[drummerman1]

Personally I EQ all my headphones to taste (Roon makes that very easy with different profiles, as does does Chord's Mojo2, though slightly less so with no profiles). It's eminently adaptable, easily reversible and fun. No headphone is perfect.

I see many weird and wonderful ways folks physically mod their cans. Some visually more impressive than others, some technically (apparently and mostly according to the creator) more successful and some downright destructive.

Do you mod, EQ or go nude/as the maker intended?

 

[chesebert]

Buy cans that don’t need EQ.

 

[Svperstar]

I use Equalizer APO & the RME ADI-2 FS EQ to taste. I bought a used HD800 that had the SDR mod, removed the mod to get back the original sound. People say the mod was great at taming the 6k peak..........I just dropped down 6k a bit via EQ.

The SDR mod collapses the soundstage on the HD800 a bit.

 

[DigitalJust]

That is a great question.

Regarding mods..I like something that works out of the box to sort of appease my redundancy paranoia. Like...what if the crap gets stolen, lost at the airport, breaks...and i gotta get it replaced? I do love mods though and the ingenuity involved. My own mods are tame stuff and practical...like modifying the stock lcd-x headband.

Eq...i have a headphone i use that crossfeed dials in enough where i dont use eq....and one i use where it's all dsp all over the place (slate vsx).

I try to go for headphones that get me as close as i can get out of the box. I suppose i just want to get lost in music, and not worry about dialing things in, asap.

 

[catscratch]

I pretty much EQ everything since all headphones need EQ to some extent. However I do try to use stuff that's already close to what I consider neutral, and stuff that responds to EQ well. Not everything does. But the general rules for headphones are 1) none of them are perfectly neutral without EQ and 2) very few headphones are so broken that you can't EQ them into something reasonable.

Regarding mods, I will mod things when I have to, but it's usually more related to fit. I did mod the SR-007a to fit better and plug the bass port, I modded my L700 to fit better, and did a few more things here and there, but these are not super invasive mods and are all relatively simple. I'm not an audio engineer and I'll leave any invasive headphone surgery to people who know what they're doing.

 

[spittis]

I've done a lot of eq'ing and still sometimes do, but tbh I prefer to listen with with vanilla tuning, because when I start using eq I never seem to get completely satisfied (can't leave it alone), and I spend more time fiddling with the settings than actually listening to music.

I haven't done much physical mods to any headphones / headsets, none of the gear I've owned the last 10 years or so has needed it, but doing the "Hero mod" for the Sennheiser PC350 headset (around 2010) was actually what got me into hifi-headphones and Head-fi.

 

[lmf22]

I fee like designing headphones/IEMs is an art, and I want to appreciate it as the designer intended. I buy headphones/IEMs with "default" sound that I already like.

I usually don't use EQ or have very minimal EQ. For example, I added 3db of bass at 40Hz when using the Meze Elite with the angled Alcantara pads (this brings back some of the sub-bass that I like very much with the hybrid pads). I recently started using crossfeed, but that doesn't change the tonality much.

 

[Kerry56]

I have no hesitation in modding my headphones. Finding the right combination of modifications can be frustrating, but every now and again you get close with little effort. I believed my Hifiman HE-R9 was a lost cause using the original cups. I made new, wooden cups to replace them and turned them into semi-open headphones. The result was quite good, though I have to admit it was partially accidental, and in truth, any reduction in the mid-bass bloat would have given better results than the original tuning.

I've done pad swaps that were good, and some that failed entirely. With experience, you get more feel for what will work. For example, putting velour pads on headphones designed only for pleather pads rarely works out. And some headphone drivers seem to be a little more forgiving. The drivers in the Creative Aurvana Live! aren't that picky with backs, and it is possible to find larger pads that don't destroy the sound. On the other hand, I couldn't find any mods that worked on the NAD HP50. I gave up and sold them, as they were terribly uncomfortable. Too bad, for their sound was great.

As others have stated, best to buy headphones that come close to your preferred sound. Minor tweaks are easier, through mods or EQ, than trying to rebuild them, my success with the HE-R9 notwithstanding.

 

[Philimon]

I like it unfiltered, unprocessed unaltered, straight from the musician to my ear hole.

 

[Whazzzup]

Bareback and raw dog as my diety intended.

 

[Philimon]

Bareback and raw dog as my diety intended.

no lube

 

[engineer1]

Buy cans that don’t need EQ.

Can you name a few for me? Help make the quest a little shorter.

I used to be quite anti-EQ just for practicality reasons, but then I got a Chord Mojo and started messing around and now I've changed my tune.

Our ears and preferences are all so, so different. Just look at all the various music genres there are.

Even 2 seemingly similar genres like rock and metal have a fair amount of nuance between them, one with more sub-bass frequency emphasis.

So in essence, EQ to taste. Depending on the headphone, I find EQ makes much more substantial impact to the sound than DAC/AMP pairing once adequate power needs are met.

Curious what others think.

 

[Tano]

EQ. Easier, cheaper, more accurate.

 

[Kerry56]

EQ isn't always an option. Some headphones don't seem to do that well with it in my experience, though it is probably my own lack of skill using or fine tuning the EQ.

Also, I use Linux almost exclusively, and the best EQ tool in Linux isn't great. I recently had major problems when they updated Easy Effects and it was no longer compatible with the version of Pipewire in my operating system.

 

[bagwell359]

I had a bias against EQ when I got into cans seriously in '16. Having a lot of kit building/modding experience on the room speaker side, I was happy to dive in with mods. My primary aim was HFM cans, and the HE-500/6 had a lot of enthusiastic modders that left a lot of records. And as I discovered - outside of the drivers themselves, HFM didn't and doesn't do much tuning of pads, headbands, cables, rear screens (of the round cups).

The downside of modding:

1. If not reversible/done poorly/not well known they can hurt resale
2. It's hard to get a mod to just effect the problem you want to address. Most often its a sledge hammer where a rock hammer would do.

The big upside:

3. There are mods that do things positively which no EQ or PEQ can not do - the fuzzor mod for the 6/500, and pads in general is an obvious one I am very familiar with.

Spent lots of time on the mods, and lots of time on PEQ, once I started using it. For those that don't want to spend a lot of time, and have digital PEQ available (and don't want to mess with mods) - that's the easiest/best way to get results. You could use settings from Oratory - I always check them, but I always alter them because: the settings under 100 Hz are heavier handed than the music was recorded at, and the 2.5-4k range is often a bit too pronounced (for me). Also, they only deal with FR issues - nothing about tamping down ringing, or unit-to-unit variation, cancellations/reflections from wide stators, vibrations of the cups, etc.

Some people tune by changing cables, DAC's - it's expensive, may not translate at all to new transducers and in room systems - new rooms. That's why specific room tuning for room systems, PEQ, and directed mods are more productive and predictable.

For me, neither alone is enough - so far. But if I do get one more 1.5-2.5k can, PEQ and easily reversable mods at most.