drivers for this build.
 
I am quite far into the project already, I have a design, I have the drivers, Jacks, Cables, and most of the materials. But before I start to work on assembling the headphones, I was wondering if you guys had any tips for me. I have been buying high end gear for a while now. I have owned EX1000, IE800 and so on, I don't usually buy full sized headphones due to me commuting to university everyday. 
 
The design is open backed, cups are constructed from seasoned oak. Some of the things I would like to know are: What is the best way to achieve dampening? To be honest I'm not entirely sure what it is.
And if anyone owns the HD800, I would love it if you could post some pictures of the inside of the cups, Don't take them apart, but just to see what behind the cushions look like. I know the drivers are angled and that's it.
 
Also if you have any other tips for me please post them below!
 
Thanks

 

[wakibaki]

Well, I'll kick off and say something, my guess is that an open back is a close approach to an infinite baffle speaker installation in a room.

Speaker (box) design is mostly about suppressing or modifying and controlling the sound that comes off the back of the speaker. One way of doing this is to port the back of the speaker to the outside air. Very little of the unwanted sound may be heard in a suitably massive installation.

This is similar to the situation with open-back phones, where the design objective is probably to support the driver capsule while reflecting the minimum of the reverse wave back through the diaphragm, which is the usual reason for having damping or stuffing material in a box speaker.

So in a closed-back headphone damping might be employed to reduce the wave bouncing off the closed back, or conceivably, in conjunction with a tuned cavity or trap, to control a resonance or FR peak.

This seems to me a reasonable understanding of the situation, however I'm sure that if it's substantially inaccurate someone will correct me.

If you don't understand what I'm on about, you need to read some speaker installation design stuff.

w

 

[Avro_Arrow]

A while ago, last year some time (?), there was an individual
who turned dozens of cups for his grados and posts his experiences.
I don't remember the name of the poster or thread, maybe some
one else does. Some time spent with the search function should
provide some help.

 

[Avro_Arrow]

Hey,http://www.head-fi.org/t/626114/diy-woody-grado-symphones-magnums-a-build-diary#post_8674167 I found it!
 

 

[Avro_Arrow]

Sorry, that was a good thread, but not the one I was thinking about.
This is the one I was thinking about.

 

[AudioJunki3]

Sorry, that was a good thread, but not the one I was thinking about.
This is the one I was thinking about.

Wow thanks Avro, those are both great threats and I've learned quite a bit from them, I'm going to try get into the workshop over the next few days. Hopefully I'll start making progress soon. Do you think I should make a thread about the build stages like the guys in the threads you posted, would anyone be interested?

Thanks

 

[AudioJunki3]

Well, I'll kick off and say something, my guess is that an open back is a close approach to an infinite baffle speaker installation in a room.

Speaker (box) design is mostly about suppressing or modifying and controlling the sound that comes off the back of the speaker. One way of doing this is to port the back of the speaker to the outside air. Very little of the unwanted sound may be heard in a suitably massive installation.

This is similar to the situation with open-back phones, where the design objective is probably to support the driver capsule while reflecting the minimum of the reverse wave back through the diaphragm, which is the usual reason for having damping or stuffing material in a box speaker.

So in a closed-back headphone damping might be employed to reduce the wave bouncing off the closed back, or conceivably, in conjunction with a tuned cavity or trap, to control a resonance or FR peak.

This seems to me a reasonable understanding of the situation, however I'm sure that if it's substantially inaccurate someone will correct me.

If you don't understand what I'm on about, you need to read some speaker installation design stuff.

w

Thanks your explanation sounds pretty accurate to me, and I'll look into speak installations also, perhaps there will be some diagrams about open and closed back phones and speakers on the net.

 

[dwib44]

Has anyone heard of someone designing cups on Solidworks or a similar software and then 3d printing them for their custom headphones?

 

[AudioJunki3]

  Has anyone heard of someone designing cups on Solidworks or a similar software and then 3d printing them for their custom headphones?

I am fluent with solidworks and other 3D modelling software, I've never considered printing them though, could be interesting, I wonder how they will sound.

 

[Kasper]

I dont know that much about speaker design. - But I think that besides open baffle or closed an damped, manufactorers has also tried to diffuse the sound from the back of the driver with ex. "stairs" in the cup. One dream of mine for years has been to create a cup with similar thinking as used in the B&W Nautilus speaker ie. a reverse horn. Here the sound is not ampified but the contrary as it travels away from the driver.
 
Of course having something like the nautilus on the head is impossible because it would get to big (if you turned it 90 headfiers might look like princess Leia i the original STAR WARS though

), but some kind of reverse horn where the cavity got smaller away from the driver an maybe ended in some kind of pipe to let it breathe.

 

[davidsh]

Perhaps hd800 driver wasn't the best choice, it might have been better to use drivers with more potential to be improved. Or make them yourself (stats for example).

 

[65535]

  Has anyone heard of someone designing cups on Solidworks or a similar software and then 3d printing them for their custom headphones?

Yes, that is how Mr. Speakers manufactures his custom housings for the Alpha Dogs.